And I assume the energy companies will be footing the bill from construction till deconstruction and long term storage, the later two as a trustee deposit, on their own without any state subsidies. Given that all the pro-nuclear folk always tout so many benefits to nuclear, this should be a non-issue and be very profitable.
Here’s the issue: do other power sources need to do this? Coal doesn’t. It puts CO2 into the air and we all pay for it later. Solar mines and refines material that polluted the environment, and we have no method of recycling, but they don’t pay for it. Wind has no method of recycling the blades, but they don’t pay for what happens when they’re done.
I think they should all be on equal footing. They should all have to pay for their waste, and they should all be subsidized equally based on energy produced. However, only nuclear contains and stores all of its waste, which is good an important but unfair that other sources don’t have to.
It’s a fair point to argue from that perspective. But at least in Europe I don’t hear a lot of people planning to build new coal power plants. Germany certainly wants to continue mining coal for some asine reason but definitely no new plants. Solar requires materials but recoupes relatively quickly and wind has also quite a few noise and light pollution issues. But they are both better alternatives to any nuclear generator, even if we add the energy storage on top.
