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> but that's OK because years of lobbying will simply shift the downsides of a potential disaster onto the public. > Don't believe me? It's already happened [2

> but that's OK because years of lobbying will simply shift the downsides of a potential disaster onto the public. > Don't believe me? It's already happened [2]: > > The U.S. Price-Anderson Act limits the liability of nuclear plant owners if a radioactive release occurs to $450 million for individual plants and $13.5 billion across all plants That seems to be some sort of insurace/reinsurance policy of the act. According to Wikipedia: "Under the Act, the administrators of the fund have the right to further charge plants if it is needed." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear... And these are some nice benefits of the act: > Companies are expressly forbidden to defend any action for damages on the grounds that an incident was not their fault. > An open-ended time limit is applied, which allows claimants three years to file a claim starting from the time they discover damage.

jmyeet 3y ago
> Companies are expressly forbidden to defend any action for damages on the grounds that an incident was not their fault. That's a small price to pay when your corporate liability for an event like Fukushima is limited by law to $450 million. This Act set up the NRC administered Nuclear Insurance scheme, which is largely self-funded [1], which claims to have a pool available of $13.5 billion through private insurance, industry self-insurance and a surcharge. Let's go back to the Fukushima cleanup costs. The estimate keeps going up and is rapidly approaching $1 trillion. So far (as of 2022), $82 billion has been spent [2], which is six times the entire nuclear insurance fund. The revenue of the entire industry is listed here [3] as $38.2 billion. Which brings us to my original point: in the event of this level of disaster, it would be the government footing the bill for the clean up. Who do you think would pick up the tab in the US for a Fukushima-like disaster? The commercial nuclear power industry [1]: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/nuclear-insurance.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/n... [2]: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14762193 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14762193 [3]: https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/nuclear-power-industry/#:~:text=The%20market%20size%20of%20the,at%20%2438.2bn%20in%202023 https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-repo....
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  For a $1T cost it's always the government footing the bill (or the bill being left to those who were hit). No insurance company, energy LLC, or even unlimited liability energy company can cover that.

jmyeet 3y ago

> Companies are expressly forbidden to defend any action for damages on the grounds that an incident was not their fault. That's a small price to pay when your corporate liability for an event like Fukushima is limited by law to $450 million. This Act set up the NRC administered Nuclear Insurance scheme, which is largely self-funded [1], which claims to have a pool available of $13.5 billion through private insurance, industry self-insurance and a surcharge. Let's go back to the Fukushima cleanup costs. The estimate keeps going up and is rapidly approaching $1 trillion. So far (as of 2022), $82 billion has been spent [2], which is six times the entire nuclear insurance fund. The revenue of the entire industry is listed here [3] as $38.2 billion. Which brings us to my original point: in the event of this level of disaster, it would be the government footing the bill for the clean up. Who do you think would pick up the tab in the US for a Fukushima-like disaster? The commercial nuclear power industry [1]: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/nuclear-insurance.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/n... [2]: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14762193 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14762193 [3]: https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/nuclear-power-industry/#:~:text=The%20market%20size%20of%20the,at%20%2438.2bn%20in%202023 https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-repo....

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
For a $1T cost it's always the government footing the bill (or the bill being left to those who were hit). No insurance company, energy LLC, or even unlimited liability energy company can cover that.