You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap
From a just-released survey conducted by RBC Capital Markets,
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I'm more impressed by the June 2, 2008 report from Moody's investor services where again we read that a utility's credit is projected to go down the toilet by building new nukes.
The report says a construction announcement can bring a 25% to 30% deterioration in the builder's credit rating.
Moody's is now projecting construction costs potentially
exceeding $7,000 per installed kilowatt, (that's up $1000-$2000 /kw from their Oct. 2007 report.
You must figure the sky is the limit if you have the US taxpayer on the hook for covering defaults. But that can quickly change.
The report adds that utilities should not rely on federal loan guarantees in because that program's "form and substance" will be "subject to a material amount of political influence" into the future.
"The credit implications associated with pending climate change legislation are beyond the scope of this Special Comment. Nevertheless, Moody’s observes that nuclear power appears to represent the most compelling large-scale base load and emissions-friendly supply alternative. We acknowledge that the illustrative scenarios discussed in this report do not incorporate the potential economics associated with carbon / greenhouse gas emission regulations, a material simplifying assumption but one that could have a significant positive impact on the economic prospects for new nuclear generation. In our opinion, if federal and state governments are serious about reducing carbon emissions, new nuclear power will be part of the solution."