8 ms·

The main difference is in my opinion the visible action - reaction relationship. If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to

by stfu 14y ago

The main difference is in my opinion the visible action - reaction relationship. If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie, while with coal plants you might have just people to "cough a bit more". The only thing I do not get is why energy companies are not forced to carry more extensive insurance policies to the long term damages/risks they cause. Pushing this through all the way should provide enough incentives to move towards renewables.

SagelyGuru 14y ago
The reason is that the costs of a failure of a nuclear power station are such that no insurance company would take on such a risk on commercial basis and even if they did, no energy company would be able/willing to pay the premiums. It all works only because government(s) get their bombs, energy companies in cahoots with the government get their unrealistically low 'production costs' and the suckers taxpayers pay for any accidents and cleanups, whose costs are therefore never included in the accounting when making the comparisons. German electors still have some say in the matter and they did their sums.
- VMG 14y ago
  If you think the government isn't in cahoots with coal and solar, I have bad news for you.
  - hyperbovine 14y ago
    If /only/ the US government were as cozy with solar as it is with coal. http://solyndrabuilding.businesscatalyst.com/index.html http://solyndrabuilding.businesscatalyst.com/index.html
  - ktizo 14y ago
    The US is just starting a trade war with China over solar where they are putting a 31% tariff on Chinese panels, which will hugely increase the cost of solar in the US. http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/obamas-latest-china-move-blinded-by-the-solar-light/ http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/obamas-latest-china-mov...
- cbsmith 14y ago
  > The reason is that the costs of a failure of a nuclear power station are such that no insurance company would take on such a risk on commercial basis and even if they did, no energy company would be able/willing to pay the premiums. I'm not sure how you can assert this to be true. Because it is a rare event, the premiums won't be that obscene, particularly if the carrier isn't carrying related policies. The expense of a nuclear plant failure is most certainly high but, for example, can't match the impact of say Katrina (and while no insurance company was carrying all the impact of Katrina, several of them bore far more than the costs of pretty of completely destroying an entire major city, which is more than any nuclear power plant failure). Certainly the money to be made from producing that much energy that cheaply outweighs the insurance costs. Ironically, I'd argue this is part of the problem with nuclear energy. If left completely unregulated, I could see that a typical nuclear power station would be built with quite spare safety precautions, with the expectation that it likely would fail within a certain period of time, with an insurance policy in place to cover the expenses when that occurs.
  - SagelyGuru 14y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Insurance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... It turns out that Fukushima was 'insured' but the insurers won't be paying anything. It is all excluded, see? To prove your assertions, you need to come up with an example where a major nuclear disaster was actually cleaned up at the insurers expense. Till then, I stand by my statements.
    - cbsmith 14y ago
      How many nuclear power plants are their in the world? How many have had failures from "earthquake shock, fire following earthquake and tsunami"? How many failures have occurred for other reasons? From that standpoint it is hard to argue that the premiums would have been significantly different without that clause. I'd also point out that such a clause is hardly unusual in the insurance business. You'll see the like on all kinds of property and liability policies. To prove your assertions, you'd need to come up with a nuclear reactor which was constructed in an unregulated environment. ;-) Look, I'm not making claims one way or another. I'm simply suggesting that your claim doesn't seem very credible once one has applied some very simple logic. I could be missing something, but I think you ought to have some evidence to back up such an extraordinary claim. As someone else pointed out, your typical coal operation ought to have a higher incident rate and cost, which means it ought to be even more expensive... Realistically, you can calculate the costs without coming up with your silly example. It is sufficient to simply add up the costs needed to cover the disaster, and then look at the premiums paid for covering similar sized disasters with similar rates of occurrence, making your best effort to extrapolate over any gaps. Alternatively, speak with an actuarial who works in the business and they can extrapolate what the premiums would be. In a truly unregulated market, I'd imagine the incident rate would be higher and the recovery costs a bit lower, so it might be hard to get a real cost, but go for the costs in the existing regulated market. I have a hard time imagining they'd be prohibitive, but I'd be intrigued if you proved otherwise.
Eeko 14y ago
> The main difference is in my opinion the visible action - reaction relationship. If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie, while with coal plants you might have just people to "cough a bit more". Not really. Nuclear disasters are bad for the environment, but considerably less bad than say... Building a city somewhere. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.ht... And "cough a bit more" is probably the understatement of a day. Those fuckers even create more radioactive waste (which won't get collected) when they work as intended, than nuclear plants when they break down. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is...) You are on track with the insurance policy. Though it's pretty safe to assume, that real costs of coal and carbon-based fuels are not calculated very well for insurance purposes either. The end-point of unstoppable climate-change could potentially render the entire earth inhabitable via the Venus-effect. Even most apocalyptic local consequences are pretty minor compared to those.
- moe 14y ago
  Those fuckers even create more radioactive waste (which won't get collected) when they work as intended, than nuclear plants when they break down. How about reading your own linked article before making a fool of yourself with claims like that? It says coal plants create more radioactive waste than a nuclear plant that has not broken down.
  - ori_b 14y ago
    It's true for common failure modes. Three Mile Island, for example, did leak less radioactive waste than a correctly working coal plant. The problem is that it's so politically difficult to build new nuclear plants so that old ones can be retired, that we're still using poorly designed plants from the 1960s that are already past their design lifetime. And then people are surprised that they're problematic.
    - fabjan 14y ago
zizee 14y ago
If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie Chernobyl is actually a wildlife wonderland now people can't live in the area. Animals don't deem to have a problem living in highly radioactive environments. They have more immediate issues than getting cancer. But for humans a nuclear meltdown is bad news. So its not through environment that suffers on the whole, more that it is no longer suitable for humans. But yes, the result of a nuclear disaster is much more dramatic in the short term, making it scarier than the same amount of damage that a coal powerplant dripfeeds.
- stevoski 14y ago
  Agreed. I visited Chernobyl two years ago, and in all of Europe I've never seen a place so verdant, and teeming with wildlife. The canal especially had many large fish.
  - gritzko 14y ago
    Friend of mine studied mice in a nuclear disaster zone. Basically, mice adapted and there was no statistical difference compared to a control population (outside the zone).
- DanBC 14y ago
  > Chernobyl is actually a wildlife wonderland "Not scientifically justified". (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm) > But scientists who assessed the 1986 disaster's impact on birds said the ecological effects were "considerably greater than previously assumed". (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489 http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489) > "Many people come here expecting to see a lunar landscape, so when they see trees, and birds and a few mammals, they're surprised. > "They think, 'ah well maybe it's not so bad'. > "But what we're finding is that there is a significant impact on both the population and the biodiversity - the number of species - in the zone. And it's directly proportional to the level of contamination." (But the article mentions that this is a polarised debate, and that this is only one side.) Chernobyl Birds are Small Brained (http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/9387395.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/938...) Insects in decline (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm)
deepGem 14y ago
What about Thorium based Molten Salt reactors. According to this article, they are potentially safe. http://www.whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium.html http://www.whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium.html
coldarchon 14y ago
I call this my hot-plate-theory. You can't teach a kid not to touch a hot plate, it has to feel the pain to understand.

by stfu 14y ago

SagelyGuru 14y ago

The reason is that the costs of a failure of a nuclear power station are such that no insurance company would take on such a risk on commercial basis and even if they did, no energy company would be able/willing to pay the premiums. It all works only because government(s) get their bombs, energy companies in cahoots with the government get their unrealistically low 'production costs' and the suckers taxpayers pay for any accidents and cleanups, whose costs are therefore never included in the accounting when making the comparisons. German electors still have some say in the matter and they did their sums.

VMG 14y ago
If you think the government isn't in cahoots with coal and solar, I have bad news for you.
- hyperbovine 14y ago
  If /only/ the US government were as cozy with solar as it is with coal. http://solyndrabuilding.businesscatalyst.com/index.html http://solyndrabuilding.businesscatalyst.com/index.html
- ktizo 14y ago
  The US is just starting a trade war with China over solar where they are putting a 31% tariff on Chinese panels, which will hugely increase the cost of solar in the US. http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/obamas-latest-china-move-blinded-by-the-solar-light/ http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/obamas-latest-china-mov...
cbsmith 14y ago
> The reason is that the costs of a failure of a nuclear power station are such that no insurance company would take on such a risk on commercial basis and even if they did, no energy company would be able/willing to pay the premiums. I'm not sure how you can assert this to be true. Because it is a rare event, the premiums won't be that obscene, particularly if the carrier isn't carrying related policies. The expense of a nuclear plant failure is most certainly high but, for example, can't match the impact of say Katrina (and while no insurance company was carrying all the impact of Katrina, several of them bore far more than the costs of pretty of completely destroying an entire major city, which is more than any nuclear power plant failure). Certainly the money to be made from producing that much energy that cheaply outweighs the insurance costs. Ironically, I'd argue this is part of the problem with nuclear energy. If left completely unregulated, I could see that a typical nuclear power station would be built with quite spare safety precautions, with the expectation that it likely would fail within a certain period of time, with an insurance policy in place to cover the expenses when that occurs.
- SagelyGuru 14y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Insurance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... It turns out that Fukushima was 'insured' but the insurers won't be paying anything. It is all excluded, see? To prove your assertions, you need to come up with an example where a major nuclear disaster was actually cleaned up at the insurers expense. Till then, I stand by my statements.
  - cbsmith 14y ago
    How many nuclear power plants are their in the world? How many have had failures from "earthquake shock, fire following earthquake and tsunami"? How many failures have occurred for other reasons? From that standpoint it is hard to argue that the premiums would have been significantly different without that clause. I'd also point out that such a clause is hardly unusual in the insurance business. You'll see the like on all kinds of property and liability policies. To prove your assertions, you'd need to come up with a nuclear reactor which was constructed in an unregulated environment. ;-) Look, I'm not making claims one way or another. I'm simply suggesting that your claim doesn't seem very credible once one has applied some very simple logic. I could be missing something, but I think you ought to have some evidence to back up such an extraordinary claim. As someone else pointed out, your typical coal operation ought to have a higher incident rate and cost, which means it ought to be even more expensive... Realistically, you can calculate the costs without coming up with your silly example. It is sufficient to simply add up the costs needed to cover the disaster, and then look at the premiums paid for covering similar sized disasters with similar rates of occurrence, making your best effort to extrapolate over any gaps. Alternatively, speak with an actuarial who works in the business and they can extrapolate what the premiums would be. In a truly unregulated market, I'd imagine the incident rate would be higher and the recovery costs a bit lower, so it might be hard to get a real cost, but go for the costs in the existing regulated market. I have a hard time imagining they'd be prohibitive, but I'd be intrigued if you proved otherwise.

Eeko 14y ago

> The main difference is in my opinion the visible action - reaction relationship. If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie, while with coal plants you might have just people to "cough a bit more". Not really. Nuclear disasters are bad for the environment, but considerably less bad than say... Building a city somewhere. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.ht... And "cough a bit more" is probably the understatement of a day. Those fuckers even create more radioactive waste (which won't get collected) when they work as intended, than nuclear plants when they break down. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is...) You are on track with the insurance policy. Though it's pretty safe to assume, that real costs of coal and carbon-based fuels are not calculated very well for insurance purposes either. The end-point of unstoppable climate-change could potentially render the entire earth inhabitable via the Venus-effect. Even most apocalyptic local consequences are pretty minor compared to those.

moe 14y ago
Those fuckers even create more radioactive waste (which won't get collected) when they work as intended, than nuclear plants when they break down. How about reading your own linked article before making a fool of yourself with claims like that? It says coal plants create more radioactive waste than a nuclear plant that has not broken down.
- ori_b 14y ago
  It's true for common failure modes. Three Mile Island, for example, did leak less radioactive waste than a correctly working coal plant. The problem is that it's so politically difficult to build new nuclear plants so that old ones can be retired, that we're still using poorly designed plants from the 1960s that are already past their design lifetime. And then people are surprised that they're problematic.
  - fabjan 14y ago

zizee 14y ago

If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie Chernobyl is actually a wildlife wonderland now people can't live in the area. Animals don't deem to have a problem living in highly radioactive environments. They have more immediate issues than getting cancer. But for humans a nuclear meltdown is bad news. So its not through environment that suffers on the whole, more that it is no longer suitable for humans. But yes, the result of a nuclear disaster is much more dramatic in the short term, making it scarier than the same amount of damage that a coal powerplant dripfeeds.

stevoski 14y ago
Agreed. I visited Chernobyl two years ago, and in all of Europe I've never seen a place so verdant, and teeming with wildlife. The canal especially had many large fish.
- gritzko 14y ago
  Friend of mine studied mice in a nuclear disaster zone. Basically, mice adapted and there was no statistical difference compared to a control population (outside the zone).
DanBC 14y ago
> Chernobyl is actually a wildlife wonderland "Not scientifically justified". (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm) > But scientists who assessed the 1986 disaster's impact on birds said the ecological effects were "considerably greater than previously assumed". (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489 http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489) > "Many people come here expecting to see a lunar landscape, so when they see trees, and birds and a few mammals, they're surprised. > "They think, 'ah well maybe it's not so bad'. > "But what we're finding is that there is a significant impact on both the population and the biodiversity - the number of species - in the zone. And it's directly proportional to the level of contamination." (But the article mentions that this is a polarised debate, and that this is only one side.) Chernobyl Birds are Small Brained (http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/9387395.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/938...) Insects in decline (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm)

deepGem 14y ago

What about Thorium based Molten Salt reactors. According to this article, they are potentially safe. http://www.whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium.html http://www.whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium.html

coldarchon 14y ago

I call this my hot-plate-theory. You can't teach a kid not to touch a hot plate, it has to feel the pain to understand.