Photo owned by jdj150 (cc)

I posted before about the pitfalls of Nuclear power. The FT highlights the largest. The cost of storage of waste.

Energy companies cannot be charged a fully commercial price by the government for disposing of nuclear waste without “killing the prospect” of a new generation of reactors, a government adviser will warn today.

The analysis will fuel opposition to the government’s contentious and aggressive drive to expand the UK’s nuclear capacity. Gordon Brown will today underscore his determination to attract investors to build reactors, at his summit with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president. The leaders are expected to agree to Anglo-French co-operation on nuclear skills and regulation.

The government has insisted that the utility companies now vying to build a fleet of nuclear power stations will bear their “full share” of decommissioning and waste disposal costs.

However, a costs analysis, published today, suggests that ministers cannot charge energy companies the rates already being paid by overseas utilities to have waste stored at Sellafield without jeopardising the entire new nuclear programme. Instead, the government would need to cap costs at about 6 to 12 per cent of this commercial value to make the new stations a viable investment.

The problem with Nuclear power is that is simply costs to much. All the debate from the pro-nuclear side is from a safety aspect they are rarely ever questioned on the cost aspect of it. WIth the simple “sure look at oil prices” arguement. By allowing the debate to centre on the safety aspect they get to highlight that it is indeed fairly safe.