Nuclear funds hit with losses

[ensho]

http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/238918


Nuclear funds hit with losses
Money to close TMI, Peach Bottom units down a total of $203 million.


The economic downturn has caused funds set aside for the safe closure of the Three Mile Island and Peach Bottom nuclear plants to drop dramatically in the last two years.

Since 2007, estimates of dismantling costs at the nation's 104 nuclear plants have risen by more than $4.6 billion while the investment funds that are supposed to pay for the closures — or decommissioning as it's called — have dropped $4.4 billion, according to an investigation by the Associated Press.

According to decommissioning fund statements filed by Exelon Corp., owners of the two plants, the balance in the closure fund for Three Mile Island's Unit 1 dropped $69 million from 2007 to 2009.

For Peach Bottom, decommissioning funds dropped $64 million over the last two years for Unit 2 and nearly $70 million for the Unit 3 reactor.

The fund losses are tied to investments.

Is it a cause for concern?

Yes, says Eric Epstein of the Harrisburg-based Three Mile Island Alert monitoring group.

"It's a nuclear Ponzi scheme. The plants are grossly underfunded and taxpayers will be on the hook for billions, if not trillions, in cleanup costs.

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But a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said no community will be stuck with a closed, non-decommissioned nuclear plant.

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Nuclear plant owners have to make annual contributions to the fund.

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PPL customers have long been paying a surcharge on their electric bills that helps pay the decommissioning fund for TMI's active Unit 1 reactor. That ends at the end of 2009.
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Ponzi scheme indeed

[Pavulon]

1. At some point we will have to man up and make up our minds..

adopt the technology and advance it to FBR and build modern reactors, like the ones we sell to other countries. Pick a state and build a place to store waste. Then we can get on with producing massive amounts of power with existing technology. GE and Westinghouse make great products. We have enough plutonium to power these for decades.

Or we need to stop using the technology and figure out a realistic way to generate energy on the same scale in a renewable manner.

Cant have it both ways.

[enough]

2. And so, as we knew all along, the taxpayer will foot the bill.

This has been great scam, but it's slowly coming to the inevitable conclusion.