5 ms·

How exactly is the insurance that nuclear gets for catastrophic events priced in? You know, the insurance that no private insurer is willing to offer, so what's

How exactly is the insurance that nuclear gets for catastrophic events priced in? You know, the insurance that no private insurer is willing to offer, so what's going to happen is the nuclear operating company declares bankruptcy and the tax payer pays for the cleanup.

ThomPete 7y ago
The operating company is insured and pays for the cleanup.
- whalebird 7y ago
  Insured by whom? You need to understand how insurance companies operate: They gather data, they calculate the risk vs. the cost of paying out, they add a markup - that's your price. There is not enough data to do this with catastrophic nuclear accidents.
  - ThomPete 7y ago
    I understand how they work and I have done work both for insurance companies and re-insurers, nuclear power plants are insured a little different. Here are some facts on how it works. "Currently, owners of nuclear power plants pay premiums for $375 million in private liability coverage for each nuclear reactor they own. If there is an incident at a nuclear plant, and the $375 million in coverage is not sufficient, the owner’s coverage is supplemented by the second layer of protection, which is supplied by the nuclear power industry as a whole. Under the Price-Anderson Act, all reactor owners are committed to paying their share of any damages that exceed the incident reactor owner’s first-tier limit of $375 million—up to $111.9 million per reactor. Since are currently 104 reactors in operation, the amount that would be available in the industry pool to pay claims totals $12.6 billion (2011). " It works because nuclear accidents are extremely rare and less dangerous than wind and solar let alone coal, oil and gas. https://www.iii.org/article/insurance-coverage-nuclear-accidents https://www.iii.org/article/insurance-coverage-nuclear-accid...
    - jdjdjjsjs 7y ago
      Wait...nuclear accidents (e.g.s Chernobyl and Fukushima) are less dangerous than wind and solar? What sort of blatant BS is this.
      - ThomPete 7y ago
        I didn't say that. I said that nuclear power is safer than wind and solar and any other form of energy EVEN including Chernobyl and Fukushima.
    - the_why_of_y 7y ago
      Thanks, this reminds me that I read this article half a year ago and forgot... my point is that it's not sufficient as the Fukushima Daiichi accident cost a lot more than $12.6 billion, let me just lazily link to my old comment on that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20014159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20014159
      - ThomPete 7y ago
        But what's the point though? Three Mile Island was fully paid by the insurance. With regards to Fukushima the powerplant didn't kill anyone, the tsunami, on the other hand, did and of course, the public needs to pay for as it was force majure not the actual nuclear power plant that created the disaster. And Tjernobyl was in a country which didn't have any private ownership so of course the public paid for it. What other cases can you come up with where insurance didn't cover it? It's pretty important to get things into proper perspectives here.
    - whalebird 7y ago
      This isn't an insurance against catastrophic failure on the order of Fukushima or Chernobyl, which run into the hundreds of billions, if not trillions. Of course you can have an insurance pool that covers arbitrarily small sums at arbitrarily low fees. That's missing the point.
      - ThomPete 7y ago

ThomPete 7y ago

The operating company is insured and pays for the cleanup.

whalebird 7y ago
Insured by whom? You need to understand how insurance companies operate: They gather data, they calculate the risk vs. the cost of paying out, they add a markup - that's your price. There is not enough data to do this with catastrophic nuclear accidents.
- ThomPete 7y ago
  I understand how they work and I have done work both for insurance companies and re-insurers, nuclear power plants are insured a little different. Here are some facts on how it works. "Currently, owners of nuclear power plants pay premiums for $375 million in private liability coverage for each nuclear reactor they own. If there is an incident at a nuclear plant, and the $375 million in coverage is not sufficient, the owner’s coverage is supplemented by the second layer of protection, which is supplied by the nuclear power industry as a whole. Under the Price-Anderson Act, all reactor owners are committed to paying their share of any damages that exceed the incident reactor owner’s first-tier limit of $375 million—up to $111.9 million per reactor. Since are currently 104 reactors in operation, the amount that would be available in the industry pool to pay claims totals $12.6 billion (2011). " It works because nuclear accidents are extremely rare and less dangerous than wind and solar let alone coal, oil and gas. https://www.iii.org/article/insurance-coverage-nuclear-accidents https://www.iii.org/article/insurance-coverage-nuclear-accid...
  - jdjdjjsjs 7y ago
    Wait...nuclear accidents (e.g.s Chernobyl and Fukushima) are less dangerous than wind and solar? What sort of blatant BS is this.
    - ThomPete 7y ago
      I didn't say that. I said that nuclear power is safer than wind and solar and any other form of energy EVEN including Chernobyl and Fukushima.
  - the_why_of_y 7y ago
    Thanks, this reminds me that I read this article half a year ago and forgot... my point is that it's not sufficient as the Fukushima Daiichi accident cost a lot more than $12.6 billion, let me just lazily link to my old comment on that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20014159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20014159
    - ThomPete 7y ago
      But what's the point though? Three Mile Island was fully paid by the insurance. With regards to Fukushima the powerplant didn't kill anyone, the tsunami, on the other hand, did and of course, the public needs to pay for as it was force majure not the actual nuclear power plant that created the disaster. And Tjernobyl was in a country which didn't have any private ownership so of course the public paid for it. What other cases can you come up with where insurance didn't cover it? It's pretty important to get things into proper perspectives here.
  - whalebird 7y ago
    This isn't an insurance against catastrophic failure on the order of Fukushima or Chernobyl, which run into the hundreds of billions, if not trillions. Of course you can have an insurance pool that covers arbitrarily small sums at arbitrarily low fees. That's missing the point.
    - ThomPete 7y ago