If we can't afford to upgrade safety at existing plants, how can we build more?

[upi402]

That's what I don't get;
If we can't afford to upgrade safety at existing nuclear plants, how can we afford to build more?

Insurance is so high it's out of the question. Damages are capped because energy firms hold our government captive. What's it going to take to wake people up? www.cnn.com polling had only 26% saying nuclear power should be reduced.

:wtf:

[OHdem10]

1. Right now as I type 2 Nuclear Plants are in process of being built

in Georgia. Saw this on PBS last night.

[msongs]

2. because the nuke industry is gonna get $48 billion in loans they will never pay back? nt

[Bluerthanblue]

3. if we can't safely deal with the waste- How can we keep creating it?

All the safety measures in the world aren't going to make the waste disappear.

As we're seeing in Japan, the spent rods are a BIG issue. I don't know what it's going to take to wake people up. Maybe requiring that the waste be stored in "everyone's back yard".

Forcing everyone to be vulnerable to the potential of disaster, might change some minds.

But I'm not gonna hold my breath.

[LuckyLib]

15. My now 97 year old Dad said this in the 60's. If you can't deal with the waste,

how is it safe for our planet? That question still has not been answered.

[Bluerthanblue]

17. my Dad did too-

he got his phd in Analytical Chemistry on the GI bill after he returned from WWII- and wasn't much of a radical, but on this issue he was. He worked with some pretty dangerous materials, and believed that using Nuclear 'fusion' would be a much better way of producing energy- if it ever could be successfully controlled. But even then, he said we needed to come up with a real solution for handling the waste, and was disgusted by the way we played the the "Tara Card" and chose to just forge ahead, and "worry about it tomorrow".

Your Dad and mine were/are right.

:hi:

[Statistical]

4. Nuclear plants do have private insurance.

$12.9 billion worth.

Who says it is expensive. The average premium is about $400,000 per year. Not bad for $12.9 billion in coverage. Insurance companies are saying the likelihood of an accident is very low.

[BeFree]

7. Government liablity limits first

Price Anderson law is the main insurance. You ought to know that.

Anyway, you have a link to your claim about 400k premiums or are you making up more stuff?
Hello!

[Statistical]

9. No govt liability comes last (and has never been used).

First) $375 million individual insurance policy
Second) $12.68 billion joint liability fund (funded by nuclear reactor owners)
Third) Govt handles any claims beyond that.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/funds-fs.html

[BeFree]

11. Yep

If they didn't first have the government subsidies the premiums would be so much more.

Probably uninsurable without first knowing the govt subsidies are in place.

[Statistical]

12. Why?

An insurance policy only covers the amount listed.

I have $50K insurance policy for my car. If I kill 80 people and face liability of $10 million that is no threat to insurance company. By contract their liability is limited to $50K.

Insurance company liability for nuclear plants is limited to $12.68 billion. Without govt backstop insurance company liability would be limited to $12.68 billion. Not a penny more.

The only people who lose would be victims.

[BeFree]

13. Is that 12.68B for just one plant?

One incident?

And since the Govt. is on the hook for everything above, that means the companies have limited - very limited liability because the govt promises to subsidize the rest, eh?

[Statistical]

16. So far it has cost the govt $0.00.

You claim was it makes insurance rates cheaper which is false as insurance companies would paid first so it doesn't save insurance company any money.

To date a total of $151 million in claims have been paid. All of it has come from primary insurance. Neither the secondary insurance pool nor the govt has paid a single penny. So to date it hasn't reduced the cost of operating a nuclear reactor at all.

It simply protects victims in the event of claims beyond $12.68 billion. All insurance is limited. The requirement for your car insurance for example. You could do more than $50K in damages yet the state only requires you to have $50K. Airlines are only required to have $10 million in insurance that is why the govt needed to payout claims on 9/11.

Nobody on the planet writes an infinite insurance policy for any industry.

[BeFree]

18. Ok

$1,000,000,000,000,000

If 1 million people file a claim against the Fukushima plant and each get an average of 100 thousand dollars. It will be a payout of 1 thousand trillion dollars.

12.9 B is nothing. But the hundreds of trillions is something. And if a plant near NYC goes Fukushima, well, .....

[k2qb3]

19. Math fail...

$100B, in your scenario.

[BeFree]

20. Thanks

Too many zeros for me.

If that is right, $100 B, the 12.9 B is nothing.

[kristopher]

24. The victims are last in line for compensation, the structure ensures the industry assetts

The study below put out by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows that the total of subsidies provided to the nuclear industry over its life exceeds the actual cash value of the electricity produced. The different colored dotted lines show the value of electricity during the time period they each cover, and the vertical bars show the total subsidy amount during that period divided by the amount of electricity produced.


Yes, indeed, the price of nuclear subsidies is worth looking at. Nuclear proponents will tell come back at you to say the subsidies per unit of electricity for nuclear are no worse than for renewables.

What they won't tell you is they are omitting the fact than nuclear power has received the lions share of non-fossil energy subsidies for more than 50 years with no apparent payoff; for all the money we've spent we see a steadily escalating cost curve for nuclear. When we compare that to renewables we find that a small fraction of the total amount spent on nuclear has resulted in rapidly declining costs that for wind are already competitive with coal and rapidly declining costs for solar that are competitive with natural gas and will soon be less expensive than coal.
http://www.1366tech.com/cost-curve/


In other words: subsidies work to help the renewable technologies stand on their own but with nuclear they do nothing but prop up an industry that cannot be economically viable.
Full report: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf




An independent economic analysis: Severance study:
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf

[upi402]

32. and we're early in the time period that we have to deal with disposal costs

Oopsie, forgot we have no Nuke-Away!

"could end up exceeding the value of the power produced (4.2 to 11.4 ¢/kWh, or 70 to 200 percent of the projected value of the power)."
-your subsequent post.

That's beyond most American's conceptual timeframe, so proponents have an easy time of BSing people.
I want to know if anybody really knows: How expensive will nuclear power be in the very distant end, per KWh? (kilowatt hour) How could they predict the disasters that WILL happen?

[kristopher]

25. What is "an unfair trade advantage"?

Despite the profoundly poor investment experience with taxpayer subsidies to nuclear plants over the past 50 years, the objectives of these new subsidies are precisely the same as the earlier subsidies: to reduce the private cost of capital for new nuclear reactors and to shift the long-term, often multi-generational risks of the nuclear fuel cycle away from investors. And once again, these subsidies to new reactors — whether publicly or privately owned — could end up exceeding the value of the power produced (4.2 to 11.4 ¢/kWh, or 70 to 200 percent of the projected value of the power).

NUCLEAR POWER:
Still Not Viable without Subsidies
Doug Koplow
Earth Track, Inc.
Union of Concerned Scientists February 2011

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf

[leveymg]

8. G-d, my car insurance is higher than that . . .

But, there is that upper limit on liability by law for nuclear accidents. Too bad Congress didn't vote to give me one too. That might explain a bit why the rates for nuke coverage are artificially low, wouldn't it?

Insurance companies are saying the public assumes most of the risk, not that the likelihood of an accident is very low. Statistical, sometimes I think you might be trying to intentionally deceive some people around here.

[Statistical]

10. insurance company pays out FIRST.

So they are saying the risk of having to pay out $12.68 billion is very low. Which would make the taxpayer risk EVEN lower (because they only pay out on the portion of claims that exceed $12.68 billion).

There is an upper liability for your actions also. You only have $50K in coverage (or whatever the state requires). If you have no other assets someone wronged by your negligence will be limited in their ability to recover.

The only difference is that you don't have $12.68 billion in insurance.

[upi402]

23. Invalid argument;: comparing turnips to oranges is invalid

If a private person who has no assets is a turnip.
And an energy firm worth billions that has enormous assets is an orange.

Then:

You can't get blood from a turnip... (broke ass private citizen)
But you can get blood from the vampire who's been feeding off US all... an orange ... (energy firm)

He can get sued beyond his insurance limits. Nuclear Energy firms are immune. That's a double subsidy; directly, and in falsely lower insurance rates as well.

[leveymg]

27. Actually, the insurance co. thinks the risk of a payout for a nuclear accident is pretty high.

I pay about $800/yr for $1 million liability coverage. The nuclear industry pays $400,000 for $12.68 billion in coverage for liability in case of an event. When you work out the numbers, that means that the nuclear industry is paying an effective rate for coverage that is about 4 percent that I pay for auto liability insurance.

In other words, the insurance industry calculates that the chance of a nuclear accident is four percent of the risk that I'll total someone else's car and cause a serious injury to another driver.

That means the insurance industry DOES see that there is a significant risk of a nuclear accident. They're apparently not as stupid as you think we are.

[fascisthunter]

14. .

[upi402]

22. The Price-Anderson Act is a gift that lets them off the hook for insurance rates

that would close the riskiest plants. But the risky plants get the same rate - subsidies in insurance costs they don't have to pay. That's how I understand it anyway, and what I was referring to in my lttile rant.
Thanks for the deeper understanding.

In the end, until they invent "Nuke-Away!" I think it's suicide on the lay-away plan.

[fittosurvive]

5. In many cases, it is less costly to start from scratch than renovate.

The means and methods of engineering and construction have changed considerably over time and these facilities were constructed many years ago.

As far as the opinion polls go: The public has been anesthetized by the exaggerated hysteria that accompanies each and every tragic event. They have heard the false cry of "wolf" many times before.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

6. now that's a good question

[Shagbark Hickory]

21. 74% of CNN viewer believe in the Easter Bunny.

It's true.
Rasmussen did a study.

[midnight]

26. K&R

[One_Life_To_Give]

28. Putting Air Bags and Crumple Zones into a Model T

Putting Air Bags and Crumple Zones into a Model T isn't effective use of money and/or resources.

It depends (famous engineering answer) on exactly where what the problems lie. Some things can be patched/retrofittd. Like replacing a furnace or water heater in a residence. Others might be more fundamental like a home cited upon Love Canal, where replacement/relocation is a much more effective solution for an individual homeowner.

[Jersey Devil]

29. Sure, but some things are not very technical at all

They are storing spent fuel rods in the outer vessel in many older plants, just like in Fukushima but newer ones store spent rods underground. That seems like something that while expensive could be done easily.

[Statistical]

30. The point is those are the oldest plants and the ones most likely to be retired.

Say it ends up costing $1B to retrofit one of the GE MK Is but the average plant only has a remaining lifespan of 8 years. That $1B cost is amortized over the power generated in 8 years.

Instead you could build a new reactor for $5B that not only has 3x the output (1400MW vs 480MW) but has a rated lifespan of 80 years, is more reliable, and safer. While the cost is 5x higher it is amortized over 240x as much power making it more economical.

Personally I think they should just shutdown the GE MK Is and this is coming from a pro-nuclear guy.

[Cleita]

31. For the same reason, we can't have universal health care,

feed the hungry and educate our children, but all of a sudden find the money to bomb Libya. Go figure! :shrug: