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You are talking about risks in a narrow technical sense. Insurance companies are more interested in the consequences of the disaster. A reasonable worst case i

You are talking about risks in a narrow technical sense. Insurance companies are more interested in the consequences of the disaster. A reasonable worst case is something that could plausibly happen once in a century in the entire world with 10x more reactors than today. Maybe the reactor is located close to a major city. Maybe the company operating it has become incompetent and corrupt. Maybe the weather conditions are particularly unfavorable and most of the fallout goes towards the city. Maybe the meltdown was caused by a natural disaster that also makes evacuating the city harder. Maybe there are also widespread protests happening for an unrelated reason. Or maybe the worst case is the incompetent and corrupt power company upgrading its reactors in a way that leads to a large number of meltdowns. Remember that we are talking about what happens when the power company cannot pay and we don't want to socialize the risks. This is not something where the insurance company is allowed to set the terms. If courts and/or politicians ultimately determine that the power company is liable for $1 trillion, but its assets were only worth $100 billion, the insurance company must cover the rest.

roenxi 3y ago
That is a mistaken view; he's actually talking about liability. The risk of nuclear is smaller than the damage of the status quo, but it is so unexpected that we hold people liable when it materialises. The damage from coal (not risk because the risk is technically 0 - the bad outcome is guaranteed by design) is substantially greater than the risk of a nuclear disaster. We just don't hold anyone liable for fossil fuel damage because then society would collapse. It is pretty stupid that we don't move to nuclear and highlights the inability of the anti-nuclear crowd to do cost-benefit analysis.

roenxi 3y ago

That is a mistaken view; he's actually talking about liability. The risk of nuclear is smaller than the damage of the status quo, but it is so unexpected that we hold people liable when it materialises. The damage from coal (not risk because the risk is technically 0 - the bad outcome is guaranteed by design) is substantially greater than the risk of a nuclear disaster. We just don't hold anyone liable for fossil fuel damage because then society would collapse. It is pretty stupid that we don't move to nuclear and highlights the inability of the anti-nuclear crowd to do cost-benefit analysis.