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A comment on First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation. Parent comment

Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera... by pas on Thursday December 28, 2023 @10:17AM (#38794191)
Yes, and the safety conscious approach is great, and aviation and medicine are a pretty good examples, they can be safe and cheap at the same time. (Notwithstanding the usual [and rightful!] grumbling about the FDA, and the Boeing/FAA MCAS fuckup.)

The ROI is not there because other forms of electricity generation didn't have to pay for most of their externalities[1], and people don't give a damn about actual safety profile, or mid-long term overall costs, it's simply the usual sentimentalism-theater.

> Oh think of the nuclear waste, oh think of the poor little spent fuel rods leaking into our puppies' drinking water, oh think of all the horrible unspeakable tragedies we will get when every Monday Chernobyl repeats but worse, Fridays are for Fukushimas, and the rest of the weekdays are for all the usual GreenPeace-made-up dangers. But of course instead currently, of course, we enjoy the peaceful and prosperous energy abundance granted to us by ... checks notes ... the same geniuses who delivered the just one-more-lane will solve the traffic jams for sure hit comedy series, the single-family house exclusive rated 10/10 absolute heavens on Earth[2], healthcare as an investment [3], but muh guns [4], and so on.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

[2] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Largo,+FL,+USA/@27.9213946... whatever the hell is going on here :o

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38773426 private equity takeover is amazing for hospitals(' profitabilty)

[4] https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2017/special-report/u... muh guns and muh freedum to leave guns in not-even-locked cars to get stolen

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera... by hef19898 on Thursday December 28, 2023 @10:45AM (#38794534)
What are you even talking about? and what have guns to do with any of that? Or Greenpeace? After all, it is a well known fact that NPPs are uninsureable, always have been. Because insurance compabies are extremely good at running risk-premium-profit models, and those all tell the same thing: don't offer insurance for NPPs above very small amounts that are nowhere near enough to cover a serious accident.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera... by pas on Thursday December 28, 2023 @02:52PM (#38797803)
I'm talking about the usual failure of policy-through-populism. Nuclear energy is in the same category as those I mentioned.

Uninsurable at what price? If NPPs work without insurance, maybe it's irrelevant anyway. (Especially since private parties hardly can just run their own NPPs, and states already run them or allow them to be run without insurance.)

That said I don't know whether residents near NPPs have a higher preimum because of the plant. Or even whether they can get policies from insurers. But if they can, then insurance already does underwrite some of the costs of potential accidents.

[ Parent | on HN ]