Do You Really Want Fries with That?

PRIVATE COSTS OF NUCLEAR POWER
  * Security -   nuclear plants must be carefully guarded against both attempted sabotage and possible theft of nuclear material. Thus security costs of both protecting the physical plant and the screening of workers must be considered.
  * Safety- Since nuclear reactors contain a core of highly radioactive fuel and around that core a complex cooling system which is also significantly contaminated, nuclear power plant operators need to invest considerable resources in keeping these structures intact, functioning, and isolated from the environment.
  * Cost Of Uranium- nuclear plants require fissionable fuel. Generally, the fuel used is uranium, While the amounts of uranium used are a tiny fraction of the amounts of coal or oil used in conventional power plants, fuel costs account for about 28% of a nuclear plant's operating expenses. Other recent sources cite lower fuel costs, such as 16%. Doubling the price of uranium would add only 7% to the cost of electricity produced.
  * Radioactive Waste - All nuclear plants produce radioactive waste. To pay for the cost of storing, transporting and disposing these wastes in a permanent location, in the United States a surcharge of a tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour is added to electricity bills. Roughly one percent of electrical utility bills in provinces using nuclear power are diverted to fund nuclear waste disposal in Canada.
  * Decommissioning
  * At the end of a nuclear plant's lifetime (estimated at between 40 and 60 year), the plant must be decommissioned. This entails either dismantling, safe storage or entombment. Operators are usually required to build up a fund to cover these costs while the plant is operating, to limit the financial risk from operator bankruptcy.
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