Re:The booming business of knitting together the world’s ele...
by gambiting on Sunday October 17, 2021 @04:42PM
(#28899619)
That's just one of few reasons why nuclear power plants shouldn't be owned by private corporations. They should be owned and ran by national operators, so then you don't have the issue of insurable events or worry about private operators not paying for decommissioning the plants at the end of their livespan. Power generation is a matter of national security, so nations should be paying for those plants from the national budget.
Re:The booming business of knitting together the world’s ele...
by Arnt on Sunday October 17, 2021 @05:23PM
(#28899917)
Worry about insurable events doesn't go away — the central bank can only print money as long as trust in the currency stays, and that trust isn't infinite.
Re:The booming business of knitting together the world’s ele...
by dragonwriter on Sunday October 17, 2021 @05:27PM
(#28899945)
> the central bank can only print money as long as trust in the currency stays, and that trust isn't infinite.
The central bank can print money without bound. Some of the effects of money printing changes with confidence in the currency, but the core effects that it targets don't really change until people radically change behavior to reduce use of the currency as a medium or even measuring stick for routine transactions.
Re:The booming business of knitting together the world’s ele...
by Arnt on Sunday October 17, 2021 @05:43PM
(#28900069)
If people stop treating it as money, then is the thing the central bank prints still money? It can print more of the thing, sure.
Anyway, this isn't relevant to my argument upstream — it just changes the reason why nuclear reactors aren't properly pricable in our market economy, from "can't be insured due to worst case" to "worst case can destroy the currency". (It also doesn't rule out other argumens, pro or contra.)
The possible liability from a nuclear accident so large that it basically isn't insurable, because insurance agencies won't promise to pay a sum that large. A dam may be located in such a spot that the worst-case liability is insurable, ie. the electricity can be fairly and properly priced in our present model of society.
(Not necessarily. If the dam could flood Paris and the smaller cities further down the Seine, insurance agencies might refuse to insure that one fully, of course.)