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If there is such good evidence it shouldn't be hard to get nuclear plants insured. Insurance companies usually don't decide based on ´emotional reactions to inc

If there is such good evidence it shouldn't be hard to get nuclear plants insured. Insurance companies usually don't decide based on ´emotional reactions to incidents that were not that serious´ but look at the facts. As long as the cleanup cost is externalized and paid for by my tax dollars you're damn right I'm reacting emotional. Wouldn't you, if they set up the plant in your backyard (think Europe's population density)? The sun gives us 10,000 times earths energy demand, so maybe we stop discussing nuclear industry marketing blogs and shift focus on energy storage technology.

beefield 4y ago
Insurance companies work typically by sharing risk between insurers. Against risks that are relatively common in aggregate, so that you can calculate a reasonable price for the risk. The occurrence of nuclear accidents is so rare and the potential cost so high that a typical insurance company business model can't accommodate that risk. You could try develop some kind of insurance bond scheme where nuclear power plant needs to raise a capital buffer to protect against accidents, and in case of an accident, bond investors lose their money. But even this kind of a scheme would be pretty difficult to pull off in a scale that would cover all potential losses, and someone (government) would need to take the tail risk. And just to be clear, even now, nuclear plants do not go completely uninsured. https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/nuclear-insurance.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/n...
mpweiher 4y ago
The problem is that the cost of an accident is also not driven by facts but by politics and emotion. And that makes the cost of an accident not just much higher, but also essentially incalculable. "How irrational are the public and the pandering politicians going to be this decade?" is a difficult variable to price into your models. And since the costs are, in fact, largely driven by the politics and irrational public fears, it actually makes sense to have the public bear those costs...in a weird way.
- piva00 4y ago
  The cost is poisoning a large swath of land for centuries to come. It's not just politics and emotion, it's transforming a large area of a country into a completely unproductive land, for centuries, where no one can live or work at... How can you not be a afraid when the potential damage is so large? And I'm an advocate for nuclear power, I believe we should've invested in it decades ago to avoid the worst of climate change to come, I just can't agree that the whole issue is "politics and emotion", that's just shoving the real problems with nukes under the rug. Cost of maintenance, cost of decommissioning, baseline factors required for safe operation (including the socioeconomic and political environment of the country a reactor is at), sourcing of fissile material, permanent deposits for nuclear waste, etc.
  - mpweiher 4y ago
    > The cost is poisoning a large swath of land for centuries to come. No it's not. For example, the vast majority of the soil "cleanup" in Fukushima is completely unnecessary, as was most of the evacuation. Another example: the fishermen of the Fukushima prefecture are suffering. But not because there's anything wrong with the fish, it's that people are afraid. Fear of nuclear kills far more people than nuclear does. Even the Chernobyl "red zone" has been shown to be net beneficial to the wildlife there. Hardly a sign of "poisoning". Again, you are speaking from emotion, not fact. > It's not just politics and emotion Not just, but mostly. > How can you not be a afraid when the potential damage is so large? Because the potential damage is not actually "so large", as has been amply demonstrated by now, see in particularly Fukushima, but even Chernobyl. Never mind non-events like Three Mile Island. And fear is never a good reaction, because it leads exactly to the distortions of perception that you are demonstrating.
    - piva00 4y ago
      > For example, the vast majority of the soil "cleanup" in Fukushima is completely unnecessary, as was most of the evacuation. Can you provide sources for this claim? > Even the Chernobyl "red zone" has been shown to be net beneficial to the wildlife there. Hardly a sign of "poisoning". There's still no scientific consensus about the effects of radiation on fauna in the CEZ [0]. You have an opinion but we still haven't figured out how damaging the radiation there is for animals or not. I'd rather not have humans living around a potentially dangerous poisoned area until the effects are understood. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X17309347 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X1...

beefield 4y ago

Insurance companies work typically by sharing risk between insurers. Against risks that are relatively common in aggregate, so that you can calculate a reasonable price for the risk. The occurrence of nuclear accidents is so rare and the potential cost so high that a typical insurance company business model can't accommodate that risk. You could try develop some kind of insurance bond scheme where nuclear power plant needs to raise a capital buffer to protect against accidents, and in case of an accident, bond investors lose their money. But even this kind of a scheme would be pretty difficult to pull off in a scale that would cover all potential losses, and someone (government) would need to take the tail risk. And just to be clear, even now, nuclear plants do not go completely uninsured. https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/nuclear-insurance.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/n...

mpweiher 4y ago

The problem is that the cost of an accident is also not driven by facts but by politics and emotion. And that makes the cost of an accident not just much higher, but also essentially incalculable. "How irrational are the public and the pandering politicians going to be this decade?" is a difficult variable to price into your models. And since the costs are, in fact, largely driven by the politics and irrational public fears, it actually makes sense to have the public bear those costs...in a weird way.

piva00 4y ago
The cost is poisoning a large swath of land for centuries to come. It's not just politics and emotion, it's transforming a large area of a country into a completely unproductive land, for centuries, where no one can live or work at... How can you not be a afraid when the potential damage is so large? And I'm an advocate for nuclear power, I believe we should've invested in it decades ago to avoid the worst of climate change to come, I just can't agree that the whole issue is "politics and emotion", that's just shoving the real problems with nukes under the rug. Cost of maintenance, cost of decommissioning, baseline factors required for safe operation (including the socioeconomic and political environment of the country a reactor is at), sourcing of fissile material, permanent deposits for nuclear waste, etc.
- mpweiher 4y ago
  > The cost is poisoning a large swath of land for centuries to come. No it's not. For example, the vast majority of the soil "cleanup" in Fukushima is completely unnecessary, as was most of the evacuation. Another example: the fishermen of the Fukushima prefecture are suffering. But not because there's anything wrong with the fish, it's that people are afraid. Fear of nuclear kills far more people than nuclear does. Even the Chernobyl "red zone" has been shown to be net beneficial to the wildlife there. Hardly a sign of "poisoning". Again, you are speaking from emotion, not fact. > It's not just politics and emotion Not just, but mostly. > How can you not be a afraid when the potential damage is so large? Because the potential damage is not actually "so large", as has been amply demonstrated by now, see in particularly Fukushima, but even Chernobyl. Never mind non-events like Three Mile Island. And fear is never a good reaction, because it leads exactly to the distortions of perception that you are demonstrating.
  - piva00 4y ago
    > For example, the vast majority of the soil "cleanup" in Fukushima is completely unnecessary, as was most of the evacuation. Can you provide sources for this claim? > Even the Chernobyl "red zone" has been shown to be net beneficial to the wildlife there. Hardly a sign of "poisoning". There's still no scientific consensus about the effects of radiation on fauna in the CEZ [0]. You have an opinion but we still haven't figured out how damaging the radiation there is for animals or not. I'd rather not have humans living around a potentially dangerous poisoned area until the effects are understood. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X17309347 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X1...