Umm...well, for one thing, the waste stream from nuclear power has yet to be captured even under the ageis of a "public utility" model of nuclear power.

We're still arguing over where and how to store this poison (cf. Nevada and here in the 48th soviet of Washington--mostly defense related, but the same problem)---much less how to clean up the mess.

I know the state supported right wing "thought police" will be on me for posting this, but here is alternative to whining about Jane Fonda.

"Électricité de France (EDF) is the main electricity generation and distribution company in France. It was founded on April 8, 1946 as a result of the nationalisation of a number of electricity producers, transporters and distributors by the Communist Minister of Industrial Production Marcel Paul. Until November 19, 2004 it was a government corporation, but it is now a limited-liability corporation under private law (société anonyme). The government plans to float 30% of its shares on the stock market by the end of 2005, and retain 70% government ownership."

"France has 59 nuclear reactors operated by Electricité de France (EdF) with total capacity of over 63 GWe, supplying over 430 billion kWh per year of electricity, 78% of the total generated there. In 2005 French electricity generation was 549 billion kWh net and consumption 482 billion kWh - 7700 kWh per person. Over the last decade France has exported 60-70 billion kWh net each year and EdF expects exports to continue at 65-70 TWh/yr.

The present situation is due to the French government deciding in 1974, just after the first oil shock, to expand rapidly the country's nuclear power capacity. This decision was taken in the context of France having substantial heavy engineering expertise but few indigenous energy resources. Nuclear energy, with the fuel cost being a relatively small part of the overall cost, made good sense in minimising imports and achieving greater energy security.

As a result of the 1974 decision, France now claims a substantial level of energy independence and almost the lowest cost electricity in Europe. It also has an extremely low level of CO2 emissions per capita from electricity generation, since over 90% of its electricity is nuclear or hydro."

FWIW: There was one of those about the film specials on the AMC network earlier this week on The China Syndrome. The always insightless Michael Medved was one of the commentators and he was arguing that though it is a great movie, it had horrible effects on this country because it was responsible for stopping the contstruction of nuclear power plants.
With the advent of this latest story, I'm guessing this is now a right-wing truism.

This article by Dubner & Leavitt is not really "freakonomics", which in the book featured a scientific approach to some aspects of public life. There is no science in this article - just speculation.

Brennan

name your poison?

The present situation is due to the French government deciding in 1974, just after the first oil shock, to expand rapidly the country's nuclear power capacity. This decision was taken in the context of France having substantial heavy engineering expertise but few indigenous energy resources. Nuclear energy, with the fuel cost being a relatively small part of the overall cost, made good sense in minimising imports and achieving greater energy security.

Spot on; besides myself on my blog, and I haven't seen anybody else point this out. France basically has no fossil fuel resources, which is unique for them amongst the post-WW2 nuclear powers. And this in the political context of an aggressive move to nuclear weaponry after having been invaded three times in less than one century.

"Well, one thing that we did learn from the accident was that the safety personnel and company officials running the plant did everything they could to conceal the problems at the plant absolutely as long as they could. Only when it was clear that matters were getting out of control did they finally notify the regulatory authorities to both get their assistance and allow them to take necessary precautions. Of course no one was punished for their actions."

So people act out of self interest. Hardly themost shocking economic discovery yet really, is it?

There was an interesting paper some years later abour cancer rates around TMI. There was indeed some release of radioactivity (very small, but still) yet cancer rates rose all around the plant, not just in those areas exposed. Stress is, of course, a trigger for cancer. People were literally frightened into it.
I do have a feeling though that the lack of new plants has rather more to do wih Chernobyl than TMI. Sadly though, for Chernobyl killed fewer than the coal industry does.

Tim, it's arguable whether they acted in their true self-interest, given the present absence of their industry.

No, I think the diseases of corporatism and corruption have deeper roots than that.

It is rather silly to link a Hollywood icon with the problems experienced by an engineering industry. But there was some effect. TCS still comes up in conversation all the time and for many people is still a primary factor in how they look at nuclear power, along with Chernobyl and The Simpsons. That doesn't say much about the discriminating public, but it is true. And there are costs involved when 20 or 30% of the population in a democracy has a substantial fear of a product.

One problem with The China Syndrome is that there has been no reasonable entertainment alternative covering the same ground - nothing out there that looked at nuclear from a more reasoned perspective with an insiders view, and is fun as well. There is now. "Rad Decision" is a technothriller novel that covers energy basics and the good and bad of nuclear in particular, all within the typical story of mayhem you would expect. It is available at no cost to readers at http://RadDecision.blogspot.com (they seem to like it judging from their homepage comments) and is also available in paperback at online retailers. (The author gets no royalties.)

Stewart Brand, noted environmentalist, founder of The Whole Earth Catalog and a National Book Award winner has said: "I'd like to see Rad Decision widely read."

The enormous gov't subsidies that were handed out to the nuclear industry also started drying up in the seventies after the post-Space Age recession. When everyone got a whiff of what nuclear power was actually going to cost, that was when the reactors started getting cancelled. A significant quantity of PSNH's industrial customers told the utility that it would be cheaper for them to generate their own power than pay the proposed rates.

Incidentally, there are 20-30 applications being put together for new reactors in the US...because the subsidies are back.

Don't forget, Jan Fonda also lost the Viet Nam war for us.

Robert "the geek" McNamara and Henry "the rat" Kissinger
were just innocent bystanders.

Some economist said so.......

It is absurd to lay the failure to launch a nuclear power industry at the feet of Jane Fonda. I agree with S Brennan, however. Nuclear fission is just too valuable source of energy to be ignored. We know these things about fossil fuels: it's causing climate change; it's causing "acute pollution"; it might be passed peak supply; in the hands of private corporations, it is going to become more and more expensive as it is depleted. The risks of nuclear power generation and the problem of waste disposal is looking increasingly pale by comparison.

I have always looked in wonderment at the anti-nukers as they focused 99% of their efforts on nuclear power generation and virtually nothing on nuclear weapons proliferation. There is a serious luddite element at work with that group. Ya gotta go figure with the great unwashed masses sometimes. Think about it. We trust the Bush Administration with some 30,000 nuclear bombs, don't we?

We can debate the merits of Jane Fonda's direct responsibility or not for US carbon emissions.

But there's no question that many environmentalists haven't really considered the tradeoffs of their different positions. The more you delay or deny nuclear power, the more CO2 you add to the atmosphere, at least in the short run. The more seriously you take the threat of global warming, the more you favor nuclear power. I think that's the very correct point that Levitt and Dubner make. That, and that we live in a funny world full of unintended consequences. That the anti-nuke environmentalists accidentally helped increase carbon emissions is a funny irony.

It really does bug the crap out of me that TIAA-Cref's "Scoail Choice" portfolio still explicitly bans nuclear technology. Are they stuck in 1974 or what?

When the nuclear power industry is totally responsible for the consequences of its actions, that is when they can insure the long term storage of the wastes and can fully compensate for any mishap rather than asking for a government subsidy and a liability cap, only then will I consider nuclear power as a potentially viable power source.

Dan they can't, that's the French system works, it sidestep that issue. Read my post above.

It's an absurd argument to lay blame on Jane Fonda for being responsible for losing the Vietnam War ! Nuclear power is definitely a boon, but we should not forget that we can not take the safety of nuclear power for granted. Only time will tell what will happen of Nuclear power.

The fall of the dollar was inevitable. It is the only way to get the trade deficit down to size. The real problem was allowing the dollar to rise to the point that it made such a painful adjutsment necessary. This was the Clinton-Rubin high dollar policy. It felt good in the short-term (except for manufacturing workers), but just like tax cuts that lead to big budget deficits, it could not be sustained.