Industry observer, if you go to the Cato website, you’ll find plenty of articles from me decrying subsidies to the oil and gas sector, to the renewable energy industry, etc. You’ll also find plenty of explicit calls to eliminate everyone’s governmental preferences and to allow markets to let the best tech win.

Regardless, the argument that subsidies to x justify subsidies to y is illogical. If subsidies to x are unwise, then they should be eliminated. Throwing around moreeconomically inefficient subsidies simply compounds the economic damage.

There is however a huge amount of lobbying money swimming about from the nuclear lobby, desperately trying to greenwash itself. Face it folks, the public don’t want it, the banks don’t like it, nobody can make it viable without government support and the fabled new generation of reactor only exist in concept.

If it’s for energy security then let’s go ahead but then don’t pretend to be free market heroes. Wind and solar energy, unlike nuclear energy DO attract private investments. Go figure! Incidentally the Candu is a better bet because it doesn’t need enriched uranium and doesn’t need to go offline at any time, but then those jobs would go to Canada.

Could it be that Taylor is really an anti-nuclear advocate hiding behind the same old free-market frippery?

There are a lot of government subsidies in the non-nuclear energy sector that should really get him upset.

Market failure (i.e., the difficulty in getting a new nuclear power plant built today, for multiple reasons) seems a perfectly good basis for the loan guarantees, a very limited approach to government support.

Unlike wind generators that may shut down at the end of an accelerated depreciation schedule or when PTC runs out, nuclear power plants are operating full out and will keep doing so for decades longer. The owners of these nuclear plants are making large profits and would really like to find a way to get more nuclear power, hence the almost universal move to expand the output (uprate) the existing units and to extend their operating lives (license renewal).

The EPAct of 2005 benefits, including the loan guarantees, were and are, meant to get the nuclear industry back into operation by providing benefits to the first cohort of new power plants.

By about 2025, the NRC licensing process will be sorted, a few standard nuclear plant designs will be seen as global market winners and a few new nuclear power plants will be completed and operational in the US (and a lot more in China, the UAE and elsewhere). We may also get enough courage by then to force fossil power plants to internalize the high cost of their emissions, just as nuclear power plants now do.

When all this happens, nuclear power plants will not need any government assistance.

Like what?

As far as I’m aware there is only one technology that currently can reduce CO2 emissions by any significant degree and that is nuclear. Replacing coal with gas will reduce CO2, but not at the scale we are told we need to start contemplating. Wind and solar, don’t get me started.

On the other hand, if the Republicans do not cooperate with the administration, then the NRC can deny the construction or operating permits, the USG can withdraw the loan guarantee and we shall all revert to the status quo ante.

“It’s not really any more technologically complex to build a nuclear reactor than a coal plant.” The history of those technologies certainly suggests that you couldn’t be more wrong. Anyway, what matters for our purposes is construction cost where the differences between coal and nuke are quite large. See the recent MIT study I linked to in my post for a thorough analysis.

I find it telling that whenever one attacks subsidies to nuclear power in front of conservatives, they tie themselves in knots defending those subsidies. It is impossible to find any who will say, “Yes, you’re right, they should not get government help … period.” Believers in free markets cannot just oppose helping hands for techs they don’t like while finding a million excuses for giving handouts for industries they are fond of without appearing intellectually dishonest.

The only difference between liberals and conservatives when it comes to energy policy seems to be (i) the rhetoric (cover stories) being employed to justify intervention, and (ii) manner in which the market is to be rigged, not whether the market is to be rigged in the first place.

Depressing.

Nuclear is “unproductive” because a government beaurocrat can destroy billions in investment at the stroke of a pen.

Nuclear is “unproductive” because the NRC adds 6 years and a couple of hundred million dollars to the 4 year construction time. It’s a lot harder to predict market conditions 10 years out than it is 4 years out; there’s a huge risk associated with this.

Nuclear has the lowest operational cost, bar none. It’s not really any more technologically complex to build a nuclear reactor than a coal plant.