rmi_document_repository_public-reprts_20090204092929740-c70e03b8b6e3d581.pdf

The document, titled "The Origins of the Nuclear Power Fiasco," is a critical analysis of the failure of the U.S. civilian nuclear power industry. It argues that the industry collapsed due to a combination of structural and conceptual errors, including the promotion of economic myths, a failure to account for the real costs of safety and waste management, and a federal energy policy that prioritized hardware development over energy efficiency and market reality.

• The U.S. nuclear industry is described as the "greatest collapse of any enterprise in industrial history," resulting in a total damage bill exceeding $200 billion. This includes nearly $20 billion in reactors written off as uncompletable or unneeded, with another $40 billion estimated for future write-offs.
• The author asserts that the federal government promoted economic myths to justify nuclear power, specifically citing skewed data from the Atomic Industrial Forum (AIF) that falsely suggested nuclear electricity was cheaper than coal-fired electricity.
• Actual capacity factors for large U.S. reactors were found to be slightly under 55 percent, significantly lower than the 75 to 80 percent typically assumed by utilities and the federal government.
• The document argues that real capital costs for nuclear plants rose by 142% (13.5% per year) for plants commissioned between 1971 and 1978, a trend the author attributes to increasing regulatory pressure to abate perceived hazards as more plants were built.
• The author claims that the U.S. has roughly twice the electrical generating capacity it actually needs, as only about 8 percent of delivered energy needs can be economically met by electricity at current efficiency levels.
• The transition to fast breeder reactors is described as a failure, with the author stating that the economic need for such reactors would be pushed at least a century into the future due to high capital costs and the time required for the fuel cycle to reach equilibrium.
• Reprocessing spent fuel is characterized as more expensive and problematic than originally projected, with the French plant at Cap La Hague processing only about one-tenth of its projected volume.
• The Department of Energy's (DOE) waste management policy is criticized for relying on the combination of borosilicate glass and salt, which the author claims is the "least compatible known combination of wasteform and host rock" because hot brine decomposes the glass in weeks.
• The author argues that the DOE's mission was fundamentally flawed because it focused on developing hardware (the "magic bullet") rather than addressing the social and economic realities of energy use and efficiency.

APA

RMI (n.d.). rmi_document_repository_public-reprts_20090204092929740-c70e03b8b6e3d581.pdf. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_20090204092929740.pdf

Chicago

RMI. rmi_document_repository_public-reprts_20090204092929740-c70e03b8b6e3d581.pdf. n.d. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_20090204092929740.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=rmi_document_repository_public-reprts_20090204092929740-c70e03b8b6e3d581.pdf |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_20090204092929740.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmindrmidocumentrepositorypublicreprts20090204092929740c70e03b8b6e3d581pdf, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{rmi\_document\_repository\_public-reprts\_20090204092929740-c70e03b8b6e3d581.pdf}}, institution = {RMI}, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_20090204092929740.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }