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Potential Cost Of A Nuclear Accident? So High It’s A Secret!
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
Catastrophic nuclear accidents, like Chernobyl in 1986 or Fukushima No. 1 in 2011, are very rare, we’re incessantly told, and their probability of occurring infinitesimal. But when they do occur, they get costly. So costly that the French government, when it came up with cost estimates, kept them secret.
But now the report was leaked to the French magazine, Le Journal de Dimanche. Turns out, the upper end of the cost spectrum of an accident at a single reactor at the plant chosen for the study, the plant at Dampierre in the Department of Loiret in north-central France, would amount to over three times the country’s GDP. Financially, France would cease to exist as we know it.
Hence, the need to keep it secret. The study was done in 2007 by the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), a government agency under joint authority of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Environment, Industry, Research, and Health. With over 1,700 employees, it’s France’s “public service expert in nuclear and radiation risks.” This isn’t some overambitious, publicity-hungry think tank.
It evaluated a range of disaster scenarios that might occur at the Dampierre plant. In the best-case scenario, costs came to €760 billion—more than a third of France’s GDP. At the other end of the spectrum: €5.8 trillion! Over three times France’s GDP. A devastating amount. So large that France could not possibly deal with it.
Yet, France gets 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. The entire nuclear sector is controlled by the state, which also owns 85% of EDF, the mega-utility that operates France’s 58 active nuclear reactors spread over 20 plants. So, three weeks ago, the Institute released a more politically correct report for public consumption. It pegged the cost of an accident at €430 billion.
“There was no political smoothening, no pressure,” claimed IRSN Director General Jacques Repussard, but he admitted, “it’s difficult to publish these kinds of numbers.” He said the original report with a price tag of €5.8 trillion was designed to counter the reports that EDF had fabricated, which “very seriously underestimated the costs of the incidents.”
Both reports were authored by IRSN economist Patrick Momal, who struggled to explain away the differences. The new number, €430 billion, was based on a “median case” of radioactive releases, as was the case in Fukushima, he told the JDD, while the calculations of 2007 were based more on what happened at Chernobyl. But then he added that even the low end of the original report, the €760 billion, when updated with the impact on tourism and exports, would jump to €1 trillion.
“One trillion, that’s what Fukushima will ultimately cost,” Repussard said.
Part of the €5.8 trillion would be the “astronomical social costs due to the high number of victims,” the report stated. The region contaminated by cesium 137 would cover much of France and Switzerland, all of Belgium and the Netherlands, and a big part of Germany—an area with 90 million people (map). The costs incurred by farmers, employees, and companies, the environmental damage and healthcare expenses would amount to €4.4 trillion.
“Those are social costs, but the victims may not necessarily be compensated,” the report stated ominously—because there would be no entity in France that could disburse those kinds of amounts.
Closer to the plant, 5 million people would have to be evacuated from an area of 87,000 square kilometers (about 12% of France) and resettled. The soil would have to be decontaminated, and radioactive waste would have to be treated and disposed of. Total cost: €475 billion.
The weather is the big unknown. Yet it’s crucial in any cost calculations. Winds blowing toward populated areas would create the worst-case scenario of €5.8 trillion. Amidst the horrible disaster of Fukushima, Japan was nevertheless lucky in one huge aspect: winds pushed 80% of the radioactive cloud out to sea. If it had swept over Tokyo, the disaster would have been unimaginable. In Chernobyl, winds made the situation worse; they spread the cloud over the Soviet Union.
Yet the study might underestimate the cost for other nuclear power plants. The region around Dampierre has a lower population density than regions around other nuclear power plants. And it rarely has winds that would blow the radioactive cloud in a northerly direction toward Paris. Other nuclear power plants aren’t so fortuitously located.
These incidents have almost no probability of occurring, we’re told. So there are currently 437 active nuclear power reactors and 144 “permanent shutdown reactors” in 31 countries, according to the IAEA, for a total of 581 active and inactive reactors. Of these, four melted down so far—one at Chernobyl and three at Fukushima. Hence, the probability for a meltdown is not infinitesimal. Based on six decades of history, it’s 4 out of 581, or 0.7%. One out of every 145 reactors. Another 67 are under construction, and more are to come....
Decommissioning and dismantling the powerplant at Fukushima and disposing of the radioactive debris has now been estimated to take 40 years. At this point, two years after the accident, very little has been solved. But it has already cost an enormous amount of money. People who weren’t even born at the time of the accident will be handed the tab for it. And the ultimate cost might never be known.
The mayor of Futaba, a ghost town of once upon a time 7,000 souls near Fukushima No. 1, told his staff that evacuees might not be able to return for 30 years. Or never, for the older generation. It was the first estimate of a timeframe. But it all depends on successful decontamination. And that has turned into a vicious corruption scandal. Read.... Corruption At “Decontaminating” Radioactive Towns In Japan.
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The problem of disposing of the waste is entirely political. The solutions are well engineered and ready, just impractical because of 'tards.
don't forget that tsunamis like the one in Fukushima aren't that common - even in Japan
nuff said, I'm an old pro-nuclear guy that wishes we would finally get the newer generations online instead of those aging dinosaurs, who are often kept too long in the grid
dammit, some of those behemoths are based on a design of the 60's and built in the 70's
And when they came online, they were supposed to have a working life of 20 years then be shut down and decommissioned.
The rising sea levels will eventually swamp every existing NPP on the planet. When, who knows. But a map of the US on the net supposedly from the US Navy shows dozens of NPP's underwater, which will cause the same conditions at Fukushima:
http://tickergrail.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-navy-map-of-future-is-this-no...
Whether an old or new NPP design, there is no escaping the dangers of these rising sea levels. And the map is just the US. It affects hundreds of NPP's worldwide.
Safeguarding human life from a disaster has no line item on a quaterly earnings report. Only reserve for lawsuits after the fact.
A nuclear disaster is essentially guaranteed by the inverted value system of the custodians of safety.
The time for reigning in predatory corporations has past. Accept your role as prey and distract yourself.
We are well into the NPP break-down phase, like a 20 year old car, on most of these existing NPP's. The money, nor the technology, does not exist to clean up the mess.
We have doomed our children and grandchildren to a horrible mutated future. I didn't mention great-grandchildren for a reason.
Honestly, I do not know if NTI exaggerates...or not. But I do smell the stench of ...more gubmint. A new socialist meme is being born before our very eyes.
the cost of decommissioning of those 58 reactors in France has NOT been included in their current electricity cost, since over 40 years; this inspite of 3MI in 1979. France continued its nuclear program its head in the political sand, ignoring simple accounting principles as it was a STATE industry, 100% govt owned then.
At that time, the US industry stopped BRUTALLY construction of future nuclear programs, as the industry, which is prIVATE in USA, realised that these plants had a prohibitive cost for decommissioning unknown uptil that day, as also incidentally for safe nuclear used fuel disposal.
France pushed on but hid those costs not transferring them on to the consumer since 1979 to this day....
So....now post Fuku/CHerno, every french plant will have to have associated with it its decommissioning cost+ the decommissng cost of the PAST 58 reactors; costs which have been can kicked further down the road, by prolonging on a statutory basis the active life of the existing plants from 40 to 50 years, as it is felt these plants are safe...!
So EDF costs will NOW accelerate very fast between now and 2025 to play catch up ball JUST on this issue; not on the insurance cost of a mega accident type incidence.
Yes, boiling water with nuclear fuels does have an associated cost underestimed by both monopoly corpocracy industry and shifty politicians...
Not much room to run in Europe. On the other hand, French reactors are all of the same basic design. So far, so good.
The bigger issues may be waste storage and/or terrorism.
At the risk of seconding George, which I don't do often, Fukushima is probably getting worse. There's an entirely different set of reactors a few miles down the road which can't be handled under current conditions. It's not as if the plan is failing. Two years on, there is STILL NO PLAN.
Step right up...read all about it.
http://enenews.com/
"The bigger issues may be waste storage and/or terrorism."
Every nuclear power plant is nothing but a potential dirty bomb. I wonder if security at these plants is anywhere near proportional to the security at airports. Since 9/11 no president has addressed this risk directly.
There are 31 GE Mark I & II BWR NPP's similar to Fukushima in the US. They were designed by GE engineers in NYC whose focus was cost cutting and not safety.
The US allows 4x to 5x the amount of spent fuel allowed in Japan to be stored in pools, covered by buildings no safer than your typical Super WalMart with a tin roof.
'Fukushima: Mark 1 Nuclear Reactor Design Caused GE Scientist To Quit In Protest'
"The problems we identified in 1975 were that, in doing the design of the containment, they did not take into account the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant," Bridenbaugh told ABC News in an interview. "The impact loads the containment would receive by this very rapid release of energy could tear the containment apart and create an uncontrolled release."
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukushima-mark-nuclear-reactor-design-caus...
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Three
all french reactors with the same basic design....all prone to a StuxNet type attack.
I can't wait until they start dumping radioactive Fukushima water into the ocean. Oh.....wait!
<I'll take mine shaken, not stirred. And an olive please.>
Two legged or three legged olive sir ?
Speaking of food:
"...maintaining longterm restrictions on the production and consumption of foodstuffs may affect the sustainable development of the affected areas, and therefore calls for appropriate implementation of the optimisation principle."
"There may be situations where a sustainable agricultural economy is not possible without placing contaminated food on the market. As such foods will be subject to market forces, this will necessitate an effective communication strategy to overcome the negative reactions from consumers outside the contaminated areas."
U.S. ICRP Publication 111, p. 45
http://www.icrp.org/docs/P111%28Special%20Free%20Release%29.pdf
The US is not testing any food from Japan or Canada for radiation (Canada was hard hit with radiation, as was the US). We are not testing any domestically produced food for radioactive contamination.
What are you feeding your children, and do you think the government cares what's in it?
McDonald's & Wendy's has 'Fresh Northern Pacific Cod' sandwhich for $3.59!
We are really fucked if the stored waste that is still allegedly contained in water near Diiatchi stays starts to leak.
"According to the estimate by a group of researchers at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, it is possible that radioactive cesium in the amount 73 times as large as the discharge limit before the accident may have leaked into the water in one year since June 2011, when the leak of contaminated water is supposed to have stopped."
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2013/03/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-may-still-be.html
'Study: Up to 47 quadrillion becquerels of cesium-137 released into Pacific from Fukushima — Nearly 50 times original Tepco estimate'
http://enenews.com/study-up-to-47-quadrillion-becquerels-of-cesium-137-f...
Great post!!!
“The Risk of a Nuclear Catastrophe … Could Total Trillions of Dollars and Even BANKRUPT A COUNTRY”
"Could Total Trillions of Dollars and Even BANKRUPT A COUNTRY”.Obama did cost trillions of dollars - Obama is worse than a nuclear catastrophe. And we re-elected him. No wonder the nuclear industry is given a pass.
the proper way to measure this is BTU per death. then measure that against other available energy sources. if none of them meet your standards because you demand a utopia in which there is no negative consequence to anything ever, then the solution is simple: discontinue all energy use. that means no more posting on ZeroHedge......
alternatively, an analysis of BTU per death, as well as many other factors, namely energy density, show nuclear as a better option than most anything else out there.
"BTU per death".
In the US, this is infinite - how do you divide by zero. (I suppose would could include Karen Silkwood so that we could do the math).
........measure this is BTU per death.....
JFC are you pure evil? You made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Goose bumps and “hair standing up” are evolutionary hard wired responses when confronted with a perceived danger. What to do …… I’m thinking an ice pick into the eye then eat your liver.
<gulp> ... I'm kidding, stop looking at me like that.
"show nuclear as a better option than most anything else out there."
Nuclear power = extinction. No other energy source = extinction.
Fuck you.
Yeah, because we'd certainly be extinct if we couldn't utilise a dangerous power source that is only 38% efficient or less.
If only there was some other way to generate loads of electricity...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FA2H1HiL3o&feature=youtube_gdata
Maybe we could just dig a hole in the ground...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lu4ya0Qvlc
Or if it wasn't so difficult to generate Hydrogen...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjPVbRYERlU
Or maybe if we could pull electricity out of thin air...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnS4uwFALHE
Because no one lived in France prior to electricity? All you NEED energy for is to produce, transport, store and prepare food stuffs. Everything else is optional.
nonsense...you must be an economist...even an engineer knows better.
Well, actually, Fukushima is an Extinction Level Event, and shutting down any further nuclear power plants will only slow our descent into extinction.
It could be well argued that looking at the cost of just cleaning up the radioactive trash is so high that, on a diminishing cost basis, it isn't worth letting the human race survive.
Where not done with Fukishima by a long shot.
Little bit of hyperbole there, no? You really think all humans will die as a result of Fukushima?
This is an ELE in slow motion. Not eveyone alive today will die from Fukushima radiation. But it has already affected the world's DNA, mutations have already started, and in several generations we will run out of reproducable children.
Not every ELE is a quick one.
The human race is finished. Those alive and breathing on 3/11 have enough radioisotopes in their lungs to kill them, albeit slowly. There is no timetable, but it is a lethal dose. The genetic damage of all life was begun in earnest on 3/12/11, and all future generations of life on this planet will continue to mutate downwards. If you are elderly, you'll probably die from something else. If you are middle-aged, it's a crapshoot. If you are younger, enjoy what's left.
If you are thinking of having children, ask yourself if you are prepared to deal with the high probability of a defective child who you will almost assuredly outlive.
The closing of any NPP's will only prevent the acceleration of what is already happening. There will be no off-planet survival of the human race. This is our future, whether we like it or not. I suggest finding meaning in your lives wherever and however you can.Also consider that if there is a 2.5% chance of getting cancer a year, yielding 50% in 20 years, the kind of doomsday figure you are quoting, then the mortality rate of the human species would have risen 2.5% in the past two years, which has not happened.
Here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/10/us-mortality-rate_n_1953215.html
You can see in 2012 that the rate of deaths in the US is FALLING, not INCREASING, which tells us Fukushima, far from what the alarmists have said, has had ZERO net impact on the human species.
Yes it was bad, but it is not end game.
Not sure ZERO impact is quite right. We are seeing similar trends to Chernobyl here:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/medical-journal-article--14000-us-deaths-tied-to-fukushima-reactor-disaster-fallout-135859288.html
The human reproduction system is highly resistant to radioactivity. Generally the chemical toxicity of uranium, for example, is far more mutagenic than is resulted from its radioactivity, so even major contamination will not yield the end of procreation. A very large fall in the human population can be countered by a corresponding increase in the rate of childbirth.
Advances in microbiology and cancer detection should eventually make cancer a generally recoverable condition, except in rare cases. The time when complete organs can be grown from a few stem cells is getting close, which means organ transplant will become the de facto cure in the majority of cases
Cancers tend to have characteristic chemical signatures, and this together with advances in portable computing devices will likely make most cancers detected in the early stages.
Food, water, shelter and evil governments are the main worry for the next century.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/07/29/fukushimas-melted-reactors-500-d...
'Fukushima Equals 3,000 Billion Lethal Doses' “Dr Paolo Scampa, a widely know EU Physicist, single handedly popularized the easily understood Lethal Doses concept. “Lethal Doses” is a world wide, well understood idea that strips Physics bare and offers a brilliant, understandable explanation for all the physics gobbledygook Intelligence agencies and their respective governments use to disguise the brutal truths of the Fukushima Daiichi Disaster."
"Three thousand billion (3,000,000,000,000) Lethal Doses of Radiation means there are 429 Lethal Doses chasing each and every one of us on the planet, to put it in a nutshell. This is up from about 70 Billion Lethal Doses March 23, 2011. It is getting worse everyday without any intervention by the US and the other nuclear powers….”
"Note that the lethality of radioactive reactor cores goes up the first 250,000 years they are out of the reactor – not down."
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/05/28/fukushima-how-many-chernobyls-is... "According to Bobby1's numbers (http://optimalprediction.com/wp/excess-mortality-for-selected-us-cities-in-2012/) and CDC birth/death numbers, here's a rough estimate of Fukushima related mortality increases in the US: As of 2010, the US population was 308.745 million. The normal death average is just under 1%, with 2.437 million deaths. Bobby1's numbers put the Fukushima caused death increases at 7.75% additional per year, or just under an additional 200,000 Fuku-related deaths per year. As of 2010, births were at 4.4 million. With a 52% rate of gene mutation due to Fuku fallout (based on 'original' butterfly mutations, and we're all 'original', that's 2,288,000 babies born with gene mutations. The death rate will increase due to bioaccumulation, and the mutated birth numbers will steadily increase simultaneously. Within ten years, those of us left will all be sick, either from fallout or gene mutation. Who is going to take care of almost 23 million genetically mutated children? Who will be left to take care of any of us?" http://enenews.com/nbc-pretty-clear-gone-wrong-ecosystem-japan-researche...
Accurate numbers on this horrific disaster will never be known. There is no question, though, that every study in the field of radiation, even using an average of all available Fukushima studies, points to mutagenetic bio-extinction, within a few generations timeline.
Some of the effects on children:
"Thyroid cancers related to Chernobyl started appearing only three to four years post-accident (over 92,000 have now been diagnosed). Yet only 12 months post-accident in the Fukushima Prefecture, 36% of 38,000 children under 18 have been diagnosed by ultrasound with thyroid cysts or nodules (most of these lesions should be biopsied to exclude malignancy). This short incubation time would indicate that these children almost certainly received a very high dose of thyroid radiation from inhaled and ingested radioactive iodine."
This is from Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and a preeminent expert on radiation and children: http://www.helencaldicott.com/2012/08/the-nuclear-sacrifice-of-our-children/ Since the above article was written, the incidence of child thyroid nodules have increased to 42% of children tested. "Lijon Eknilang of the Marshall Islands explains her experience with the effect of nuclear radiation…I have had miscarriages on seven occasions. On one of those occasions, the child I miscarried was severely deformed – it had only one eye…they give birth, not to children as we like to think of them, but to things we could only describe as "octopuses," "apples," "turtles"…"http://psci3206colorado.blogspot.com/2010/04/jellyfish-babies-birth-defects-of.html
The problem is not 'cancer', it's DNA mutagenesis. There is no cure that will prevent the downward spiral of DNA mutations through the coming generations.
Women are more susceptible to radiation damage by almost a factor of 2, and radiation kills the youngest first, again killing the younger girls almost twice over boys:
http://www.rockthecapital.com/10/27/nirs-briefing-paper-atomic-radiation...
NIRS paper:
http://www.nirs.org/radiation/radhealth/radiationwomen.pdf
At present, 50% of all conceptions don't survive past a few days out of the womb. The damage to the remaining 50% is accelerating after Fukushima. We aren't going to populate our way out of this.
Don't get me wrong. It all started with the first atomic testing. Fukushima is only the 'straw that broke the camel's back'.
"His work shows that since the 1950s, in North America, there has been a 55% increase in cancer, when the statistics are standardized for the fact that people are living longer. Childhood cancer of the brain and nervous system - 40% increase since 1975; male colon cancer - 60% increase; breast cancer - 60% increase; brain cancer in adults - 80% increase; prostate cancer - 100% increase; testicular cancer - 100% increase; estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer -135% increase; non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma - 200% increase; testicular cancer among men aged 28-35 - 300% increase. In 1950, 1 in 20 women had breast cancer. Now it’s 1 in 8."
http://commonground.ca/iss/0210135/6_understanding_cancer.shtml
Omega Point cancelled for humankind.
Acceptance of the inevitable is freedom from fear.
Better luck next life.
"Word"
And the word is: Bioaccumulation.
I would suggest seeking psychiatric assistance.
How many BTU generated by a crematorium? Could be the way to go on soylent green energy.
Don't read this before dinner:
'Cannibalism in China Acceptable… If For Health'http://www.weirdasianews.com/2007/04/02/cannibalism-in-china-acceptable-...
All the more reason for France to get off the Euro. Then they can print all the francs they need. Problem solved.
Old people and rice. Yum