Fukushima and the Age of Distrust

  Can we ever undo a liaison that is on automatic, propelled by stock dividends and campaign coffers?

  The priority for this billion dollar industry is more profit and less spending on risk management and safety measures. But other budget lines for the industry have spiked, especially for companies like Entergy who is battling an organized opposition to re-licensing, a movement that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has robustly supported. Since 2007 when Entergy first applied for a new license, and because the application garnered more contentions in the history of NRC re-licensing, Entergy has had to pump more into legal defense, ad campaigns and lobbyists. While expenditures rose, stock prices fell. In January, 2012, the company reported a drop in net income to $160 million (87 cents per share) vs. $233.3 million ($1.28 per share) a year earlier -- a decline of 31.4% - a dip that most energy investors see as a financial blip, a mere rhythmic slowing of the industry's forward moving gait. But slowing is tantamount to stopping and with enough political will and more doubt cast on re-licensing, it just may be enough to close down Indian Point. Certainly Governor Cuomo's leadership tilts the scales in favor of trusting government.

  Escalating costs for Entergy and the forecast that the New York metropolitan area may not need Indian Point at all may be the equation that shutters this plant.

  Hope has surfaced in new technologies that can replace nuclear generated electricity with renewables - a move that could phase out nuclear power for good. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, in their 2012 Annual Energy Outlook  http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=4950 predicts that over the next 25 years, natural gas and renewable fuels will gain a larger share of the United States generating mix of electricity. Renewable energy generation is expected to grow 33% by 2035 using mostly wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and non-hydro renewables.

  If our government truly wants to regain our trust, the next move is up to them. Getting behind safe energy policies and unhinging from the practice of corporate welfare for the nuclear industry is one way. Realigning themselves with utilities that invest in renewables is another. Let's hope they do it before another nuclear plant catastrophe.

 

 

 

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