Without ‘liability caps’ the #nuclear industry would have been dead long ago
After 60 years of nuclear power, the industry survives only on stupendous subsidies, Ecologist, Pete Dolack 4th January 2016
“……….The British government, for instance, currently foots more than three-quarters of the bill for radioactive waste management and decommissioning, and for nuclear legacy sites. Areport prepared for Parliament estimates that total public liability to date just for this program is around £50 billion, with tens of billions more to come.
Liability caps for accidents are also routine. In the US the Price-Anderson Act, in force since 1957, caps the total liability of nuclear operators in the event of a serious accident or attack to $10.5 billion. If the total is higher, as it surely would be, taxpayers would be on the hook for the rest.
As a further sweetener, the Bush II / Cheney administration, in 2005, signed into law new nuclear subsidies and tax breaks worth $13 billion. The Obama administration, attempting its own nuclear push, has offered an additional $36 billion in federal loan guarantees to underwrite new reactor construction, again putting the risk on taxpayers, not investors.
The Vermont Law School paper aptly sums up this picture with this conclusion: [page 69]
“If the owners and operators of nuclear reactors had to face the full liability of a nuclear accident and meet the alternatives in competition that is unfettered by subsidies, no one would have built a nuclear reactor in the past, no one would build a reactor today, and anyone who owned one would exit the nuclear business as quickly as they could.”
If we had a rational economic system, they surely would.http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986749/after_60_years_of_nuclear_power_the_industry_survives_only_on_stupendous_subsidies.html
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of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
Reblogged this on A Green Road Daily News.
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Why not call a Nuclear power plant exactly what it is? An almost 100 year income stream for its owners (Utilities and their shareholders) that keep ratepayers in “Energy Slavery” instead of allowing everyone to install as much Solar/wind as they want, choosing to gain “Energy Freedom” (once their initial investment is repaid). This will allow them to eliminate as much of their monthly electric bill and maybe even their monthly gasoline/fuel bill, by using an eVehicle that they can also recharge and make part of their personal Energy system).
In Germany, most generation is by private generation and everybody makes money on what they generate; you can be sure that Big Utilities don’t favor that happening in the USA…
BTW: There is a reason that Big Nuclear is spending over a billion dollars on PR this year. It is to get as many new Nuclear power plants built as possible, since once they are built, their ratepayers are stuck paying for them, at least until they revolt (pun intended) by installing their own solar generation! I expect to see the Energy generated by these NPP become too expensive to use, as business relocates to parts of the US that will allow them access to low cost Renewable Energy and they will take their jobs with them!
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