NUCLEAR POWER: Still Not Viable without Subsidies

The report argues that the nuclear power industry has relied on extensive taxpayer and ratepayer subsidies for over 50 years, which mask the true costs of production and shift significant financial, safety, and environmental risks to the public. It finds that legacy subsidies for the first generation of reactors often exceeded the value of the power produced, and that new reactors are poised to repeat this pattern with projected subsidies ranging from 70% to 200% of their power value. The author recommends reducing nuclear subsidies, implementing technology-neutral competitive bidding for low-carbon energy, and modernizing liability and waste management systems to internalize costs.

• Legacy subsidies provided to the first generation of nuclear reactors are estimated to exceed 7 cents per kilowatt-hour (¢/kWh), which is approximately 140 percent of the average wholesale price of power from 1960 to 2008, meaning the subsidies were more valuable than the power produced.
• Subsidies for new nuclear reactors are projected to be between 4.2 and 11.4 ¢/kWh, representing 70 to 200 percent of the projected value of the electricity they would produce over the next 15 years.
• The Price-Anderson Act provides a significant subsidy by capping the nuclear industry's liability for third-party damages, which the report estimates has a value between 0.1 and 2.5 ¢/kWh.
• Nuclear power is among the most water-intensive energy technologies, and the industry benefits from a subsidy because reactor owners often pay little or nothing for the large quantities of cooling water they withdraw.
• The federal government has effectively nationalized the risks of nuclear waste management through the Nuclear Waste Fund, operating the repository on a break-even basis without requiring a return on the nearly $100 billion of invested taxpayer capital.
• Tax breaks for nuclear decommissioning trust (NDT) funds, which allow for lower tax rates on income than standard corporate rates, provide an annual subsidy estimated between $450 million and $1.1 billion.
• Historical federal research and development (R&D) funding has been heavily skewed toward nuclear power; fission R&D captured nearly half of all federal energy R&D funding between 1950 and 1993.
• State-level 'construction work in progress' (CWIP) allowances shift financing and construction risks from investors to ratepayers by allowing utilities to charge customers for plants before they are operational.
• The report identifies a systemic risk where the expansion of the civilian nuclear sector increases the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, a negative externality that is not integrated into the cost of nuclear power.

APA

Koplow, D. (2011). NUCLEAR POWER: Still Not Viable without Subsidies. Union of Concerned Scientists. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf

Chicago

Koplow, Doug. NUCLEAR POWER: Still Not Viable without Subsidies. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2011. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Koplow |first1=Doug |title=NUCLEAR POWER: Still Not Viable without Subsidies |publisher=Union of Concerned Scientists |date=February 2011 |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{koplow2011nuclear, author = {Koplow, Doug}, title = {{NUCLEAR POWER: Still Not Viable without Subsidies}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2011}, month = feb, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }