The costs of nuclear energy

The Dutchman J.W. Storm van Leeuwen has recently argued that a nuclear power plant uses more energy than it produces, indicating that nuclear energy is unremunerative. The steering committee of the Broad Social Discussion in the Netherlands has commissioned the Technical University in Eindhoven to investigate these controversial findings, the results of which will be published by Joost Horsten in a report. This article is a provisional summary of that report. Storm van Leeuwen's analyses and previous ones have been critically studied and corrected with the result that the light water reactor is shown to be currently remunerative. The newly calculated yield is approximately four times higher than that calculated by Storm van Leeuwen. Even with increasing construction costs in the future the light water reactor will probably remain remunerative. (C.F.)