Talk:Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act/moderated/Archive 2

message: "In the United States, safety-related shortcomings have been identified in the construction quality of some plants, plant operation and maintenance, equipment reliability, emergency planning, and other areas. In addition, mishaps have occurred in which key safety systems have been disabled. NRC's oversight of the nuclear industry is an ongoing issue; nuclear utilities often complain that they are subject to overly rigorous and inflexible regulation, but nuclear critics charge that NRC frequently relaxes safety standards when compliance may prove difficult or costly to the industry."
"The consensus among most safety experts is that a severe nuclear power plant accident in the United States is likely to occur less frequently than once every 10,000 reactor-years of operation. These experts believe that most severe accidents would have small public health impacts, and that accidents causing as many as 100 deaths would be much rarer than once every 10,000 reactor-years. On the other hand, some experts challenge the complex calculations that go into predicting such accident frequencies, contending that accidents with serious public health consequences may be more frequent."
Translation: - at current rates, there is expected to be a severe nuclear accident in the United States during our lifetime.
"Nuclear Accident Liability
Liability for damages to the general public from nuclear accidents is controlled by the Price-Anderson Act (primarily Section 170 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 42 U.S.C. 2210). The act is up for reauthorization on August 1, 2002, but existing nuclear plants will continue to operate under the current Price-Anderson liability system if no extension is enacted.
Under Price-Anderson, the owners of commercial reactors must assume all liability for accident damages to the public. To pay any such damages, each licensed reactor must carry the maximum liability insurance available, currently $200 million. Any damages exceeding that amount are to be assessed equally against all operating commercial reactors, up to $83.9 million per reactor. Those assessments - called "retrospective premiums" - would be paid at an annual rate of no more than $10 million per reactor, to limit the potential financial burden on reactor owners following a major accident. Including three that are not operating, 106 commercial reactors are currently covered by Price-Anderson.
For each accident, therefore, the Price-Anderson liability system currently would provide up to $9.09 billion in public compensation. That total includes the $200 million in insurance coverage carried by the reactor that had the accident, plus the $83.9 million in retrospective premiums from each of the 106 currently covered reactors. On top of those payments, a 5% surcharge may also be imposed. Under Price-Anderson, the nuclear industry's liability for an accident is capped at that amount, which varies depending on the number of licensed reactors, the amount of available insurance, and an inflation adjustment that is made every five years. Payment of any damages above that liability limit would require congressional action. "
Benjamin Gatti
:So what's wrong with "Liability for damages to the general public from nuclear accidents is controlled by the Price-Anderson Act (primarily Section 170 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 42 U.S.C. 2210)." as an opening line? Simesa 02:58, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great Source for Both Sides 

message: "(c)  Indemnification of licenses by Nuclear Regulatory Commission The Commission shall, with respect to licenses issued between August 30, 1954, and August 1, 2002, for which it requires financial protection of less than $560,000,000, agree to indemnify and hold harmless the licensee and other persons indemnified, as their interest may appear, from public liability arising from nuclear incidents which is in excess of the level of financial protection required of the licensee. " FROM THE ACT
I would call $100,000,000 of damages a catastrophy - does Simesa want to claim that the act is not focused on large claims, or that 100M is still a small claim?
Benjamin Gatti
:Since reactors carry $200 million of primary insurance, according to catastrophe $100 million of claims might be a disaster but wouldn't be a catastrophe. Since Three Mile Island injured no one but resulted in $71 million in claims, yes I'd say $100 million in claims could be a small amount. Simesa 05:03, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  from liability in excess of the level of financial protection  

message: Ben's proposed first sentence was placed in the article, and objections asked for.  I object.  This morning I replaced it with Katefan0's proposed first paragraph which I, Katefan0 and I believe Woohookitty support.  Any deficiencies in it can be dealt with in the body of the article.  Simesa 16:59, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: First Paragraph

message: Since Simesa Replaced the Moderated Version with his own version, I took the liberty of modifying here and there. For the most part the facts are the same, but the qualifyiers tend to hide the effect. Price has a dramatic effect - it suspends state safety laws, it makes a nuclear accident far more likely to occur by encouraging reckless engineering, it imposes risk on taxpayers while providing profits for rich investors. If every industry was run that way - there would be no differnce between the US and The USSR. Car safety has improved impressively in the last 40 years - why? because people injured by a bad design sue the Crap out of the engineering firm - tough - but that's the cost of improvement - everyone else sees the award and says - we need to make sure our design is safe. In the Nuclear field, that has been defeated by Price. a nuclear accident would not result in similar lawsuits, and so the engineers have the luxury of passing on the dangers of their design to Joe Taxpayer/Victim. Hence the term "Deadbeat" - nuclear engineers don't want to pay the cost imposed by the risks they take - they want society to pay those costs instead - a spade is a spade. Benjamin Gatti
:I reverted it back to Ed's version from yesterday since it's obvious that Ben objects to Simesa's version. --Woohookitty 19:13, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well now I put the 2 versions side by side. --Woohookitty 19:46, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, car safety and reliability has increased due to competition.  This is also happening in the nuclear field - the new ABWRs are approximately 100 times safer than previous BWRs (due largely to putting the recirculation system inside the reactor vessel).  Also, passively-safe designs such as the ESBWR and AP-1000 are now available.  Finally, inherently-safe designs such as the pebble bed modular reactor are under research.  Your pov is again wrong. Simesa 23:27, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Following Suit 

message: Or the equivelent in the US.
Now image you read these two introduction to Price. One is pablum - the other actually informs the reader as to the exitence of a danger which is too great for industry to accept on its own, and it warns the reader that they are - out of luck - in the event of a disaster, and it has that - you've been warned - quality. The other is simply says nothing except rehease the governments doublespeak that "a pool of funds have been created" which sounds like reponsability = when its exactly the opposite. Benjamin Gatti
:Ben, we're not giving in. I wish you'd just compromise. We're not giving in to making this an opionated article. We need to come to a middle ground or else you're not going to get anything you want in the article. --Woohookitty 20:43, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Imagine you're a victim of Chernobyl 

message: "This page is 57 kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable; see article size." Anyone want to help archive? Uncle Ed 20:37, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
:I archived it a bit. --Woohookitty 20:49, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Archiving

message: Ed has asked me to respond to the accusation that I (Ben) have a vested interest and cannot therefore be neutral.
If you visit my talk page you will see 2 items, My interest in solving the energy problem (which is to say the world peace problem) without destroying the environment, and 2. that I have been arrested for picking up litter - actually for encouraging minors to pick up (advertising) litter. I am not afraid to act against accepted norms when those norms are immoral. In addition my wife's family has received the Chernobly Liquidator Award - and in a very real sence, my own daughter (3) was exposed to the radiation of Chernobyl.
Technically, I am not in the business, though I would hope to be. But more important, my objection to the 93% subsidies which nuclear gets is that nuclear energy for all that is still more expensive than wind - imposes a security threat - and cannot be used to solve the wider world problem because of proliferation and scarce resources. It is estimated that we have 30 years of uranium reserves. If the Chinese install 100 reactors, that goes to 20, if we install 100 more it goes to 15 - what are we going to do with half-used nuclear reactors? who will pay for the decomissioning? Who is decomissioning the plants now? Did you know it takes longer to decomission a nuclear plant than to build it AND RUN IT? (10+40) useful life vs. 100+years for decomissioning. Ed, I think an honest evaluation shows that everyone has a vested interest at ~ $1000 a month as a household energy budget (Includes energy in food, goods consumed and depreciated, services rendered, transportation, etc...) So my vested interest is not paranormal. Simesa on the other hand was employed by the nuclear industry - and wants the wiki to assert that a nuclear accident in the US would be on a smaller scale than chernobyl. I think Katefan has an interest in her pet topic - do we exclude everyone from having a fair stake as soon as we indentify a potential conflict? I doubt it - the Supreme court addressed this issue years ago and observed that only people with some stake and going to pursue the ends of justice, and so they should not be descriminated against for that reason. - I hope that helps answer the question. MyWebsite Benjamin Gatti
:I'm not sure why Benjamin feels it's okay to misrepresent my position, but I've said numerous times that I came here as a result of a Request for Comments posted presumably by Simesa. WP:RFC  My personal interest in this topic is marginal at best; I came here to help resolve the conflict between Benjamin and Simesa.  · Katefan0(scribble) 15:48, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
::In case it wasn't clear, I only suggested that "Kate" - "Fan" has an interest in her pet topic (Katherine Hepburn) - I much prefer her sister, but that's another story. What is relevent is that everyone comes into the world with a bias, and that we have to find neutrality in spite of our biases, and not start disqualifying individuals because of them. Benjamin Gatti
::This is obviously off topic, but if I don't correct this, Kate won't forgive me. :) Katharine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn are not related. I'm hoping you were just being facetious. :) --Woohookitty 19:14, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As usual, Ben's sources get their facts wrong.  The Shippingport Reactor was cleared to a unrestricted brownfield in 5 years .  There's plenty of uranium , and even if there weren't there's far more thorium.  And I have detailed cites for my desired assertion. Simesa 05:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflict of Interest