As if the threat of the closure of Yucca Mountain wasn’t a big enough blow to the US nuclear industry, yet more bad news is emerging.

A new study puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour—triple current U.S. electricity rates!

This staggering price is far higher than the cost of a variety of carbon-free renewable power sources available today—and 10 times the cost of energy efficiency

This follows a Time magazine article describing the capital costs of new nuclear build as ‘out of control’:

The world's only steelworks capable of forging containment vessels is in Japan, and it has a three-year waiting list. The specialized workforce required for manufacturing reactors has atrophied in the U.S., along with the industrial base. Steel, cement and other commodity prices have stabilized, but the credit crunch has jacked up the cost of borrowing.

It’s a situation mirrored on the other side of the Atlantic in the UK. The rapid decline of pound against the euro now means that nuclear technology priced in euros is much more expensive to buy in the UK. On top of that, the disastrous construction of the OL3 reactor at Olkiluoto, Finland is a stark warning that new nuclear build is far more expensive than anyone was expecting:

[I]t is not unreasonable to expect that the current €4.5bn cost [of OL3] will rise still further, perhaps by billions of Euros. But let's be optimistic for once and say that the total construction cost of this plant will be €5.2bn including the initial design work, the groundworks and all the other costs borne by TVO and not Areva. This figure breaches the highest of all the cost estimates produced in the UK government consultation paper.

So, even the most optimistic scenario is a bad one. Decisions need to be made now if the planet is to avoid catastrophic climate change. Waiting for nuclear power to become financially viable or safe methods of waste disposal to appear is not an option.

The US and the UK should now be urgently looking to its renewable and energy efficiency programmes. They should be looking to establish strong indigenous renewable energy technologies – that, as we know, can be planned for and built much faster and cheaper than nuclear – that are not at risk to currency fluctuations.

The clock, as ever, is ticking…