nuclear-news

Disaster insurance will kill off nuclear power, financially

Disaster insurance alone makes nuclear power uncompetitive The true cost of disaster insurance makes nuclear power uncompetitive, Ecologist Ingmar Schumacher, 6th February 2014 

From this we can conclude:

1. Nuclear energy becomes uncompetitive once the costs of completely insuring against disasters are fully integrated into its price.
2. Without full insurance, disaster damages will have to be socialized. Given the limited budgets of governments it will necessarily be the case that not all disaster costs will be compensated. We must ask if this is morally acceptable.
3. It is irresponsible to argue that nuclear energy is the solution for our CO2 problem. It makes little sense to rely on nuclear energy – which the ‘green’ economist E. F. Schumacher called an “evil of an incomparably greater ‘dimension’ than anything mankind has known before” – in order to reduce human-induced climate change, which is yet another evil of incomparably great dimension.

Fortunately there are other options available – such as wind, solar and hydroenergy – and we have to make full use of their potential, alongside other far-reaching changes in how we produce, store, distribute and utilize energy.

But first we must have a proper discourse on the true costs of nuclear energy, and fully analyze whether it really makes sense to include nuclear energy in our future energy mix.

……Ingmar Schumacher is an Environmental economist, with interests in cultural economics, sustainability, social norms, intergenerational justice, endogenous preferences. He is Professor in Environmental Economics at IPAG Business School, Paris.

See his website for more discussion on nuclear energy and other issues in green economics: http://ingmarschumacher.wordpress.com/ . http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2265605/the_true_cost_of_disaster_insurance_makes_nuclear_power_uncompetitive.html

February 7, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized