Thursday, 4 January 2018

Cost of Nuclear Power Accidents - versus - Savings in Cost of Healthcare from Nuclear Power Use.



Chernobyl Accident
For Belarus, there is a 15 national estimate of $235B for 1986-2015 attributed to “aggregate damage” and for Ukraine, there is a 25-year estimate for “total economic loss” of $198B. Scaled to 30 years, the Ukraine estimate of around $240B is quite comparable to that for Belarus. In our 2013 report, we identified a population of 10,000,000 as “exposed” in a relatively broad sense to radiation and the disaster, approximately one-third each from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Thus, tripling either the Ukraine or Belarus 30-year estimates to cover the full exposed population leads to a total of around $700B in costs for the 30 years, assuming the same cost figures apply to Russia. This estimate involves a number of assumptions and must be considered as uncertain, but it is based on governmental figures.

However, regardless of the inherent uncertainty the figure is high and existing estimates would support overall costs of hundreds of billions.
Chernobyl - Say: US$750 billion
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Fukushima Accident

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s government on Friday nearly doubled its projections for costs related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster to 21.5 trillion yen ($188 billion), increasing pressure on Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) to step up reform and improve its performance.

Fukushima - Say: US$200 billion
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Other Accidents
Cost of Nuclear Accidents in France, Germany, India, UK and USA [Including TMI] = [2006] US$9,753 million. Note: Japan and South Korea accidents are not costed.
Add in, Say: US$1,000 million = US$10,753 million.
Then + 19.05% inflation to 2016: US$12,800 million

Everything Else - Say US$46 billion
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Total [All Nuclear Accidents]: US$0.996 trillion

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Healthcare Savings

Economic value of U.S. fossil fuel electricity health impacts

“…For coal…… associated economic values of health impacts are [2012] $0.19–$0.45/kWh…”. Average = $0.32/kWh

Add 3.11% for 2014 value:   Average = $0.33/kWh


But the USA did not burn all of the coal to generate 76,560 TWh of electricity – and US healthcare costs are much higher than most other nations.

A % of 76,560 TWh needs to be apportioned to significant nuclear power nations and their healthcare costs, as a % of USA healthcare costs, applied to that figure:
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Cost of Nuclear Power Accidents:
US$0.996 trillion
Nuclear Power Healthcare Savings:
US$14.95 trillion
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FINAL SCORE
ACCIDENTS 1     :     SAVINGS 15
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