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The Other Nuclear Power Subsidy ? A Liability Cap

By Joe Consumer

With all the hoopla about the resurgence of nuclear power thanks to the President?s announcement of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for Georgia's Vogtle plant, there?s a lot of talk about whether the federal government should be backing a technology that carries such economic and safety risks, that Wall Street itself has avoided it for 30 years.  Now that the government has stepped in, it?s the taxpayers and ratepayers who will end of paying for a lot of this. 

But loan guarantees aren?t the only potential subsidy from which this industry benefits.  Since the 1950s, when it passed the Price Anderson Act, Congress put a cap on the liability of the nuclear industry in the event of a major accident.  So if there?s anything like, say, the Chernobyl disaster (the 1986 accident in the Ukraine where the containment structure couldn?t hold an explosion causing lethal radiation to spill out killing thousands, harming hundreds of thousands and rendering hundreds of square miles uninhabitable), the industry won?t be responsible beyond a relatively small amount.  Taxpayers will.  In other words, if the nuclear power industry were fully responsible for the health and safety risks of these plants, the industry wouldn?t exist. 

A major accident won?t happen now, some may say.  These new reactors are safe and companies have learned their lesson ? they won?t cut safety corners like they used to when, for example, the company running the Three Mile Island reactors was indicted and pled guilty for creating conditions that caused the worst commercial nuclear accident in this country (so far)?  Well, let?s just say they are not off to a great start.

The type of plant proposed for Georgia, built by Westinghouse, has run into trouble with its ?Safety Shield Building?, which is supposed to protect the reactor from tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes and airplane crashes, as well as keep large amounts of radiation contained in the event of an accident. In an effort apparently to save money, this building design ?features modual construction ? bringing prefab components to the site, rather than construction of the Safety Shield Building on-site from the ground-up.?   On October 15, 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a letter to the company, saying this design raises major safety concerns.

Perhaps designs for the sake of expediency and trouble acknowledging problems may still be with us. Calling these reactors ?our poster child for how to do it right,? an industry representative said, as reported by ABC News, ?NRC concerns with the shield building have been resolved to [his] knowledge."  The NRC says no.  We?ll see.  However, never to be resolved are a few other problems, like the fact that reactors are operated by human beings who can make mistakes. They are still dependent on a highly complex technology, which is vulnerable to failure for any number of reasons. And they all contain lethal radioactive fuel, which can melt.

Full post as published by ThePopTort on February 19, 2010 (boomark / email).