History

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

krazy kaju — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:21:08 GMT

Yes. I'd like to clarify something though: Nuclear power plants could exist in a free market, but only if the costs did not exceed the benefits. Costs include the probability of a disaster occurring and the resultant liabilities that the nuclear power plant owners would owe to victims. The jist of the OP, though, is "this is a free market disaster because greedy capitalist pigs didn't consider the damage that this could cause to others," which is bullshit, because anyone who is as greedy as leftists make capitalists out to be will take into consideration possible natural disasters &c. that could lead to a nuclear meltdown... unless, of course, the government protects against such possibilities.

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

skylien — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:11:53 GMT

krazy kaju:
- Cap on liability: "But the final nail in the coffin for the industry would be if the federal cap on the liability that nuclear power plant owners face in case of accidents (the Price-Anderson Act) were to be lifted." - http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9740

Thanks for this info. So I really misunderstood the Price-Anderson-Act when I read the first time about it. It also is a subsidy. What else of course...

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

Phaedros — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:59:27 GMT

You could say the atomic bomb was the result of science as well that doesn't make science bad.

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

Giant_Joe — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:44:21 GMT

Wasn't the Chernobyl incident a result of capitalism as well, since it was during the capitalist epoch of history?

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

krazy kaju — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:44:51 GMT

Does anyone else find it absolutely hilarious that while many free market proponents don't think nuclear power (at least in its present and past forms) will exist in a free market, due to the huge potential liabilities (making it unprofitable), that leftists blame every nuclear incident on, well, free markets?

Honestly, it's just pathetic. Nuclear power receives massive subsidies in every country it exists in. Just look at the Japan example above. Or look at the US with its loan guarantees and SEVERE restrictions on liability.

BTW:

- Federal subsidies worth $13 bn a plant - http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1812540,00.html

- Cap on liability: "But the final nail in the coffin for the industry would be if the federal cap on the liability that nuclear power plant owners face in case of accidents (the Price-Anderson Act) were to be lifted." - http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9740

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

krazy kaju — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:31:42 GMT

LOL, this is being discussed on another thread, here: http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/23378.aspx

The government's nuclear energy budget hovers around 500 billion yen ($4.5b). Private R&D investment (27 billion yen ($247m) in 2003) is well below 10% of government spending on nuclear energy, so clearly the government has provided huge subsidies to the nuclear industry. Without these subsidies, the industry wouldn't have survived.

The 2004 nuclear energy budget was 465 billion yen ($4.2b). If the 37 billion yen ($335m) allocated to accelerator and fusion-related work is deducted, this comes to 428 billion yen ($3.9b). Nuclear power generation in 2004 was 282,442 million kWh, so the government's subsidy to nuclear energy works out at 1.5 yen/kWh (1.38 cents/kWh). (Japan's nuclear energy policy is based on the fuel cycle, so the government's spending on the nuclear fuel cycle is included in this figure.)

from:http://cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit113/nit113articles/nit113cost.html

Seems like a pretty heavily subsidized, non-free market.

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

Chyd3nius — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:24:54 GMT

This isn't Chernobyl of capitalism, this is Chernobyl of mixed economy. Because we have tried Chernobyl of socialism too, it's time to try is there Chernobyl of Free Markets.

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

Phaedros — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:05:04 GMT

http://livingissues.com/2008/04/09/radiation-and-chernobyl-realities-at-last/

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

skylien — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:27:33 GMT

"Another glaring oversight seems to be the sea wall in front of the plant itself. Judging from satelite photos, and the tsunami damage, it seems to have been designed for deflecting high seas or high tide, not a tsunami - which is bizzarre. There have been 195 recorded tsunamis in Japan. "

You can judge from satellite photos the technical purpose of the sea wall and its shortcomings? Impressive..

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

ravochol — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:03:06 GMT

False dichotomy. I don't disagree with you.

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

ravochol — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:02:30 GMT

Another glaring oversight seems to be the sea wall in front of the plant itself. Judging from satelite photos, and the tsunami damage, it seems to have been designed for deflecting high seas or high tide, not a tsunami - which is bizzarre. There have been 195 recorded tsunamis in Japan.

I assume the reason is that it was cheaper therefore more profitable to build a tiny seawall.

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

Paul — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:13:47 GMT

Crap. I pushed the wrong key and deleted my reply. Can't be bother retyping it all, so this is a shorter version:

I'm no expert, but,

* "Lowering the fuel rods into sea water" doesn't make any sense. 1) They were already in water -- clean water, that wouldn't make essentially random activation products like sea water. 2) You have to keep pumping the water through a heat exchanger or it'll just boil off. 3) If the pumps were running, there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place. The EDGs failed and batteries ran out, so they couldn't pump sea water, either. (I assume you didn't mean to just eject the entire fuel and control rod assembly into the ocean...that might avoid the need for pumps, but it'd make a big environmental mess!)

* If anyone with a clue really thought there was "a 10% chance the reactor would burst", in any situation, they'd never have been built. The pressure vessel can burst without losing containment. What's supposed to happen in a meltdown is the core falls into a graphite bed under the reactor, in a thick concrete and steel shell designed to hold the molten core material indefinitely until forced cooling can be restored.

* There have not been "three reactor explosions"; at least two explosions were outside the reactors...only the buildings around the reactors were damaged. Which poses no danger at all. Not sure what's going on with #3.

* The original "radiation leakage" was just venting of steam to relieve pressure; the main radioactive material in the steam (before they started adding sea water) was nitrogen-16, which has a half-life of just over 7 seconds -- i.e., it doesn't get far. I don't know what's coming out now. Levels near the plant have spiked up quite high, but only for short periods (which makes me think reactor #3 is not breached). The media are reporting things like people getting "6 months worth of radiation in an hour" or whatever, trying to scare people -- when I was in university, after a physics lab to measure decay rate in a radioactive sample I calculated that I'd just taken 5 years worth of radiation in an hour ... and a pack-a-day smoker would still take more than I took that entire year! Someone posted a link to a Geiger counter in Tokyo; yesterday it had a brief spike to 200 counts per minute -- about half what you'd measure on a transatlantic flight -- currently it's barely above normal background (which is apparently low in Tokyo; compare this map of normal background levels in the US)

In short: it's not a good situation, but there's no need for panic. Even less so if you're not in Japan.

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

James — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 12:57:26 GMT

Now that there have been three reactor explosions, we can safely conclude that the government's estimate was superior to the industy's.

I'm sorry, what? The NRC refused to give the evil capitalist pigs permission to build the plant, and they did it anyway? Because they're so powerful and government is so weak, that the evil capitalists can just go ahead and do whatever they like?

Oh no, wait. The regulatory bodies all approved the plant. You're quoting what a single "official" allegedly said thirty-odd years ago.

Yeah. It's fairly well-known that state or international regulatory bodies make politically-informed decisions, and just have a few real experts around for decoration.

Allowing large amounts of capital to accumulate in private hands clearly sets the stage for bribery

That's like saying that allowing women to be physically attractive clearly sets the stage for rape.

It's somehow never the government's fault when they're consistently corrupt.

Of course this plant wasn't built by the free market, but if it had been, I suppose you can name who of the 39 million people in Tokyo shouldn't have electricity, or indeed should live there at all. It's just a statistic with socialists, isn't it? No matter how many million have to go?

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

bbnet — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 12:55:49 GMT

I didn't realize the nuclear industry was a product of capitalism.

If GE is at fault for a negligent design, surely they won't be held liable since they have already paid your gods for their sins.

If GE didn't have to bow to the gods perhaps they would have been forced to design a better product to earn the Nippon people's capital.

Re: Captialism's Chernobyl

Prateek Sanjay — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 12:48:43 GMT

Sorry, ravochol, but money does not buy influence in politics.

Else, Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina would have been a governor by now.