re: #119 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

My problem with nuclear energy is a purely economic one: it is artificially subsidized through a liability cap on potential damages. ($500 mil in the US €1.5 mil in Europe).

Like I said, people have been fed bullshit so much about nuclear power they just don’t know the truth.

Each nuclear operator in America carries insurance for about $11 billion per plant paid for by themselves. It’s a little more complicated than that (there’s a pool of insurance that goes up to $20 billion) but it’s close enough for horseshoes. After that amount is used up the government steps in (the infamous Price-Anderson insurance guarantee waved as a bloody flag by the bullshitters), just as they did providing last-resort relief for Hurricane Sandy where the insurers of property and such were overwhelmed by claims. I think the government paid up about $50 billion or so in disaster relief there because the private insurers couldn’t cover the resulting costs and many people had no or insufficient insurance cover to start with. The nuclear industry HAS to carry that level of insurance by law, no ifs and buts.

The biggest American nuclear disaster in terms of money is Three Mile Island and it’s still under the P-A insurance cap by a long way. The government hasn’t spent a penny in rectification at TMI unlike, say, the West fertiliser plant explosion that actually killed people and devastated a town. The plant operators weren’t insured sufficiently (or inspected or regulated the way the nuclear industry is) to pay for the damages and compensate for the injuries and loss of life. That’s only one minor industrial disaster in America’s long history, of course but the nuclear industry is treated specially because of the fear and bullshit.