If this were true, fission plants would be insurable in the private market. Lives lost is not the only measure of safety. Or to put it another way, if something is safe, it does not have an uninsurable liability attached to it.
All kinds of big risky endeavors are insurable. Oil rigs are insured. Other power plants are insured.
Accident liability is not the only liability: Nuclear power plants uniformly cost a multiple of their estimated decommissioning costs. This leads to pressure to keep old plants running, just to put off that particular day of reckoning. And then there is a cost of waste storage.
When there is a normal market for nuclear power, like there is for a gas turbine plant, privately insured, with future costs bonded, then let's build some nukes.
I am optimistic it will happen, but not based on current technology. Nuclear power startups are a very good thing in part because relying on the old liability shifting approach probably will not fly. These have to have really sustainable TCO.
All kinds of big risky endeavors are insurable. Oil rigs are insured. Other power plants are insured.
Accident liability is not the only liability: Nuclear power plants uniformly cost a multiple of their estimated decommissioning costs. This leads to pressure to keep old plants running, just to put off that particular day of reckoning. And then there is a cost of waste storage.
When there is a normal market for nuclear power, like there is for a gas turbine plant, privately insured, with future costs bonded, then let's build some nukes.
I am optimistic it will happen, but not based on current technology. Nuclear power startups are a very good thing in part because relying on the old liability shifting approach probably will not fly. These have to have really sustainable TCO.