Comment by ViewTrick1002
1 day ago
Ah sorry. The previous versions of Lazard didn't include that. Final waste storage nor accident insurance are included though.
> (4) Unless otherwise indicated, the analysis herein does not reflect decommissioning costs, ongoing maintenance-related capital expenditures or the potential economic impacts of federal loan guarantees or other subsidies.
Even when including the entire fleet the pool is nothing compared to the $200B cleanup bill for Fukushima, last updated in 2016, with recent estimates going up to trillions.
Lets just phase out the Price-Anderson act and force the nuclear companies to buy insurance for a Fukushima scale accident from commercial insurers?
But the nuclear industry is just handout after handout and it still costs a horrifying $190/MWh to build and doesn't deliver until the mid 2040s.
> No US accident has ever tapped the secondary liability pool.
No Japanese accident ever tapped the "secondary liability pool" until Fukushima. No Soviet accident ever tapped the "secondary liability pool" until Chernobyl.
Sounds like you just want to bury your head in the sand and pretend that nuclear accidents can't happen.
Just slice every industry into a tiny enough sliver and pretend it is not affected. Just like people complaining that we can't do anything about our emissions "because China".
Unless otherwise noted! The cost per kilowatt hour for the federal waste disposal fund is .1 cents, btw.
It was not noted. Therefore not included in those previous figures.
Still no final storage in sight. 0.1 cents per kWh sounds like it is wildly underfunded.
In Sweden, which has started to build its final waste storage, the cost is 1 cent per kWh for the existing fleet to have all its waste stored.
1 cent per kWh is massive when your competition in renewables comes in at 3-5 cents per kWh for their total all in costs.
I also love how you completely skipped over the accident insurance. Why don't you want to privatize the nuclear accident insurance? Because you know that the entire industry would shut down over night or run without insurance?
> It was not noted. Therefore not included in those previous figures.
I understand your comment now. I thought the quote was intended to support what you were saying previously, not to illustrate the previous version of the report that you relied upon.
> 0.1 cents per kWh sounds like it is wildly underfunded.
We need a big final waste storage facility for the US no matter what, and the commercial waste doesn't make it too much bigger. A cent per kilowatt-hour is plausible for the marginal cost of storing more waste.
> I also love...
I'm choosing to talk about one thing at a time.
I notice that you're trying to talk a little more respectfully and I appreciate it-- but phrasing like this still grates a little bit. You don't need to address me (and indeed, I don't need to address you other than asking you to be nice)-- just address the facts.
> I also love how you completely skipped over the accident insurance. Why don't you want to privatize the nuclear accident insurance? Because you know that the entire industry would shut down over night or run without insurance?
The federal government is the insurer of last resort in basically any industry that can create outsized losses (water projects/hydroelectric, aviation, hazmat, etc.) And bounds that risk in a couple of ways: first requiring insurance and risk pools in those industries, and second by regulating those industries to reduce the chance of an accident. I think we could have a safer industry with a lower LCOE with some regulatory requirements lowered and with insurance requirements raised, but this is the operating point that our society has chosen.
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