Nuclear Energy Operators Say Market Stacked Against Them

"If an electricity market is going to be economically sustainable for investors and consumers, it must be truly competitive"

The Nuclear Power industry is no longer paying into the Nuclear Waste Fund and interim storage is being paid through litigation from the US Treasury Judgement Fund. If the Nuclear Power Industry still can't compete with this hugely expensive business cost being fully paid by the taxpayer then perhaps a more sober determination of Nuclear Energy's economic benefits needs to be made.

The next generation nuclear fuel from Lightbridge

http://ltbridge.com/fueltechnology

seems like a promising candidate to make nuclear competitive with wind by bringing the Levelized cost of energy down to levels competitive with wind

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2014/02/natural-gas-isnt-a-bridge-fuel-its-a-gateway-drug??cmpid=WindNL-Thursday-February6-2014

However, if you follow the stock price, it has dropped significantly since the last quarter of 09'

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/LTBR

Unfortunately, this next generation fuel will not have a chance to go to market until at least 2017 and too much can happen until then.

Any technology that can reduce SNF volumes would be a welcome innovation; but since waste costs and challenges are fully funded by the taxpayer there is no incentive for the industry to evolve the technology.

An obvious interim step would be to stop producing new fuel until the SNF challenge is met.

18 months of fuel costs $40 million, extending that $40 million to 24 is still worth roughly half a million per year savings.