China has decided to abandon old, unsafe designs like Fukushima and many reactors used in the U.S., and to use safer designs. See this and this.
And yet the U.S. – alone among the world’s largest economies – intends to go rogue … proposing loan guarantees of $36 billion dollars to re-start America’s love affair with nuclear energy and to build the first new nuclear reactors in decades. See this, this, this and this.
Remember, it is undisputed that nuclear power plants would not exist if operators had to obtain funding and insurance through the free market. Private insurers won’t touch nuclear energy. Investors run the other way, because the odds of losing all of their investment are so high.
No private company in the world would operate a nuclear plant unless the government put a very low cap on liability. In many parts of the world, governments cap liability at a mere $13 billion dollars.
If there was a free market in energy, nuclear power would be over … immediately.
And it’s not like things are safer in the States. Indeed, a nuclear accident in America could be much worse than the Japanese Fukushima accident.
The bottom line is that the entire world has turned against old-style nuclear reactors. America – as with the Iraq war – wants to go rogue.
The House will vote on the proposed $36 billion in loan guarantees as soon as June 2nd. If you want to stop America from going rogue on nuclear energy, call your representative in Congress and demand that loan guarantees for nuclear power be dropped … to let the free market work.
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