5 ms·

Is that why it is impossible to insure a nuclear power plant on the private market?

initplus 5y ago
If fossil fuel power plants were legally responsible for harm caused by their carbon emissions, they would also be impossible to insure.
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  Who compares against fossil plants nowadays? Except wanting to put a carbon tax on them to account for that issue you mention. Truly, it's new built nuclear compared compared to renewables, storage and long-distance distance transmission. Spatial and temporal arbitrage of energy.
  - loeg 5y ago
    Germany is shutting down nuclear and replacing it with coal and gas. The comparison to fossil fuel is incredibly apt.
    - Gwypaas 5y ago
      Going by the German energy usage there's no replacement using fossil plants being done. It's all displaced by cheaper renewables, especially coal and old nuclear plants. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2020.png?itok=xVUsZl3M https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...
    - germandiago 5y ago
      This is a silly move IMHO. The mix to go for should be clean + backup nuclear.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Nasrudith 5y ago
Being impossible to insure is related more to a high degree of synchronization of risk pools than overall danger of death. Death rates are averages - it is possible that one person dying per time period is rate-equivalent to the whole town dying at once in a once-in-a-tens-of-millenia event. But the risk exposure in that event is quite different. You can get life insurance/death benefits as a mercenary or even as a centarian. It will be expensive because of the high risk of payout but you can get it. Because while it is probable that you will cack it from being so damn old/being a combatant in unstable regions with lesser support it is extremely unlikely every mercenary or centarian they have insured will die at once.
- aagd 5y ago
  A couple of years ago there was a study about what this kind of insurance would cost: about 72 billion Euro per year. > The study proves for the first time the years of market distortion in favor of nuclear energy and at the expense of the competition, said Uwe Leprich from the Saarbrücken University of Technology and Economics. "The study also shows that if you look at the economy from a regulatory perspective, nuclear energy is not competitive." https://www.manager-magazin.de/finanzen/versicherungen/a-761954.html https://www.manager-magazin.de/finanzen/versicherungen/a-761...
  - germandiago 5y ago
    Well, if that is true, why not deregulate? Let us see what happens. I would just do one thing myself: I would make mandatory to label products with the pollution manufacturing process: this used coal, this used nuclear, this used blabla. This is the amount of waste produced to the environment. And let people choose, with the appropriate information. In that setup, if nuclears are not worth, they would disappear by themselves.

If fossil fuel power plants were legally responsible for harm caused by their carbon emissions, they would also be impossible to insure.

Gwypaas 5y ago
Who compares against fossil plants nowadays? Except wanting to put a carbon tax on them to account for that issue you mention. Truly, it's new built nuclear compared compared to renewables, storage and long-distance distance transmission. Spatial and temporal arbitrage of energy.
- loeg 5y ago
  Germany is shutting down nuclear and replacing it with coal and gas. The comparison to fossil fuel is incredibly apt.
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    Going by the German energy usage there's no replacement using fossil plants being done. It's all displaced by cheaper renewables, especially coal and old nuclear plants. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2020.png?itok=xVUsZl3M https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...
  - germandiago 5y ago
    This is a silly move IMHO. The mix to go for should be clean + backup nuclear.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Nasrudith 5y ago

Being impossible to insure is related more to a high degree of synchronization of risk pools than overall danger of death. Death rates are averages - it is possible that one person dying per time period is rate-equivalent to the whole town dying at once in a once-in-a-tens-of-millenia event. But the risk exposure in that event is quite different. You can get life insurance/death benefits as a mercenary or even as a centarian. It will be expensive because of the high risk of payout but you can get it. Because while it is probable that you will cack it from being so damn old/being a combatant in unstable regions with lesser support it is extremely unlikely every mercenary or centarian they have insured will die at once.

aagd 5y ago
A couple of years ago there was a study about what this kind of insurance would cost: about 72 billion Euro per year. > The study proves for the first time the years of market distortion in favor of nuclear energy and at the expense of the competition, said Uwe Leprich from the Saarbrücken University of Technology and Economics. "The study also shows that if you look at the economy from a regulatory perspective, nuclear energy is not competitive." https://www.manager-magazin.de/finanzen/versicherungen/a-761954.html https://www.manager-magazin.de/finanzen/versicherungen/a-761...
- germandiago 5y ago
  Well, if that is true, why not deregulate? Let us see what happens. I would just do one thing myself: I would make mandatory to label products with the pollution manufacturing process: this used coal, this used nuclear, this used blabla. This is the amount of waste produced to the environment. And let people choose, with the appropriate information. In that setup, if nuclears are not worth, they would disappear by themselves.