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From: dwr@ccieng6.UUCP ( Donald Wallace Rouse II)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.flame
Subject: Re: Nuclear power and the free market
Message-ID: <159@ccieng6.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Apr-84 00:38:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: ccieng6.159
Posted: Mon Apr 30 00:38:55 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 2-May-84 05:19:45 EDT
References: <2717@azure.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Consoles Inc., Rochester, NY
Lines: 51

XXX
>
>	If an enterprise couldn't last a day in the free
>	market, yet is massively subsidized by the government,
>	then it can hardly be said that the enterprise will
>	inherently make less money than a non-subsidized
>	enterprise.
>
>	Obviously, in a free market no one is going to invest
>	in an enterprise that won't make money, and that is
>	exactly why our government has "sweetened the deal" in
>	order to attract utilities to nuclear power.   Our
>	government has poured billions of dollars into nuclear
>	research and even, in effect, pays an insurance premium
>	equivalent to the total operating cost of each plant.
>	With incentives like these, it is no wonder why nuclear
>	WAS an attractive option to utilities.
>

Maybe I'm stupid, but I can't figure out *WHY* the government has
subsidized nuclear plants unless they expected some return from them
eventually.  (Of course, I can't figure out a lot of what the
government does.)  It seems to me that the reason so many plant
projects are failing is bad management.  If we could get people to
build plants who knew how to build plants efficiently (i.e. no cost
overruns, knowing how to deal with red tape), then these plants could
operate a profit (eventually).

As for the danger to the general public, I read (in Scientific
American's Mathematical Games or Metamagical Themas, I think) that
there exist devices which, over the course of ten years, claim the
lives of as many people as live in San Francisco.  Why isn't there an
outcry about these devices?  Why aren't they banned, or buried in red
tape?  Because they contribute to the welfare of the general public,
that's why.  These devices are called automobiles, and I must confess
that I own one.

I personally believe that less people would die in nuclear plant
accidents (even severe ones) than automobiles, no matter how prolific
nuclear plants become, although I must admit I have no real data to
back up my beliefs, other than the safety record of the plants so far.

As to the disposal of nuclear waste here is my solution (and I know I
am about to show my ignorance):  In the Atlantic and Pacific basins,
new crust is forming on the earth, welling up from the magma below.
This means that elsewhere on the earth, crust is being returned to the
deapths of the planet.  Bury the nuclear waste there.  It will
disappear forever.  Or does that take too long for the crust to
subsume?)

									D2