2011年6月29日水曜日

Was it Worth It?

This is what Kyodo news reports about the profitability of nuclear electrical generation:

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. faces a potential damages bill exceeding its profits from nuclear power generation over a 38-year period beginning in 1970, the year it opened the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 plant, according to a recent study.


Kenichi Oshima, an environmental economist and professor at Kyoto-based Ritsumeikan University, estimates that Tepco in that time earned just less than ¥4 trillion, possibly equal to or less than the amount it must pay farmers, fishermen, evacuees and others affected by the nuclear crisis.

Oshima also found that the cost of nuclear power generation is higher in Japan than that of hydraulic and thermal power, contrary to a widely disseminated government estimate."