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0 pointscrote3y ago0 comments

Unfortunately your examples have been litigated in practice already, and reality does not agree with you. See for example [0], which is a nice writeup on the liability for dam failure. As it turns out, there are very few cases in which the operator would not be liable. Similarly, Pacific Power has been sued for wildfires in Colorado, and PG&E even plead guilty to manslaughter in the Paradise fire - and had to file for bankruptcy after being faced with a $30bn liability.

Those companies can and should be held responsible for the damages they cause. You can't just privatize all the profits and leave all the losses to the government! If you want to do something so dangerous nobody is willing or even able to insure you, you should not be allowed to do it.

[0]: https://damsafety.org/sites/default/files/files/Legal%20Liab...

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belorn3y ago· 2 in thread

The Oroville Dam in California had a failoure in 2017 leading to the evacuation of 188,000 people. Who paid for that? See for example [0], were a very low estimate ends up around 1 billion with the Federal Emergency Management Agency expecting to pay around 75% of that. Who and what funds that department?

When a company files for bankruptcy the result is a legal process where the company seeks relief from debt. PG&E caused California second biggest wild fire named "Camp Fire" which destroyed 1,329 structures, and burned 963,309 acres, with an estimated cost of $16bn. The next year they caused a second wild fire, and yes they did get sued for that. They are estimated to have caused over 40 wild fires.

In the bankruptcy filing that got accepted by the judge they might be paying $13.5 billion for all of the wildfires, with half of that being paid as "stocks" in the company (for how much that is worth). All the remaining costs of the wildfires will be carried by the victims. Since September 30 this year the total amount PG&E has actually paid is $5.08 billions.

If one of Californias nulcear power plant would explode tomorrow with the effect of 40 wild fires then the result would be identical to PG&E. They would be sued, they would file for bankruptcy, and then a portion of the true costs will be paid out. That is reality regardless of what you thought it was.

[0]: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article165448747.html

Retric3y ago

The Oroville Dam was built by California Department of Water Resources primarily for water supply and flood control with electricity generation effectively a useful byproduct.

As a California government agency it’s self insured by the state government, which is a very different situation than a private company building a power plant exclusively to generate power.

As to bankruptcy, insurance is normally required. Wildfires are an odd case because unlike nuclear the people who suffer damage are partially responsible for failing to mitigate risks as eventually fires will happen.

belorn3y ago

That is just exceptionalism. People view floods and fire as natural events even when they are directly caused by humans. Risk is risk. Insurance and regulations on energy production should be technology neutral. If technology X put $100 risk on society per 1TW/h, and a regulation targeting them reduces that to $1 per 1TW/h, then what technology X is doesn't matter. It is a risk that is carried by society and society has a responsibility to protect itself by balancing the benefit of risk reducing regulations with potential drawbacks.

Who is the primary owners in a power company matter very little. In many countries, especially in EU, the government tend to be the majority owners in power companies operating nuclear power plants. It doesn't change the risk factors.

Also I would never blame victims of flooding or wildfires. People who choose to live downstream of a hydro power dam, or chooses to live in areas with high risk of wild fires, has just as much power as people who choose to live next to a nuclear power station. If operators of dangerous and critical infrastructure do a bad job then the blame tree start with the owners and trickles down to each leaf.

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subradios3y ago

That is not what is being said. What is being said is that there are two factors to nuclear accidents: 1. The actual costs of containment, cleanup, repair. 2. The arbitrarily imposed costs to satisfy a terrified public.

For power generation, humans just need electricity. This requires large networks of high voltage lines crisscrossing the country. Those lines will start wildfires at some rate X. A utility cannot survive being liable for all damages by that wildfire.

So what you do - is everyone buys insurance and the government sets "best practice" regulations designed to reduce X to a number considered reasonable. Investigations that result in litigation are usually what happens when the company has clearly violated best practice.

The problem with all things nuclear is that our vision of acceptable number and severity of nuclear incidents is that it needs to be negative.

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