Reply #57: Yes it is an opinion

[Nederland]

The paper basically looks at the cost projections of future projects and places those projections "in the context of the history of the nuclear industry with a database of the costs of 100 reactors built in the U.S. between 1971 and 1996." The assumption that the past will repeat itself is exactly that, an assumption. People on both sides of the issue can argue all day about whether or not it is a good assumption, but in the end all you have is differing opinions.

That being said, it is my opinion that assuming future reactors will be built the same way reactors were built from 1971 to 1996 is a very bad assumption. For one, the licensing process has changed dramatically. I have yet to hear from anyone on the anti-nuke side as to why that is irrelevant to projecting costs.