Archive for June 7th, 2010

national cuts

Monday, June 7th, 2010

flautenkreuzIMG_0023-500 “Flautenkreuz” photography by Brad Löw

According to what I read in the study Ökonomische Auswirkungen einer Laufzeitverlaengerung deutscher Kernkraftwerke (in german) which was made on behalf of the BDI (the “umbrella organisation of german industries”) (BDI site) the operational life-span of nuclear power plants in Germany to
-40 years would lead to a financial gain (via cost saving) from:

    approximately 3.3 billion Euro/year (2015) to approx. 6 billion Euro/year (2020) (table 3-1, p. 34 of the study),

extending the operational life-span to
-60 years would even lead to a gain from:

    approx. 8 billion Euro/year (2020) to approx. 10 billion Euro/year (2025) or approx. 9.3 billion Euro/year (2030) (from table 3-2, p. 35, of the study ).

So on average one can roughly say that the life-span extension of nuclear power plants would lead -according to what I read in this study- to a financial gain of -very roughly averaged- at least 5 billion euros per year. Since it is expected that electricity prices will be made according to market value and not according to that gain which is due to unexpected life-span extensions one could infer that this gain will be the gain of the electricity industry. Consequently the german government (which is planning a life-span extension of nuclear power plants) is planning to demand a share of that prospected gain for their new cuts plans in the socalled “Sparpaket”. According to Spiegel Online the current plans are to ask the electricity industry for a share of 2.3 billion per year. Thus if I conclude rightly this means that the electricity industry may keep a gain of at least 2.7 billion per year (or up to 7.7 billion per year depending on life-span extension) . It is not clear how much of that would be reinvested into renewable energies. Social cuts according to Spiegel Online on that page.

I don’t know, wether the life-span extension of nuclear power plants means that this study is going to be extended.

I also don’t know wether inspection optimization is planned.