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Why America Pays More for Nuclear Power
A new study examines what other countries have done to keep costs down, and what could work in the future.
As countries scramble to grow their supply of clean energy, nuclear power poses a couple of problems. Radiation risks are unavoidable, of course, and the conventional wisdom says that, unlike other energy sources, nuclear is doomed to grow increasingly expensive over time.
In the U.S., costs have skyrocketed so high that hardly any new plants get built anymore. Because the U.S. created nuclear energy, maintains the largest fleet of reactors, and made its data publicly available when most countries didn’t, its experience plays a huge part in the expert analyses used to determine how much future nuclear power plants could cost.