Background on the PRICE ANDERSON ACTby Sidney J. Goodman, P.E., M.S.M.E.
The Price Anderson Act is up for renewal in the next Congress. This law will leave the public holding the bag and carrying the coffin in the event of a nuclear power plant accident. Sooner or later, another accident will happen. The Act allows nuclear operators to cause hundreds of billions in damage, enormous loss of life and sickness, yet escape full responsibility for the consequences of their actions. The Price Anderson Act is the lynch pin for nuclear depredation in the United States and throughout the world.
If there is no credible risk from nuclear plants, AS IS ALWAYS CLAIMED, then there is no justification whatsoever for the mere existence of the Act. Yet, the Act remains as proof positive that the big guns in the industry do not really believe one word of their assurances about health and safety.
Imagine someone coming up to your community, smashing it with a wrecking ball, killing occupants and
walking away Scott free. That is in essence what the Price Anderson Act will allow nuclear power plants to do.The Price Anderson is a Federal Law, which excuses nuclear operators from most of the damage they cause. The Act is periodically renewed. Each time it is renewed, the nuclear lobby threatens to shut down every nuclear plant unless the Act is renewed. Congress has always complied with this pressure.
The Act will be up for renewal in the next Congress.
In the event of a nuclear accident, the Price Anderson Act will pay damages up to a limit of $7 billion for an event, which could cause up to $314 billion, according to an official government estimate. The estimate was squelched until the freedom of information act ferreted out the government report.
The Act establishes the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as the sole judge of who gets paid, how much they get paid, and the order in which they get paid. There is no appeal from what the NRC
decrees.After an accident, each licensed utility (US and foreign) kicks in a fee to divide the limited liability cost. A provision in an old renewal Bill, indicated that this fee might be reduced in the event that a second accident happens in a single year
There is a statute of limitation for damages. Most cancers will take more than 10 years to develop. Under the Act, after 10 years, a victim will not be eligible for a single penny.
Collecting anything (anyway) will be difficult. As what happened after the Three Mile Island accident, victims were told that they weren’t harmed at all. They were told that it was all in their imaginations.
As explained by Dr. Steve Wing, Associate, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, CB#7400, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC27599-7400, it is easy to design an “investigation” which proves that no harm is caused by an accident. Recently, another white-wash report, for Three Mile Island, was issued by the University of Pittsburgh. However, Dr. Wing’s investigation found that there has really been a cancer increase of 5x in the TMI region. Other independent investigations have reported severe harm from TMI, despite white wash denials by the industry..
Years ago, the constitutionality of the Price Anderson Act was challenged. The Supreme Court ruled that the Act was UNCONSTITUTIONAL, but, upon appeal, the Court ruled that it WAS constitutional because it was erroneously testified that nuclear power gives us unlimited energy.
Nuclear power does not give unlimited energy. It would appear that the court swallowed fraudulent arguments. A key report by Dr. John W Gofman found that there isn't enough fissionable uranium to support a greatly expanded nuclear plant program (unless we go to the plutonium breeder reactor...which poses hideous environmental, economic, and weapons proliferation problems). We import most of our uranium, because of its short supply. This is further evidence that nuclear power is NOT unlimited.
Sidney J. Goodman, P.E., M.S.M.E.
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