Obama Said to Seek $54 Billion in Nuclear-Power Loan Guarantees

[4dsc]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aC7VY11v6aMw

I don't want to ever hear on more rightie talk about corporate welfare if they support this.

[FBaggins]

1. The right complains about corporate welfare?

I don't think I get what you're saying. Can you clarify?

[Dogmudgeon]

2. I think it may be an anti-nuclear flame

This might be an opportune time to break out the asbestos Internet Playwear.

The most popular color 'round these parts is a 70s-retro shade of Hot Browne Green. I personally prefer the sleek, yet stylish look of Silicon Valley Science Silver, myself.

--d!

[Liberation Angel]

3. Totalitarianism: Communism/Fascism welfare for the rich and corrupt

The nuclear industry cannot exist/survive without "loan guarantees/subsidies" from taxpayers.

It should not exist at all. Too dangerous, too expensive, too insane, too deadly.

Obama has failed.

Jumped the shark.

As I have repeatedly warned might happen on this board, Obama is getting into bed with the nuke industry (Halliburton, GE, Westinghouse, Bechtel, Exxon, etc) and thus is selling out the health, finances, environment and well being of the American people and the world.

There is NOTHING good about this.

I feared this day would come.

Nuclear subsidies will be the death of renewables and the destruction of a safer cleaner world for my children in the future.

[kristopher]

4. The same type of subsidies haven't helped them to date...

There is little reason to think that increasing the total amount of subsidies will make a difference. Such a policy is predicated on the ability of nuclear power to attract private capital. Current subsidies provide individual project guarantees of nearly 100% of construction costs but no one is interested in the extremely high probability of having to use those guarantees. Investors want a profit with low risk. To evaluate that risk they look not only at the area of direct cash laid out, but also at the earnings that the cash may have garnered if it had been placed in another investment.

They therefore have little interest in waiting 10 years to just get back the depreciated money they put originally into the project.

For this policy to make a difference, the nuclear industry is going to have to show the investment world something new on their side. I don't see that on the horizon.

Now, if you see a policy that mandates direct use of government funds to build reactors, then you should definitely raise a stink.

[bananas]

6. We need to raise a stink anyway.

The Republicans are going to try to increase the loan guarantees higher.
A few years ago, they tried to sneak $500B in loan guarantees into farming and other bills.
Alexander raised the stakes by calling for 100 reactors,
is Obama going to be "bipartisan" and compromise on $500B for 50 reactors?
Only about half of which might actually get built?
An expensive dangerous dirty boondoggle that will do nothing to stop global warming or provide energy security.

[kristopher]

7. I disagree.

He is getting enough flak, he needs room to work. These are loan guarantees, not direct money to build. Unless the underlying economics change, it won't matter if the total amount is $500B or the current $18B. As long as investors have a 50/50 chance of either 1) a successful project that starts generating low (6% or so) ROI in 15-29 years or 2) receiving your principle back when the loan defaults after 10 or so years of lost earnings; then there will be no takers.

If there were other policies that mandate construction or some such nonsense, then you'd have a valid point. This is just another stick with which to beat "the Party of No" on the head.

Did you see his Q&A with the House Republicans just about an hour ago? It really gave my confidence in him a boost.

[joshcryer]

10. This is a pittance of a compromise (similar to the $60 billion they asked for before), which...

...will gain him *some* political capital with *some* republicans, enough to get other more important things on his agenda through such as health care.

[pscot]

14. If the both the Republicons and the President

want this, I'll bet $100 that it gets done.

[wtmusic]

9. Surprise: the wind industry would be even worse off without subsidies

If you're a US taxpayer you've paid your share of about $7 billion to wind producers over the last five years as a production tax credit, far more than the nuclear industry has received. And they've generated about 1/40th the power.

Your kids are already enjoying a safer, cleaner world because of nuclear power.

[joshcryer]

11. Wind got $18 billion in loan guarantees last year, everyone bit of it was spent as far as I know.

As kristopher says, it's up to the investors to actually take the risk. Whether he's right or not about the probability is up for history to decide.

There are a whole crapload of nuclear expansion projects in the waiting in the US, they just have stalled because there are no investors or loan guarantees to get them moving.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prospective_nuclear_units_in_the_United_States

You look at all of these projects and they've stalled because cost overruns put them $3-5 billion in the red. Assuming that the money could be doled out equally (and the cost overruns end), then it's *possible* you could get, from a cursory overview, maybe 5 nuclear reactors out of it.

And this is assuming the ones already under construction get loans.

It is extremely unlikely that these loans will go to actually build new nuclear plants, as these expansion projects are merely to replace plants that are already going to be decomissioned in a decade or so.

[kristopher]

12. Only when you use a lie that you have manufactured.

The entire discussion is here with your claim in post #2 and an explanation of how you have fraudulently inflated the numbers in post #13.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x227378

From that OP:
Some simple math. You don’t have to be a climate scientist to figure this out.

Total US Fed Subsidies for Nuclear 2002-2007 $6.2 billion
Increase in Net Electricity Generation from Nuclear 2002-2007 804.6-780.1=24.5 billion kWhr

Cost to US taxpayers per add’l kWhr Nuclear = $0.253/kWhr

Total US Fed Subsidies for non-Hydro Renewables 2002-2007 $1.4+2.8 billion = $4.2 billion
Increase in Net Electricity Generation from non-Hydro Renewables 2002-2007 105.2-79.1=26.1 billion kWhr

Cost to US taxpayers per add’l kWhr Renewables = $0.161/kWhr

Note: US Nuclear power generation declined in both 2008 and 2009. Renewable electricity production increased by 17.5% in 2008 alone and by another 9.2% in the first 9 months of 2009. Also note, this is not capacity, but actual electricity generated.

I’d have to do some more digging to find specific figures, but among non-hydro renewables, wind is by far the least expensive and is contributing

[bananas]

5. Demoralizing His Supporters, Obama Calls Nukes, Coal, And Oil Drilling 'Clean Energy Jobs'

I hope there's enough opposition to stop this boondoggle.
The Congressional Budget Office says the risk of default on these loans is "very high - well above 50 percent".
Think Progress: "Demoralizing His Supporters, Obama Calls Nukes, Coal, And Oil Drilling ‘Clean Energy Jobs’"

Demoralizing His Supporters, Obama Calls Nukes, Coal, And Oil Drilling ‘Clean Energy Jobs’

President Barack Obama’s discussion of energy policy in his first State of the Union address pandered to corporate interests while demoralizing his progressive supporters. Though Obama made a strong case that real investments in clean energy such as solar technology, advanced batteries, high-speed rail and efficiency are critical to job creation and international competitiveness, he also offered sops to established corporate polluters. Republicans, who spent much of the address refusing to applaud Obama’s call for economic reforms, ecstatically applauded his praise of polluting industry. Embracing the language of the John McCain campaign, Obama described nuclear power, offshore oil and gas drilling, and coal as “clean energy jobs”:

<snip>

Although Republicans lauded Obama’s praise of heavily subsidized, polluting industries, they scoffed at energy legislation that would address climate change. Unlike Rudy Giuliani, Rep. David Dreier (R-CA), Mitt Romney, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Obama’s actual supporters were dismayed.

About 12,000 MoveOn members participated in a “live online dial-test of President Obama’s State of the Union speech.” While Obama’s mentions of clean energy innovation were some of his most popular moments, his paean to polluters was by far his worst moment with progressive activists:



Nukes, oil, and coal just aren’t clean. If Obama really is committed to “tough decisions,” he’ll take on the coal companies who are tearing up the Appalachian mountains, the nuclear companies who want taxpayers to take all the risk for accidents and waste, and the oil companies who are burning up the planet for their own profit. And that’s something the people who put him into office could support.

[joshcryer]

8. This won't even build *one* nuclear reactor, *if they're lucky.*

[jpak]

13. This would help fund only 5-6 new nucular plants - so much for the Renaissance!

:rofl:

[NNadir]

15. Personally, I favor a TVA type outright purchase of nuclear power plants.

We should build, I'd guess about four or five hundred of them.

Nuclear plants are cash cows once they operate, and would generate significant revenue.

A similar program in France resulted in electricity being the 4th largest export in a one of the world's largest economies.

I note that for 52 billion dollars, at current solar prices, we could not produce an average continuous power of one nuclear power plant, and the toxicity of the cells and batteries would represent an intractable toxicological nightmare.