Forbes strikes again!

As described in the current issue of Forbes magazine, federal nuclear loan guarantees would transfer the financial risks of the “nuclear renaissance” onto U.S. taxpayers. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that “well over half” of nuclear loan guarantees will default, leaving taxpayers to hold the bag for many billions of dollars per failed project. In February 1985, Forbes reported that “[t]he failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale. The utility industry has already invested $125 billion in nuclear power, with an additional $140 billion to come before the decade is out, and only the blind, or the biased, can now think that most of the money has been well spent.” If Energy Secretary Chu rushes nuclear loan guarantees out the door by the end of the year, as he has threatened to do, this ugly history could easily repeat itself. Phone Energy Secretary Steven Chu at (202) 586-6210 (during business hours only), email him at The.Secretary@hq.doe.gov, write him a letter at U.S. Department of Energy/1000 Independence Ave., SW/Washington, DC 20585, or fax him at (202) 586-4403. Urge Secretary Chu to not rush granting $18.5 billion in nuclear loan guarantees to flawed, incomplete, uncertified, unsafe and financially risky new reactor designs