Dr. Rosalee Bertell
from No Immediate Danger, pp.244-245,
1985, The Book Publishing Company,
Summertown, Tenn."Insuring the Uninsurable"
While the uninformed citizen was slowly and trustingly learning to live with the `peaceful atom', the more realistic insurance industry, lacking actuarial data, was refusing to insure it. In the USA the clause `not covered in the event of radioactive contamination' was written into all property insurance policies. In order to protect the desired new industry, the US Senate enacted the Price-Anderson Act in 1957 to provide insurance for nuclear industries for ten years. The hope was that ordinary insurance mechanisms would be able to take responsibility for insurance at that point, as is the custom in all high-risk ventures. (The entire transcript of senate deliberations on the 1975 extension of the Price-Anderson Act is reproduced in vol 3, no. 1 of The Advocate, 160 Chace Avenue, Providence, Rhode Island 02906. The historical perspective on this nuclear subsidy is given in the same issue, by Doug Wilson, former Washington correspondent of the Providence Journal. R. I. Senator John Pastore served on the US Joint Atomic Energy Commission as Vice-Chairman, and later Chairman. It was he who `managed' the Price-Anderson victory.)
However, the Price-Anderson Act had to be extended and amended in 1965, 1966 and 1975. The present nuclear insurance policy in the USA, at tax payer expense, extends to 1 August 1987, assuring thirty years of federal insurance for the commercial industry.
Under the law, public recovery of damage from nuclear electricity companies is limited to $560 million and recovery from the nuclear manufacturing industry is altogether prohibited. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that a major nuclear accident would cost around $15 billion or more. Others have estimated damage at $17 billion to $280 billion from the `maximum credible accident'. Assuming a low-cost $14 billion accident, the victims would receive 4 cents on each dollar actually lost. Besides its financial inadequacy, the philosophy behind the Price-Anderson subsidy is seen by many as directly opposed to the free-enterprise system. Price-Anderson is a good indicator of how much the commercial nuclear industry is desired by the US government, and how much it is protected from the usual market-place demands.
Electricity companies operating nuclear power plants can purchase insurance from `insurance pools': Mutual Atomic Energy Liability Underwriters for liability, and American Nuclear Insurers for property coverage. No other home, automobile, property or business owner can be insured against nuclear accidents. Government-guaranteed liability coverage for te public has risen from $60 million in 1957 to $160 million in 1977. However, since for the same period the consumer index has risen by 281 percent, there is an actual decrease of 15 percent in laibility coverage when measured in ‘real dollars’.
…Meanwhile, the myth of cheap atomic generation of electricity was perpetuated. The hidden subsidies provided by governments were never included in the cost.
Dr. Rosalee Bertell