Nuclear Power
Too Much Corporate Welfare
By Daniel Muniz

No pun intended but nuclear power has always been a radioactive issue in politics. The Left Wing has always opposed the construction of anything atomic and they have an aversion to the public using a power source that is connected to nuclear weapons. But in an interesting contradiction, such opposition is only limited to nuclear facilities on U.S. soil but not anywhere else in the world including rogue nations. On the other side of the coin, the Right Wing has always been open to the idea with some factions vociferously pushing for it.

As for me, I oppose it but I do so for completely different reasons than that of liberals who loathe nuclear energy.

Actually, I do not oppose nuclear power at all because I see it as a tremendous technological innovation. In fact, I feel that the technology needs to be researched more so that even more efficient facilities can be built.

My beef is that I stridently oppose corporate welfare.

And this opposition puts me in direct conflict with the “big business” types of the Republican Party.

But in all truthfulness, the influence of huge construction companies has been strongly felt in both political parties for decades. These gigantic corporations have ingratiated themselves on both sides of the political aisle. And that is because there is a symbiotic relationship with the big construction firms and the politicians from both parties. They all desperately need each other. The politicians need the generous campaign contributions and the big companies need corporate welfare to finance the construction of these expensive public projects.

And regardless of how anti-corporate and anti-free market Democrats are, they very much want big construction firms in their back pocket because that is the only way that costly governmental projects can ever get built. For example, the Big Dig tunnel in downtown Boston was an outrageously expensive boondoggle filled with colossal delays and mammoth cost overruns. And it was also the brainchild of Senator Ted Kennedy.

So the problem with nuclear power plants is that they are not free market expenditures.

And just like any other gargantuan and publicly financed construction project, they require enormous amounts of corporate welfare from inception to the end of construction. And even after they are built, the massive cost overruns, lengthy delays, and all the other problems that are sure to follow prevent them from ever being cost effective. The only people who benefit are the big construction companies instead of the taxpayer who finances the cost overruns and the ratepayer who will have to pay for expensive electricity.

In fact, that is why the private sector won’t build a single reactor unless the government is willing to absorb the loss for them.

However, the private sector routinely builds multi-billion dollar projects all the time such as oil refineries. The difference is that these facilities actually make a profit even though it takes years to recover the cost.

But that is not the case with nuclear power plants because they need subsidies and loan guarantees backed by the federal government to cover everything that busts the budget. And the expensive electricity they generate is nowhere near the cheap power that is generated from coal burning plants.

So what about the nuclear power plants in other countries like France, Russia, and China? Aren’t they already successful models of how nuclear power can be done right?

Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth. Those are socialist countries in which there has never been a requirement for public facilities being efficient and cost effective.

The bottom line is that there is nothing that the “big business” types in the Republican Party can say to persuade me that nuclear power is indeed economical because of how heavily it has to rely on corporate welfare. If they propose a free market solution that doesn’t involve government handouts, then we can talk.

Admitted, there currently exists a lot of bureaucratic red tape in the licensing process as well as numerous draconian regulations on how these plants are constructed and maintained. And that is probably a good place to begin dialogue about how to make nuclear power worthwhile.

But if the only solution that “big business” has in mind is a blank check from taxpayers in the guise of loan guarantees along with expensive electricity per kilowatt-hour that ratepayers are forced to pay, then forget about it. Sadly, nuclear power is no more palatable than the subsidies that are forked out for inefficient and costly wind and solar power that is completely incapable of ever paying for itself.

Nuclear power could be a great option to pursue but what is currently being offered is a rip off. There are currently too many conservatives who are entertaining this idea but as senior fellows Peter Van Doren and Jerry Taylor at the Cato Institute have said about this issue in Forbes Magazine is that “friends don't let friends get hooked on subsidies.” And when it comes to corporate welfare, more Republicans ought to follow that piece of advice.

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