Voices

With nuclear power, fix has been in since the beginning

Good editorial, although I think it's a bit harsh to the anti-nuclear side.

If you really know about nuclear power, then you know that it couldn't be insured privately, so the U.S. Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act in 1957, which put taxpayers on the hook for any disaster. Otherwise, no insurance company was going to offer rates that would make nuclear power even remotely affordable. So the fix has been in from the beginning.

Vermont Yankee employees have to lose their jobs, which is bad, both for them and for the region's economy, but those jobs were subsidized by the U.S. taxpayers, and as such were much more expensive jobs than anyone really realized.

I find it amusing that people who are pro-nuclear power are often anti-socialism and pro-free-market. Without socialistic subsidies, nuclear power would never have been commercialized. The big lie is that nuclear power is safe. If it were safe, it could get insurance. It can't.

Actuaries are smart, and they obey math, not wishful thinking. That's all I need for evidence.

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