Fukushima/Tepco-"Profits Privatized, Liabilities socialized!"

BBC News - Tepco seeks more aid as Fukushima clean-up costs rise

Tepco seeks more aid as Fukushima clean-up costs rise
"The owner of crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has requested further financial help from the Japanese government.
It said clean-up costs and compensation claims for those affected by leaks at the plant may exceed initial estimates.
Radiation leaks at the plant after last year's quake and tsunami saw thousands of people evacuated from the area.
The firm has already received 1tn yen ($12.5bn; £7.8bn) in government aid.
The utility was, in effect, nationalised after the government took a 50.11% stake in the group in exchange for the capital injection."

The liabilities are now the Japanese citizens?
Are TEPCO executives still being paid?
Is this the future of aging Nuclear Corporations?
Will all "fuel pools" become the property of their countries citizens?

Is this what will happen with all the Nuclear "fuel pools" located at each of the 104 Nuke plants in the USA? The fuel pools are a liability in perpetuity for Corporations that can file bankruptcy when liabilities exceed assets. Bankruptcy is good business for the people in business and Hostess should make that clear. How much money has been set aside at the Corporate level to manage the fuel pools in perpetuity? The people who made the profit are responsible for the fuel pools, not the people they profitted from. To me, this seems simple. The Nuke Corporations will file bankruptcy and you and me and Grandmaw will get hard tack and beans and a bend over, no vaseline deal. "Profits are privatized, and liabilities are socialized," and the Nuke Plants were established this way from the beginning. It is called a Business Plan that accounts for possible future liabilities and protects its owner/s. There is nothing complicated about this, it's just kept under the radar. Like, don't talk about it, eh?

This is what I have been preaching here for some time. There's a lot of positives when it comes to nuclear power, but in the end, the fact that some are in business to make a profit should no doubt immediately shift opinion to a strong "no." It has been proven that the privately-owned Fukushimam plant (in fact, they have fessed up!) that they cut corners to save money and the plant could have survived even the tsunami if it was properly mainatined to safety specifications.

No one should ever trust for profit corporations to pick public safety over profit. Never. Those that think otherwise are delusional, IMO. And in the end, it's the public that pays for it. Monetarily and with their health.

TEPCO is partially nationalised by a government-backed support body which holds the majority of voting rights of the company with the capital injection of 1 trillion yen and TEPCO executives accepted a 50% pay cut. Japan's public debt to GDP ratio is 208%, which is the second worst figure in the world close to Zimbabwe's 230% and the Fukushima disaster would cost Japan up to 250 billion dollars over the next 10 years but Japan needs to balance the budget by reining in spending at the same time to pave the way for an economic recovery.

Yeah, nuclear energy is like a car with no insurance - it's cheap unless you crash.

If the costs incurred by the problems of Fukushima are transferred to the citizens of Japan, they are socialized. That seems clear. Should the assets of the managers, designers, stockholders, etc. be siezed to help defray costs. That would be retaining some of the original profits, that are by de facto definition privatized?

DaveFagan said:

If the costs incurred by the problems of Fukushima are transferred to the citizens of Japan, they are socialized. That seems clear. Should the assets of the managers, designers, stockholders, etc. be siezed to help defray costs. That would be retaining some of the original profits, that are by de facto definition privatized?

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I assumed this post would generate some interest since it makes obvious that citizins will end up with "nuke waste" when the profits stop. Most of our reactors are 40 years old and the Nuclear Industry wants to get more approved before reality bites. Shouldn't the waste be the responsibility of the producers that profitted, not the users. I remember in 1954 or 55 that there was a huge promotion of Nuclear Energy by General Electric and they advertised that there engineers would likely have a solution for the nuclear waste within 6 months so let's go ahead and build the Nuke plants. The student body of our class thought collectively that if its only six months, let's wait for the solution before proceeding. I'm talking real time history as it happened. We keep listening to experts who stand to make a profit on their area of expertise only if it gets continuity. Sounds like the same people that run our economy and the huge deficits. Also, I don't see the regular defenders of Nukes responding to this post. Let those defenders come forth to do debate. This ain't complicated.

Here's an article that helps one realize that some bankruptcies are likely on the horizon. Who is likely to foot the bills?

Nuke Power's Collapse Gets Ever More Dangerous

Nuke Power's Collapse Gets Ever More Dangerous

"But more disturbing are the structural problems, made ever-more dangerous by slashed maintenance budgets.
•San Onofre Units One and Two, near major earthquake faults on the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, have been shut for more than nine months by core breakdowns in their newly refurbished steam generators. A fix could exceed a half-billion dollars. A bitter public battle now rages over shutting them both.
•The containment dome at North Florida's Crystal River was seriously damaged during "repair" efforts that could take $2 billion to correct. It will probably never reopen.
•NRC inspections of Nebraska's Fort Calhoun, damaged during recent flooding, have unearthed a wide range of structural problems that could shut it forever, and that may have been illegally covered-up. As many as three dozen US reactors may be vulnerable to flooding from upstream dams.
•Ohio's Davis-Besse has structural containment cracks that should have forced it down years ago and others have been found at South Carolina's V.C. Summer reactor pressure vessel.
•Intense public pressure at Vermont Yankee, at two reactors at New York's Indian Point, and at New Jersey's Oyster Creek (damaged in Hurricane Sandy) could bring them all down."

DaveFagan said:

Is this what will happen with all the Nuclear "fuel pools" located at each of the 104 Nuke plants in the USA? The fuel pools are a liability in perpetuity for Corporations that can file bankruptcy when liabilities exceed assets. Bankruptcy is good business for the people in business and Hostess should make that clear. How much money has been set aside at the Corporate level to manage the fuel pools in perpetuity? The people who made the profit are responsible for the fuel pools, not the people they profitted from. To me, this seems simple. The Nuke Corporations will file bankruptcy and you and me and Grandmaw will get hard tack and beans and a bend over, no vaseline deal. "Profits are privatized, and liabilities are socialized," and the Nuke Plants were established this way from the beginning. It is called a Business Plan that accounts for possible future liabilities and protects its owner/s. There is nothing complicated about this, it's just kept under the radar. Like, don't talk about it, eh?

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The smarter plan would just be to recycle it.

Deuce said:

The smarter plan would just be to recycle it.

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I live just a few miles from West Valley, N. Y. That is the original site of Nuclear Fuel Services, a nuclear fuel reprocessor, and subsidiary of J Paul Getty. The site, as with all Nuclear sites, was leased and guess who wound up with the waste when they went belly up. That'd be you, me and Grandma. Yes indeedy, it's our problem now. Joe Taxpayer. John Q. Citizen, etc. Same scenario for all Nuke plants. They are all leased properties and guess who they revert to when Big Corporate stops paying the lease. OOPS. Where is that smarter plan. It is always the same. Shift the liability to the taxpayers. That's the Big Capitalist's way. Like I said. "Privatize profits, socialize liabilities."