Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an 'emergency'

Re:Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an... by hannibal5 on Monday August 05, 2013 @03:04PM (#6162172)

The risks are small, but they are not so small that nuclear plants could get normal insurance from free markets. They have actuaries that can do the math. It all boils down to the expected value (= value*risk). Even if the risk is incredibly small the cost when the risk actualizes is so massive that it's deal breaker (alternatively, the cost of insurance from free markets makes nuclear energy too expensive)

This is why every country with nuclear plants subsidies nuclear energy with laws that limit the amount of compensation.

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Re:Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an... by jessriedel on Monday August 05, 2013 @03:13PM (#6162224)

> Even if the risk is incredibly small the cost when the risk actualizes is so massive that it's deal breaker (alternatively, the cost of insurance from free markets makes nuclear energy too expensive)

Do you have a cite for this? My understanding is that the risks from nuclear are simply too high variance (i.e., concentrated in a few huge events) for an insurance company to absorb, not that the expectation value of the cost is high.

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Re:Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an... by tome on Monday August 05, 2013 @03:29PM (#6162340)

I have friend who is a lawyer in the field of nuclear decommissioning. He said that contraray to what you might expect it's the small risks that are uninsurable, not the catastrophic ones.

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Re:Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an... by jessriedel on Monday August 05, 2013 @03:35PM (#6162388)

What does that mean? You mean large risks of relatively small costs? (Small risks of small costs are obviously not important.)

This is directly contrary to hannibal5's claim, correct?

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Re:Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an... by tome on Monday August 05, 2013 @03:53PM (#6162489)

My understanding is that there is a chance that a small accident could lead to small compensation payouts for huge numbers of people, and the number is so huge that private insurance won't cover it, thus the government has to step in.

I'm afraid this is second hand info, so I offer it for entertainment purposes only!

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Re:Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an... by marze on Monday August 05, 2013 @03:09PM (#6162197)

Ask the 80000 people made homeless by the Fukushima meltdowns how much the government or power company gave them.

It was a laughably small amount. I wouldn't expect any other 1st world country to much better.

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