Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire

Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Suddenly A Nasty Fight over Subsidies for Nukes in Europe

Suddenly A Nasty Fight over Subsidies for Nukes in Europe

Wolf Richter    www.testosteronepit.com
The meltdowns at Fukushima Number 1 that have caused so much havoc have also paralyzed Japan’s nuclear power industry. The last of its 54 reactors will be taken off line in May for scheduled maintenance, but none has been restarted due to local resistance. “Deindustrialization” is gripping the power-starved country. TEPCO, owner of the Fukushima plant, is being bailed out with trillions of yen in taxpayer money, or rather in debt that Japan has to issue even as it’s sinking deeper into a fiscal quagmire. Meanwhile, new revelations seeped out about the nuclear industry’s controlling relationship with the government: conspiracies had squashed stiffer regulations. Japan Inc. at work. Five years later, the people of Fukushima paid the price. For that fiasco, the emails that documented it, its deadly and ongoing impact, and the anger it caused, read.... A Revolt, the Quiet Japanese Way.
And now, halfway around the world, in the European Union, nuclear power industries are also lining up to suck at the teat of the taxpayer, but ingeniously not taxpayers in their own countries, at least not directly, but taxpayers in other countries. Turns out, France, the UK, Poland, and the Czech Republic, which are all planning or building nuclear power plants, are pressuring the European Union to open up the spigot.

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