LETTER: Ameren Ratepayers shouldn't have to assume risk

If Wall Street won’t touch financing a new nuclear power plant, why should we be saddled with it? Why should stockholders of AmerenUE be sheltered, and 10 percent profits get protection, while all the risk gets shifted onto us, the utility customers, who will reap no benefit in the end? Why should we be paying now for energy that won’t even be delivered for 10 to 12 or more years from now? Many elderly will not even be around by the time it goes online, but will have been unfairly “taxed” in the meantime by the increased utility bills.  It also goes without saying that this will impact the poor and elderly in a regressive way, since basic living costs of heat and electricity make up a greater proportion of their fixed incomes.