Decommissioning costs are a minor addition to the electricity costs from a nuclear power plant, in the order of $2/ MWh. It gets factored in.

Nuclear plants are very well insured. As far as the internalisation of costs go, unlike fossil fuels a nuclear power plant actually captures and contains the waste product. Amazing. No need for a carbon price to internalise the greenhouse externality either, because there are no emissions.

These are spurious objections. If it's an economic no-go, it won't happen will it? Nuclear needs to be included in modelling and on the table for energy planning.

Good piece from Martin Nicholson who, from what I can see, is an independent author and analyst, not an employee of the nuclear power industry. Those inferring as such are just looking for a cheap way to avoid testing their thinking

I see the Kool Aid moment coming long before 2025. I live smack in the middle of hydro country and you should be worried about dam levels i.e. nothing like last year. Despite all the 'fracking will save us' rhetoric I think petrol prices will keep climbing. Within a year or two I expect a backlash against expensive energy prices in Germany.

Since cleanup costs must now be factored in I hope Australian coal exporters will henceforth charge China and others to keep CO2 and other nasties out of the atmosphere. It follows cleanup costs should not be theatrically over the top like removing soil from areas near Fukushima that is less radioactive than some suburbs. Good luck to those who think the big coal stations will be closing anytime soon thanks to renewables.

Ben Heard you wrote:
"Nuclear plants are very well insured"

I guess you've never heard of ths Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act. They are indemnified from litigation in case of a meltdown

You also wrote
"Decommissioning costs are a minor addition to the electricity costs from a nuclear power plant"

Perhaps you might like to have a look at this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning

All part of the nuclear industry "She'll be right mate" attitude.

Nuclear industry has many supporters until one is proposed for their neighbourhood.

@Shalmaneser

American NPPs are required to hold around $300 million in insurance each. The Price-Anderson Act the compels them each to contribute to a pool fund, which can be drawn upon in the event that any single reactor faces damages in excess of their own insurance. The pool fund currently has a value of over $10 billion.

The Price Anderson Act does NOT indemnify American NPPs. It does the opposite: it imposes more demands on them than any other industry. The American tax payer has never footed the insurance bill for nuclear. Almost everyone gets this wrong. It's a very durable myth.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/08/21/nuclear-risk-insurance/

I'm neither in the nuclear industry, nor do I have a "she'll be right mate" attitude. In my opinion those objecting spuriously to nuclear seem to take this approach to climate change.

I don't want to live next to any form of power generation. But given the choice of coal, gas, wind, solar or nuclear, I would take nuclear.

@Shalmaneser

RE: decommissioning

A small NPP (e.g. a 690 MWe CANDU 6) built in Australia today could be expected to comfortably generate over 5,000,000 MWh of electricity every year.

In round terms, the levelised cost of electricity would be about $100/MWh.

Add just one dollar to the price of the electricity (i.e. 1%) and you raise $5 million per annum as a decommissioning fund.

The plant has a life of 60 years. At decommissioning your fund has 5*60*(interest) million dollars, or minimum $300 million for decommissioning. Meanwhile it has spent 60 years doing what a coal or gas plant was doing without the greenhouse emissions.

The sum is not small, but the impact on the economics of the plant or the electricity price for the consumer is completely negligible.

Objecting to nuclear in sound bytes is easy. Responsible energy planning requires some deeper consideration of the issues.

Ben that is just wrong. The liability of nuclear power plants is limited by Price-Anderson Act. Do you understand what that means? yes they contribute to a fund but that is the sum total of their liability. $10 billion will not even scratch the surface for the real cost of Fukishima