At some point you just have to ask yourself, what is it that these politicians are getting to push nuclear energy so hard? Last week, House Republicans called for a hundred new nuclear power plants to be built in the next two decades. They say that this is part of the legislation they're backing because it's better than what the Democrats are offering... Now I'm not saying the Democrats have submitted some amazingly stellar plan. There are certainly some issues there too. Most of which can be traced to the myth of clean coal and Energy Secretary Steven Chu's attachment to nuclear. But 100 new nuclear power plants in 20 years? Really?!!! Let's put this in perspective, shall we?
These guys are basically talking about building an average of five new nuclear power plants a year, for the next 20 years. I guess they missed the memo on how long it takes to actually build one.
There are all kinds of numbers floating around on this. Some nuclear advocates will tell you it'll only take you a couple of years. Some anti-nuclear types will tell you it could take up to 25 years. Both are likely highly exaggerated. So for our purposes we'll look to Florida Power & Light (FPL), which currently has two nuclear power plants in operation, and in April, 2008, received final approval from the Florida Public Service Commission for two additional nuclear facilities (Turkey Point Units 6 & 7) at its existing Turkey Point complex.
According to FPL, from beginning to end, the siting, licensing and construction of Turkey Point Unit 6 could be completed in 2018 – or in about 9 years. The estimated completion year for Turkey Point Unit 7 is 2020.
And we're supposed to believe we can throw up 5 new ones every year – starting now? Even if you support integrating more nuclear into our domestic energy infrastructure, you'd have to be out of your mind – or getting paid a hell of a lot of money by the nuclear industry – to believe that we're going to build 100 new nuclear power plants in 20 years.
But let's just assume for a moment, they could pull it off. I don't know, maybe they found some magic beans and this became doable. What happens to those 100 nuclear power plants when they need to be decommissioned?