Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:...
by lucb1e on Monday April 10, 2023 @08:39PM
(#35519221)
> taxpayers will be fully on the hook for whatever the next Fukushima.
That's actually an interesting point. Japan etc. can raise that magnitude of funds, but the whole world benefits from countries that run on nuclear instead of coal and gas. Should we not all pay for that? For already-built reactors that's a bit late, but:
If there were a global standard for new reactors (which would obviously have to meet the minimum requirements of the most stringent participating country), multinationals could build to that spec without a lot of reinventing the wheel per regulatory environment as we do today, everyone would agree it's safe enough (presuming a safe environment; I don't know if a place like Afghanistan can provide that today), and everyone is equally (by GDP or so? TBD) on the hook for helping out if one of them has an incident.
Based on Fukshima being the only INES level >=5 incident in the past 30 years, and one of four since nuclear energy tech became somewhat established in the 1950s, on the hundreds of nuclear power plants that are still in service around the world (I don't know how many have been cumulatively, probably around 1-2k?), that would be stupidly cheap insurance per kWh produced.
That's actually an interesting point. Japan etc. can raise that magnitude of funds, but the whole world benefits from countries that run on nuclear instead of coal and gas. Should we not all pay for that? For already-built reactors that's a bit late, but:
If there were a global standard for new reactors (which would obviously have to meet the minimum requirements of the most stringent participating country), multinationals could build to that spec without a lot of reinventing the wheel per regulatory environment as we do today, everyone would agree it's safe enough (presuming a safe environment; I don't know if a place like Afghanistan can provide that today), and everyone is equally (by GDP or so? TBD) on the hook for helping out if one of them has an incident.
Based on Fukshima being the only INES level >=5 incident in the past 30 years, and one of four since nuclear energy tech became somewhat established in the 1950s, on the hundreds of nuclear power plants that are still in service around the world (I don't know how many have been cumulatively, probably around 1-2k?), that would be stupidly cheap insurance per kWh produced.