2 ms·

At least in the US such costs are factored in. First of all, after Fukushima, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) performed a huge "Lessons learned" exercis

At least in the US such costs are factored in. First of all, after Fukushima, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) performed a huge "Lessons learned" exercise, and asked all the power plants to do various upgrades. Here are some links [1], [2]. The ask was not "pretty please, can you do this if it's not much of a trouble for you", it was "you have to do this by this date if you want to continue to operate". Second, it's the nuclear insurance. The scheme is codified in the Price-Anderson Act [3]. Basically, all the nuclear power plants need to purchase insurance for $0.5 BN per reactor. If anything happens, and the cleanup costs exceed this number, then the rest of the industry has to chime in, and the total is up to $16 BN per reactor. So, if 3 reactors were to have a core meltdown, the industry would have to pay close to $50 BN. The total estimate of the Fukushima cleanup stands currently at about twice that, so one can say that $50 BN is too little, but it certainly is not nothing. Edit: the efficacy of the Price-Anderson Act was tested at the Three-Mile Island. Virtually no taxpayer money was used in the cleanup [4]. Of course, there were other costs incurred, such as in collecting data, doing investigations, upgrading regulations and enforcing them, but that's how Government should work. [1] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2132/ML21322A288.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2132/ML21322A288.pdf [2] https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/fukushima.html https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/fukush... [3] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10821 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10821 [4] https://www.gao.gov/products/117345 https://www.gao.gov/products/117345

Kon5ole 2y ago
>At least in the US such costs are factored in According to [3] the industry is liable for 16b per reactor but the industry doesn’t have that much money to pay out. Entergy for example operates its nuclear plants in a subsidiary that generates about 100 million in revenue per year. They would have to raise the price of nuclear electricity by orders of magnitude to gave any chance of paying 16 bn, let alone the 10x more for a Fukushima-esque incident. So when things go pearshaped the operators will undoubtedly go bankrupt, and since the cleanup is very mandatory the taxpayers end up paying basically everything. Also consider who has paid for the decades long paperwork around Yucca mt, who pays the military that has had guards stationed at closed plants for decades (rancho seco) and so on and so forth. In short, even in the US, the hidden costs of nuclear power are immense.
- credit_guy 2y ago
  > the operators will undoubtedly go bankrupt I think you are under the impression that if a company files for bankruptcy they can discharge debts they owe to the government. Good luck with that. They will get their power plants sold to the highest bidder, and the proceeds will be used to pay whatever cleanup cost they owe under the Price-Anderson act. Here's a link to a story that BP paid more than $60 BN for the cleanup related to the Deepwater Horizon spill [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/world/bp-deepwater-horizon-costs-balloon-to-65-billion-idUSKBN1F50O5/ https://www.reuters.com/article/world/bp-deepwater-horizon-c...
  - Kon5ole 2y ago
    >I think you are under the impression that if a company files for bankruptcy they can discharge debts they owe to the government. No impressions here, surely you realize that if a company has no money, they won't get money just because the government demands it. >Here's a link to a story that BP paid more than $60 BN for the cleanup related to the Deepwater Horizon spill [1]. But BP has lots of money. Nuclear operators don't.
    - credit_guy 2y ago
      They have no money but they have assets that can be seized and sold.

Kon5ole 2y ago

>At least in the US such costs are factored in According to [3] the industry is liable for 16b per reactor but the industry doesn’t have that much money to pay out. Entergy for example operates its nuclear plants in a subsidiary that generates about 100 million in revenue per year. They would have to raise the price of nuclear electricity by orders of magnitude to gave any chance of paying 16 bn, let alone the 10x more for a Fukushima-esque incident. So when things go pearshaped the operators will undoubtedly go bankrupt, and since the cleanup is very mandatory the taxpayers end up paying basically everything. Also consider who has paid for the decades long paperwork around Yucca mt, who pays the military that has had guards stationed at closed plants for decades (rancho seco) and so on and so forth. In short, even in the US, the hidden costs of nuclear power are immense.

credit_guy 2y ago
> the operators will undoubtedly go bankrupt I think you are under the impression that if a company files for bankruptcy they can discharge debts they owe to the government. Good luck with that. They will get their power plants sold to the highest bidder, and the proceeds will be used to pay whatever cleanup cost they owe under the Price-Anderson act. Here's a link to a story that BP paid more than $60 BN for the cleanup related to the Deepwater Horizon spill [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/world/bp-deepwater-horizon-costs-balloon-to-65-billion-idUSKBN1F50O5/ https://www.reuters.com/article/world/bp-deepwater-horizon-c...
- Kon5ole 2y ago
  >I think you are under the impression that if a company files for bankruptcy they can discharge debts they owe to the government. No impressions here, surely you realize that if a company has no money, they won't get money just because the government demands it. >Here's a link to a story that BP paid more than $60 BN for the cleanup related to the Deepwater Horizon spill [1]. But BP has lots of money. Nuclear operators don't.
  - credit_guy 2y ago
    They have no money but they have assets that can be seized and sold.