Value of Subsidies Oten Exceed Market Price of Nuclear Energy Produced

NEWS MEDIA ADVISORY FOR  FEBRUARY 23, 2011
CONTACT: Elliott Negin, Union of Concerned Scientists, 202-331-5439

NATIONAL SCIENCE GROUP TO RELEASE REPORT CATALOGUING DECADES OF TAXPAYER SUBSIDIES TO NUCLEAR POWER AS THE INDUSTRY DEMANDS BILLIONS MORE

REPORT FINDS THE VALUE OF SUBSIDIES OFTEN EXCEED MARKET PRICE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY PRODUCED

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) will hold a telephone press conference to release a new report detailing the full range of subsidies that have benefitted the commercial nuclear power industry in the United States over the last 50 years. The report found that subsidies for the entire nuclear fuel cycle -- from uranium mining to long-term waste storage -- have often exceeded the average market price of the power produced. In other words, if the government had purchased power on the open market and given it away for free, it would have been less costly than subsidizing nuclear power plant construction and operation.

Pending and proposed subsidies for new nuclear reactors would shift even more costs and risks from the industry to taxpayers and ratepayers. The president’s new budget proposal would provide an additional $36 billion in taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantees to underwrite the construction of new reactors. That would nearly triple the amount of loan guarantees already available to the industry.

WHO
Ellen Vancko, UCS Nuclear Energy & Climate Change Project manager, Washington, D.C.
Doug Koplow, founder, Earth Track, Inc., Cambridge, Mass. (report author)

WHEN
Wednesday, February 23, 2011, 1 p.m. EST

WHERE
The comfort of your own office. Call: 866-793-1307; Conference ID: UCS nuclear subsidies teleconference

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The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading U.S. science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world. Founded in 1969, UCS is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also has offices in Berkeley, Chicago and Washington, D.C. For more information, go to www.ucsusa.org.