Saturday, May 14, 2011

Government Subsidies for Nuclear Energy in Germany and the United States

I wanted to check out how much of the taxpayers' money are being wasted for nuclear energy.
From the following two tables, I can say the German government paid at least 5.6 cents and the U.S. government paid 0.78~12.01 cents per every kilowatt-hour of nuclear-powered electricity in 2010.
* In Germany, the residential retail electricity price in 2010 was 18.31 U.S. ¢/kWh (or 0.1381 €/kWh).
* In the United States, the residential retail electricity price in 2010 was 11.58 U.S. ¢/kWh .

1. German State Aid for Nuclear Energy 1950-2010
All specifications in billions of €Funding 1950-2010 2010
Funding
Funding
as of 2011
(accumulated)
Nominal Real (2010 prices)
A Financial aid 51.1 > 82.4 > 1.3 > 8.9
1 Research (Germany) 28.7 55.2 0.59 > 1.8
2 Federal state contributions 5.0 5.3 n/a n/a
3 Guaranteed loans 0.14 > 0.14 n/a 0.05
4 German share of Euratom (European Atomic Energy Community) and PHARE (improving the operational safety of nuclear power plants and the training of their operators) 2.3 2.9 0.11 0.11
5 Closure of East German nuclear power 3.0 > 3.1 0.11 0.86
6 Decontamination of Wismut's uranium mines 5.4 6.5 0.15 1.02
7 Morsleben (repository for radioactive waste) 0.8 0.9 0.05 1.34
8 Asse (deep geological repository for radioactive waste) 0.5 0.5 0.08 3.7
9 Repository site search 0 0 0 0
10 Chernobyl 0.4 0.5 0.01 > 0.02
11 Contributions from international organisations 4.9 7.3 0.18 n/a
B Tax benefits 92.1 > 112.5 3.3 66.4
1 Accruals 54.2 68.3 1.8 54.0
2 Net energy tax benefits 37.8 44.2 1.6 12.4
C Budget independent state provisions 37.5 > 44.4 2.7 35.0
1 Increase in price of electricity through emissions trading 8.4 8.7 1.3 24.6
2 Incomplete competition in the electricity market 29.0 35.7 1.3 10.4
A + B Sum 1: Budgetary funding 143.2 > 194.9 > 4.6 > 75.3


Average in Euro cents per kWh 3.0 > 4.1 > 3.2 > 7.3


Average in U.S. cents per kWh 4.0 > 5.4 > 4.2 > 9.7
A + B + C1 Sum 2: Budgetary funding + emissions trading benefits 151.6 > 203.7 > 5.9 > 99.9


Average in cents per kWh 3.2 > 4.3 > 4.2 > 9.8


Average in U.S. cents per kWh 4.2 > 5.7 > 5.6 > 13.0
Annual exchange rate: 1 € = 1.3261 U.S. $ in 2010 (Source: FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) at http://j.mp/USD_per_Euro)

2. U.S. Subsidies to Existing and New Reactors
Subsidy TypeSubsidies
to Existing Reactors (¢/kWh)
Subsidies
to New Reactors (¢/kWh)
Legacy Ongoing
All Ownership Types IOU POU IOU POU
Factors of production
  1. Capital
    • Reactor loan guarantees or direct loans
    • Accelerated depreciation
    • Recovery of construction/work-in-progress
    • Government research and development
    • Tax-exempt public reactors; no required rate of return
    • Subsidized site approval and licensing costs
    • Transfer of stranded asset liabilities
    • Traditional rate regulation (return on “prudently incurred” investments even if not used or economically competitive)
    • Regulatory-delay insurance
  2. Labor (shifting of health-related liabilities to taxpayers)
  3. Land (reduced property tax burdens for new plants at state or county level)
7.20 0.06 0.96-1.94 3.51-6.58 3.73-5.22
Intermediate inputs
  1. Uranium
    • Subsidized access, bonding on public lands
    • Percentage depletion on uranium extraction
    • Legacy costs of uranium mining, milling sites (contamination costs staying with taxpayers)
    • Federal uranium-stockpile management
  2. Enrichment services
    • Below-market sales from government-owned facilities (prior to privatization in the United States)
    • Tariffs on imported enriched uranium
    • Federal liability indemnification for U.S. Enrichment Corporation; ambiguous requirements under Price-Anderson for newer private enrichment provider
    • Monopoly agent for selling LEU derived from Russian HEU in warheads
    • Environmental remediation costs
  3. Cooling water (free or subsidized use of large quantities of cooling water)
0.10-0.24 0.29-0.51 0.16-0.18 0.21-0.42 0.21-0.42
Output-linked support
  • Market-price support (purchase mandates)
  • Payments based on current output (nuclear production tax credit)
0.00 0.00 0.00 1.05-1.45 0.00
Security and risk management
  • Cap on accident liability: reactors, contractors, fuel-cycle facilities, shippers ("Price-Anderson" cap)
  • Nuclear Regulatory Commission services not paid by user fees
  • U.S. funding of proliferation oversight abroad by the IAEA
  • Plant security/low design-basis requirements for attacks
0.21-0.22 0.10-2.50 0.10-2.50 0.10-2.50 0.10-2.50
Decommissioning and waste management
  • Tax breaks for reactor decommissioning
  • Nationalization of nuclear waste management
n/a 0.29-1.09 0.31-1.15 0.13-0.48 0.16-0.54
Total (in 2007 U.S. cents) 7.50-7.66 0.74-4.16 1.53-5.77 5.01-11.42 4.20-8.68
Total (in 2010 U.S. cents) 7.89-8.06 0.78-4.37 1.61-6.07 5.27-12.01 4.42-9.13
Share of power price 139%-142% 13%-70% 26%-98% 84%-190% (high) 70%-145% (high)
88%-200% (reference) 74%-152% (reference)
Consumer Price Index (CPI) change between 2007 and 2010: 105.2% (=218.056/207.342) (Source: BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) at http://j.mp/US_CPI)


Sources:
Eurostat. (2011). Energy Statistics - Prices. Retrieved from http://j.mp/EU_Residential_Electricity_Price
Energy Information Administration. (2011). Electric Power Monthly. (January 2011). Retrieved from http://j.mp/US_Residential_Electricity_Price
Forum Ă–kologisch-Soziale Marktwirtschaft (Green Budget Germany). (2010). Staatliche Förderungen der Atomenergie. Hamburg, Germany: Greenpeace. [Full-text at http://j.mp/German_Atomic_Subsidies]
Koplow, D. (2011). Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable Without Subsidies. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists. [Full-text at http://j.mp/US_Atomic_Subsidies]

No comments:

Post a Comment