Re:The world needs nuclear power and we shouldn’t be afraid ...
by bccdee on Saturday October 24, 2020 @11:03AM
(#24879616)
> The free market is pretty evidence based
The free market is entirely based on investor hype. We have economic downturns ever 7-ish years, like clockwork, because some bubble burst again. It's a fallacy to treat investors like rational actors.
The free market is pretty evidence based, so it would decide they are safe. I doubt the public insurance subsidy works the way you are representing it. They'd not insure against the risk of a catastrophic meltdown in a free market, the risk is too low. The "insurance" is probably more of a government tax on the assumption that there is latent risk. I'm not going to say that is unreasonable, but it doesn't have anything to do with how safe the industry thinks it is.
Consider Fukushima, the result of one of the biggest earthquakes in recorded history (Wikipedia says 4th largest [0]). Free markets don't bother to insure against that sort low-risk event. It would be like insuring San Francisco against the fact that it is on an active fault line - the market doesn't bother to insure against a risk that rare.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes#Largest_e...