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As Nuclear Reactors Age, the Money To Close Them Lags
Harperdog writes "A worrying bit of news about nuclear reactors in the U.S. from the NYT: 'The operators of 20 of the nation's aging nuclear reactors, including some whose licenses expire soon, have not saved nearly enough money for prompt and proper dismantling. If it turns out that they must close, the owners intend to let them sit like industrial relics for 20 to 60 years or even longer while interest accrues in the reactors' retirement accounts.'"
One thing that was noted in the article is that a lot of the power companies HAD sufficient retirement funds, but a large portion of the value of their funds were wiped out in the economic crash of 2008. They mentioned one reactor's retirement fund crashing from $592m to somewhere north of 200m and even now not breaking 300m.
Thus, it's the economic turbulence weathering the vulnerable investments made on the retirement funds. This is not too far from a bunch of seniors who just had their retirement income wiped out, continuing to work after retirement to make up for the shortfall in their supposedly secure retirement funds.