I have mentioned the economic aspects of nuclear power in many posts. I have also mentioned that nuclear nations such as France, Russia, Japan, China and the United States are trying to sell nuclear technology to other countries that do not have their own nuclear industries with a lot of these potential customers being Third World countries. Today, I am going to see how these two topics intertwine in the U.S.
The U.S. Export-Import bank exists to facilitate trade between U.S. companies and foreign customers. It provides financing assistance and credit transaction insurance. Supporters of the Ex-Im bank claim that the financing assistance provided by the bank can be essential to securing trade deals for U.S. companies that would have otherwise gone to the competition. Nowhere is this more apparent than in international trade in nuclear technology.
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) bills itself as the "policy organization of the nuclear energy and technologies that participates in both the national and global policy-making process. NEI's objective is to ensure the formation of policies that promote the beneficial uses of nuclear energies and technologies in the United States and around the world."
The CEO of the NEI said a congressional hearing last Wednesday that "“A strong and reliable Ex-Im Bank will enable U.S. nuclear energy suppliers to compete for and win international nuclear energy tenders, add billions of dollars of U.S. exports and tens of thousands of American jobs and promote other U.S. national interests." All that this requires is billions of dollars in direct and indirect government assistance.
The Director of International Supplier Relations at NEI recently reported that the estimate for the value of the nuclear industry over the next decade is seven hundred and forty billion dollars. There are seventy one new reactors being built and another one hundred and seventy two reactors in advanced planning stages. He said that "export credit agency support, which 60-plus countries offer, is nearly mandatory for foreign nuclear plant tenders."
Critics of the Ex-Im bank complain that it is a government handout to wealthy corporations. Republican Congressmen have been threatening to defund the Ex-Im bank. I am generally not in favor of the U.S. taxpayer doing anything to help huge profitable corporations. With respect to the issue being discussed in this post, I am doubly against having the U.S. Ex-Im bank give any assistance to the export of any nuclear technology. The history of nuclear power is littered with cost overruns and cancelled projects. From a strictly economic point of view, these nuclear projects are poor investments.
Totally aside from whether nuclear power makes any sense in economic terms is the fact that a single accident at a single plant can heavily impact the whole global marketplace. Another Fukushima type incident and many more countries might stop using nuclear power. A major slow down in the nuclear industry would threaten the schedule and the cost of nuclear plant construction.
