In Germany the maximum insurance liability for nuclear disasters is $2.5 billion. In the US it's $0.35 billion. Fukushima cost $800 billion.
This happened essentially because without a liability cap the entire insurance industry considers nuclear power to be ridiculously risky. So the government, who wanted to protect investors, stepped in.
I feel like a lot of people who dont know this want to educate me about how safe nuclear power truly is.
I was curious about this figure, found info here. Also, apparently the Price-Anderson Act which created the liability limit was passed in 1957, and there's a reasonable argument to be made that it no longer makes sense now that nuclear technology has matured: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/n...
> Over time, the "limit of liability" for a nuclear accident has increased the insurance pool to more than $13 billion.
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> Currently, owners of nuclear power plants pay an annual premium for $450 million in private insurance for offsite liability coverage for each reactor site (not per reactor). This primary, or first tier, insurance is supplemented by a second tier. In the event a nuclear accident causes damages in excess of $450 million, each licensee would be assessed a prorated share of the excess, up to $131.056 million per reactor. With 95 reactors currently in the insurance pool, i this secondary tier of funds contains about $12.9 billion. Payouts in excess of 15 percent of these funds require a prioritization plan approved by a federal district court. If the court determines that public liability may exceed the maximum amount of financial protection available from the primary and secondary tiers, each licensee would be assessed a pro rata share of this excess not to exceed 5 percent of the maximum deferred premium ($131.056 million); approximately $6.553 million per reactor. If the second tier is depleted, Congress is committed to determine whether additional disaster relief is required.
High end figures are 1 trillion. Those are pushing it a bit.
It's nowhere near as low as 200 billion.
Either way while the industry refuses to fully pay for its own risks or acknowledge that it does so its claims of safety via public relations channels are sounding more than a little disingenuous.
So you exceeded the liability cap by a factor of 100, rather than 400... I'm sure there is a person for which a 99% vs a 99.75% payment by the state makes a difference. But ...
And remember, "renewable" energy is really natural gas supplemented by wind and solar. There's no plan for a 100% renewable grid until some massive breakthrough in energy storage happens.
The Japanese government (and indeed, insurance too) is doing far more work than they should be. The standard should not be "fix area to how it used to be" it should be "take what measures are cost effective to improve area". But that's politically untenable.
Radiation levels around Fukushima are perfectly fine for habitation and would have been so even if nothing but basic post-accident reactor containment had been done.
Governments insure a lot of things, some that are arguably idiotic. The US gov insures people who build houses right on the coast. The homeowners couldn't afford private insurance since the expected costs would be astronomical. So the Gov steps up. Same with New Orleans, built on an unsustainable location. So every decade or so, the Gov chips in a couple hundred billion so people can go to Mardi Gras...
There is a world of difference between a cheap PR offensive that tries to convince the public that nuclear power is now safe and stepping up to shoulder the liability and costs if it is not.
So far the industry does a lot of the former and zero of the latter. Hell, the op eds about safety routinely coming from nuclear lobbies dont even acknowledge that taxpayers are 99+% on the hook if they fuck up.
Makes me feel even more safe that theyre now lobbying mainly to extend the life of old nuclear plants. What could go wrong?
That's not going to protect the investors. If a company causes damages beyond its liability insurance cap, plaintiffs can sue the company for the difference.
This happened essentially because without a liability cap the entire insurance industry considers nuclear power to be ridiculously risky. So the government, who wanted to protect investors, stepped in.
I feel like a lot of people who dont know this want to educate me about how safe nuclear power truly is.