Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 September 1

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September 1

Does a smoker cost more or less for public healthcare than a non-smoker?

In countries with universal healthcare, do smokers put more strain on the healthcare system than a non-smoker? Or do they actually cost the system less because they die earlier? I already read Tobacco_smoking#Economic which cite a CDC report (irrelevant), and two unscientific studies by biased parties. A8875 (talk) 05:21, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I doubt if there's a simple measure. My country's health system is now providing considerable psychological and other support to a 14 year old boy I happen to know whose mother died of lung cancer two months ago after spending five years dying. How do we measure that broader impact? HiLo48 (talk) 05:40, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Yea, I think that's rather typical of how smokers die. They don't tend to die quietly in their sleep after being in seemingly perfect health, they linger for years, at great expense to the taxpayers and suffering to themselves. Also part of the equation is the years when they are unable to work, so aren't paying taxes. StuRat (talk) 06:08, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The opposite argument is that smokers tend to succumb to the various diseases rather quickly, thus lowering the amount of care they require. I'm just looking for numbers to back these claims up. I'm looking for just the healthcare numbers. The emotion and social detriments of smoking are obviously enormous, but they are much harder to quantify. A8875 (talk) 07:34, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

You might want to look for general figures on how long it takes people to die from lung cancer, emphysema, and other diseases which primarily affect smokers. StuRat (talk) 09:06, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

My general impression from the research is that when you contrast the direct economic burden of smoking related illnesses with the direct economic benefits of the tobacco industry's existence (including taxes), you're about break even. The largest differences between the figures produced by various studies tend to be caused by differences in how the costs are calculated and what counts as a cost, as HiLo suggests. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:23, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

A little Googling (try "cost of smoking on health care") found dozens of articles and papers trying to answer that question. They reach lots of different conclusions, though... In my search, two consecutive results were BBC News articles. One from 1998 concluding that smokers cost less due to living shorter lives and the other from 2009 saying they cost an enormous amount (and not making any reference to the savings from not dying of other things). --Tango (talk) 13:34, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Tango. So far you're the only one to bring up relevant numbers.A8875 (talk) 17:26, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Here's what came up in my own googling - Total spending on health care in Canada is expected to … reach a forecast $200.5 billion in 2011 plus $4.4 billion is spent each year on health care for smoking-related illnesses in Canada. equals two per cent of total health care costs.

(That second source also says The costs of tobacco use to the user and to society are much higher than the money collected from tobacco sales. However, Health Canada says 31,066,986,500 cigarettes were sold in Canada in 2011. Prices vary wildly but if you take an average of $94.13/200 cigs the yearly amount spent on cigarettes is at least $14.6 billion.)

Anyway, this academic paper, The Effects Of Obesity, Smoking, And Drinking On Medical Problems And Costs, found a 21 percent increase in inpatient and outpatient spending and a 28 percent increase in medications for current smokers. 184.147.128.34 (talk) 14:27, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

What about Public Finance Balance of Smoking in the Czech Republic?Smallman12q (talk) 15:35, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

They reach a lot of different conclusions because the equation is an entirely political one. Smokers don't rob the national treasury at gunpoint to fund their liposuction, cancer treatments, or even cigarette habit. Politicians do rob the taxpayer and give a certain percentage of that money directly and indirectly to people who may or may not be smokers. But that has nothing to do with health care per se or the "cost" of one citizen to another, (like the "cost" of invalids the socialists euthanize) and everything to do with party politics. μηδείς (talk) 02:20, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

There are studies which discuss this at Public_Finance_Balance_of_Smoking_in_the_Czech_Republic#Further_reading. The question is whether death prior to retirement, or death before becoming a patient of the state negatively impacts GDP...which depends on how such costs are calculated.Smallman12q (talk) 13:19, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Navarrese colonial empire?!?

I found a statement at the article Thalassocracy that the Kingdom of Navarre established colonies in Newfoundland, but I can't find any further information to confirm that claim. I see some notes at Placentia, Newfoundland and Labrador that Basque fisherman may have established a seasonal base there, but does anyone have any further information on this. Is it fair to call this a Navarrese colony, or was it simply a case of a few fishermen mooring their boats in the area? --Jayron32 05:37, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

There were lots of Basques there (there is even a place still called Port aux Basques today), but never a specific Navarrese colony...unless you count the part of Navarre that was joined to France in 1610, since there were certainly official French colonies and the Basques were still active in Newfoundland after that. But that's a bit of a stretch. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:29, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I was considering paring back the "Thassalocracy" article, since there are many states there listed that are clearly not Thassalocracy. A Thassalocracy is not "a state you need a boat to reach the different parts of", which is how the list seems to be built. Navarre was going anyways, but I saw the claim that it had outposts/colonies in Newfoundland rather bizzare. That there were Basques in Newfoundland is, as you note, unsurprising, but that doesn't mean that Navarre had anything to do with that. Thanks for clarifying and confirming my initial suspicions. --Jayron32 14:30, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

ROMNEY / RYAN

WHY IS THERE A RED STAR ON THE U S FLAG LAPEL PINS WORN BY MITT ROMNEY & PAUL RYAN ? THANK YOU JAMIE — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.130.82.232 (talk) 05:49, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

It is apparently the U.S.'s Secret Service's logo on the pin. President Obama wears the same pin. You can google "Secret Service logo imposed on the US Flag" to find a number of Youtube close-ups and discussions of the pins. Bielle (talk) 06:18, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Where does Hamid Karzai's clothing come from?

I mean, his headgear and his cloak? What culture does it come from? Thank you. Mark. Have a nice weekend. Mark. Alabamaboy1992 (talk) 13:46, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

His hat is a Karakul, which is common throughout Central Asia, and according to our articles has been worn by Afghani leaders for a long time. The rest of his clothing I couldn't comment on, but the hat is definitaly common in Afghanistan. --Jayron32 14:11, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

And his cloak is a Chapan, "It is worn in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and other surrounding countries". Alansplodge (talk) 00:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Small points: 1) Please, 'Afghan', not 'Afghani'. ('Afghani' refers to Afghan currency.) 2) Karakuls are not actually common in Afghanistan. Yes, they are worn my some leaders and elders, but New York Yankee hats are far far more common in Afghanistan. [Please forgive this original research. I lived in Afghanistan for five years.] Hayttom 18:16, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

trying to remember a term - Someone's Syndrome

He was on a Grand Tour, I think, and was at the Louvre, I also think, or maybe Rome, or Venice -- and he suffered a litany of symptoms arising from being overwhelmed by the wealth of cultural treasures on offer in the Louvre or Rome or Venice...

Can anyone help please? Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 14:28, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you thinking of Stendhal syndrome? Paul (Stansifer) 14:45, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I am! Thanks heaps, Paul Stansifer - case closed! Adambrowne666 (talk) 22:28, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

In a similar vein, there's also the Paris syndrome and the Jerusalem syndrome. 164.71.1.221 (talk) 00:16, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you - I was also interested to discover Lisztomania is more than just a film by Ken Russell Adambrowne666 (talk) 02:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Holocaust

If you were in the unfortunate position of being a Jew living in a ghetto and you had been selected to be herded onto the cattle trucks but you failed to attend on the day, what would have happened to you. For instance if your family were selected to be 'resettled' surely the instinct, particularly later on in the war after it became apparent that this was a euphemism, would be to go into hiding and abandon where they knew you lived? Did the Nazi's have a register and refuse to allow the train to leave until everybody was accounted for?

My second question relates to the freight trains themselves. In most photographs on the Umschlagplatz these trains appear to made out of flimsy wood only secured by a bolt. If they were overloaded with hundreds of people wouldn't people have tried to kick it in and escape, rather than accept that they were going to be murdered. Thanks Toryroxy (talk) 17:31, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Plenty of Jews did try and hide or escape - many of them were even successful. People were encouraged by various means to inform the authorities if they knew where some Jews were hiding, though. After a while, the borders were closed and it became very difficult to escape the country. We have an article, Jewish resistance under Nazi rule, which you may find useful. --Tango (talk) 19:49, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Regarding your second question — why would you do that? It's extremely dangerous to fall out of a moving train, and kicking it out would be extremely difficult in the first place: these cars were choked so full that you'd not have room to get up the momentum to damage the wood. Remember that those being carried in these cars generally didn't know that they were heading to their deaths; unless you were really in despair, or unless you had some knowledge that the vast majority of your compatriots lacked, you would think the results of falling out of the train to be worse than the results of just staying where you were. Nyttend (talk) 21:17, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

You ask a lot of complex questions, and we can only really scrape the surface here. Many Jews did not realise that the "resettlement" offered was a death sentence. Life in the ghetto may seem with the benefit of our knowledge of the Death camps to be a preference, but the ghettos were pretty awful places in the main, and the option of being able to work in the countryside would have seemed attractive to many. Many ghettos' Judenrats were given quotas to fulfil by the Nazis - if you avoided the call, some other person would have to go in your place. Ghettos were generally small, well contained and most hiding places would have been fairly well known to the Judenrat's police. As for the trains, there are stories of people being able to get out of holes in the trains. Some died in the attempt (jumping from a train travelling at speed is something only fictional secret agents take lightly). However, it is clear that the boxcars were reasonably strongly constructed - sufficient to restrain frightened livestock. Furthermore, documentary evidence has it that people were so tightly packed that the dead were often still standing on arrival. Being packed in like sardines wouldn't have made it easy to escape.

Fundamentally, your thoughtful questions about the experience make me want to suggest you read some survivor memoirs, if you haven't already. I strongly suggest Primo Levi as a first port of call. --Dweller (talk) 21:15, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The movie Schindler's List had some (dramatized) scenes like this. In some cases there was also armed resistance, e.g. Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa. 67.119.15.30 (talk) 02:53, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The rail vehicles generally used in these transports are known in the UK as "cattle wagons" but I see they're called Stock cars in the US. A vehicle designed to contain live cows isn't going to be very fragile. Alansplodge (talk) 20:31, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a relatively standardised answer, from giving it so much. In 1939 the Germans made use of Polish census data to register Jews is Poland, this provided a bureaucratic basis for other actions. Many, very large numbers, of Jews were not eliminated by transportation to specific death sites. In 1941 during the invasion of the Soviet Union, the primary effort was in large demonstrative public pogroms and other clearance actions (which proved both ineffective and problematic in its effects on members of actions). The link here is between military control of civil life (something the German military apparatus was very experienced with by 1942 and 1943), and the clearance of villages. My understanding is that in ghettos, where Jewish civil organisations were responsible for census operations, or in less formal ghettos, the "action" moved from transportation over into policing and onsite execution after a period. This is because the point of clearing a ghetto was to make it "Jew-free." So they'd go through with dogs, informants (snitches) and guns. Dweller's suggestion of Primo Levi is a good start, I'd suggest If Not Now, When? (novel) I'd also suggest reading perpetrator accounts. I recommend The Good Old Days. I'd also suggest reading about Einsatzgruppen A's actions in the Baltics, and the Kiev clearance action (Babi Yar). Fifelfoo (talk) 22:16, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Political Debate

Hi, I am getting the four political clubs on my campus together for a debate as part of a junior project. I was wondering if any political debates by college students ever got brodcasted on ony news stations or newspapers that serve the larger community? Thanks.--99.146.124.35 (talk) 17:38, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

This is the type of thing a public access cable channel would specialize in, in the US. A local PBS affiliate might carry it, as might a small-town newspaper. However, this isn't their top priority, so you might have better luck getting on during a slow news day. StuRat (talk) 19:03, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

College debating societies usually only get mainstream publicity when they have a famous guest speaker (and, even then, usually only if it is a controversial famous guest speaker - from an extremist party, for example). --Tango (talk) 19:14, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I do know some like Oxford Union do get some press coverage, but usually as Tango says when they have a famous speaker to debate--and there are only a handful of the most elite universities that get any kind of regional coverage in rare instances. I also know that many cities (beyond Cable Access) actually have city or county channels that usually broadcast council, committee and commission meetings, you may have some luck contacting them for broadcast (it would be a great alternative than rerunning the city council meeting from 2 weeks ago yet again). Finally as a former HS debate champion, sometimes having cameras around can weird out participants and even audience members, as Antonin Scalia and others have pointed out in Congressional hearings on televising Supreme Court arguments, basically you get participants that slip into "playing up to the camera" instead of actually debating merits. Since many debate societies evolve into something mirroring the complexities and nuances of court or assembly hearings (things that are boring or confusing to the typical channel surfer) some leaders have expressed concern that a type of "I could be a star" mentality takes over and instead of the debate evolving it devolves into a crude talent show of one-upsmanship. Simply put the real thrill of debate is to have participants that want to be there for the mental challenge and a small audience that is passionate enough about it to travel to it and turn off the cell phones. If you truly are looking for television exposure (though be careful for what you wish for after the lense starts zooming in on "debaters") I also know C-SPAN is doing remote broadcasts from across the U.S. (if your in the U.S.) and may be interested in profiling part of a local college debate for local flavor. I know what your thinking C-SPAN? the vast majority of Americans sadly only channel flip through them possibly just staying a few minutes to watch some hyperbole or attack that in the long run is just showmanship and harmful to productive debate which leads us back to what Justice Scalia was getting at before, when the red light comes on and the lense swings your way and zooms in its human nature to want to make it your 15 minutes of fame (Warhol plug lol) or be the next Kardashian or Ryan Seacrest, even the best of us have that running through our minds. The result is that a principaled, well prepared debate becomes from 1 or 2 participants a really cheap reality show or Tosh.0 material. I for one love watching C-SPAN for hours, but just realize human behavior is effected by that digital eye. Here's hoping your debate organizations can rise above that, best of luck! Marketdiamond (talk) 21:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

YouTube. 67.119.15.30 (talk) 02:54, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Does the college have its own television channel, specifically one that is student-run? Most do. Contact the school's Communications or Broadcasting faculty.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 03:30, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

If you can get Chris Hitchens or Andrew Breitbart to front your debate you are set. If not, try to get Ann Coulter. The only problem with her will be the costly death threats, especially in Canada, with its culture of violence. Besides those issues, you will have the venue of the year. μηδείς (talk) 04:43, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Haha very funny. --Activism1234 04:49, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

how did people choose colors for technicolor?

is there some way to "discover" from the black-and-white film whether a dress was light red or light green, for example? Or is it someone's choice and might be completely wrong? Do you then have to keep track of every object in every scene, to make sure you colorize it the same if it pops up again?

This isn't really current, as technicolor has not been a necessity in some time, but I was just wondering. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 18:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the technicolor article, I might have my terminology wrong. I mean black-and-white films that were colored after the fact. How was it done? --80.99.254.208 (talk) 18:52, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

That's called colorization. Sometimes the dress would just be grey in reality, as that would best allow them to know ahead of time how it would look in black and white (the contrast with her skin, etc.). In some cases, there was documentation of what color things should be, especially if the film was made from a book which described such things. If not, then they just made it up based on historic fashions, etc., as they colorized it. Early colorization efforts seemed to result in all pastels, so they didn't always do such a good job. StuRat (talk) 18:56, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, this is helpful. Take this example. This File:BeerbarrellBW.jpg was colorized to this: File:Beerbarrel.jpg. Is there any way from LOOKING at the original that the people could have known the guy's shirt who is in the middle wasn't red? (what I would have thought). Can you reference desk people for example personally tell from the black-and-white that that was a blue shirt? (and not a red one)? Curious here. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 19:00, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

There are situations where something has been filmed in colour, then only black-and-white copies have survived, and it has been possible to reconstruct the colour. That has been done with Dad's Army, for instance. See this article. If it was only ever filmed in black-and-white, then I don't think you can work out the colour other than by context. I guess if you have footage you know what taken under different colour lights, you could figure it out - if the shirt looks black under red or blue light but white under green light, then it must be a green shirt. That isn't going to be relevant very often, though. --Tango (talk) 19:19, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

There are sometimes colour photographs taken on the set. For example The Misfits was filmed in black and white but there are loads of colour photos taken by Eve Arnold during production. If they were ever to colourise it (heaven forbid), the costume colours could be correctly done. --TrogWoolley (talk) 19:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Psst! (It is little know that Orson Welles had his wife Rita Hayworth's hair dyed pink and green for the classic Lady from Shanghai.) Whatever you do, do not link to the article Technicolor! μηδείς (talk) 20:23, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

An acquaintance once complained that Stan Laurel's red hair was colorized as brown. I retorted that maybe he was playing a brown-haired character. — A brief scene in Ed Wood: Actress: "Which dress do you like better, the red one or the green one?" Cameraman: "Which is which? I'm colorblind." The joke hit me later: this conversation happens in a BW movie made long after color became the norm, and I didn't notice at the time. —Tamfang (talk) 04:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

(Can you tell from B/W what the color was?) No, you can't. There is a formula (used in television, I think) that goes like this: grayscale=0.3 R + 0.59 G + 0.11 B (by luminosity.) So, you can see that there's no 1:1 correspondence, it's ambiguous. Information DOES get lost when you film in B/W. 92.226.93.192 (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

UK and Eire police cars

Why do Gardai and the UK police use so many variety of police cars not to mention maybe having different cars within the same class of vehicles. Its kind of a waste of money why not just have one type of car for the traffic corp that specializes in pursuit, one for patrol, one for 4/4 (use the same van that has a speed van just the design is different), one public order van, one unmarked vehicles, one type of motorcycle, two tactical response vehicle (One that has heavy armour to take abuse while the one can handle a situation for quick responses) if these were in place it would cut down on costs immensely. --86.41.85.120 (talk) 21:01, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Certainly in the UK we do not have a "UK Police" but each county or group of counties has its own police force. Each police authority has its own budget and they each buy what is required to do the job in that area. MilborneOne (talk) 21:30, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I expect most of the variation is simply because of age. They don't replace all the old vehicles as soon as they decide on a new type (that really would be a waste of money). We do, of course, have an article: Police vehicles in the United Kingdom. It doesn't talk much about the models, but it does explain the different purposes vehicles are put to. I don't really see why uniformity would be immensely cheaper. It's a little cheaper, since you can share spare parts, you don't need extra training on new vehicles and you don't need to spend time deciding what to purchase, but those savings are relatively small (for the most part, they are pretty uniform already). --Tango (talk) 02:30, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

This 2010 story talks about the NPIA changing its guidelines to individual forces, to reduce the variety of cars offered. There is some benefit to standardisation, and some economy of scale (but 5600 vehicles/year isn't huge, so they have only modest bulk-bargaining power, even if they pooled their buying and bought only a single model from a single maker) - but competition has benefit too, and a formal or de-facto monopoly can be both expensive and a barrier to innovation (I can't but wonder whether North American police forces were really well served by the dominance of the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor). Another thing the Police vehicles in the United Kingdom article should cover, but doesn't, is who actually finishes the UK's police cars. Given the variety and relatively low numbers, and the specialised nature of a police car, I'd have thought that specialist coachbuilders would take bare cars from Ford etc. and do all the interior and performance mods to make them police cars. 176.250.67.119 (talk) 18:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

More detail about the 2010 NPIA purchasing agreement that 176.250 linked to above. "A new "ready to drive" specification for the most popular and recognised police vehicle - the 'beat car' - has been put in place. Four suppliers (Ford, Vauxhall, Hyundai and Peugeot) will now deliver fully modified cars that are liveried to national standards and have IT, lightbars and safety equipment fully installed.". Alansplodge (talk) 20:23, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, the idea of having only one type of unmarked vehicle would not work. As soon as everyone knows all the unmarked vehicles are a Ford Focus, for example, everyone would be perfect law-abiding citizens the moment one turns up, even if it's an old lady driving it (Not that I have anything against old ladies - my 70-year old mum drives one). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed - when I learnt to drive in the 1970s, the Metropolitan Police had acquired a large fleet of Hillman Hunters at a knockdown price because nobody wanted to buy one. So when you saw one with two big gheezers in it, it was time to start driving sensibly. I believe that the Hunters turned out to be very popular in Iran in the end. Alansplodge (talk) 00:18, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

NRA codes

"I have not investigated fully to determine what effect the adoption of the NRA codes may have had on cooperative purchasing; my impression is that substantial savings would still be possible". Citation is Russell, John Dale. "The College Library as Viewed by the Administrator." The Library Journal 60.22 (1935): 89-93. In this passage, Russell is talking about college library administration during the Great Depression, urging college librarians to consult with each other to form money-saving consortia to spare everyone from buying separate copies of books when one or two copies could be shared among multiple institutions. In what way would NRA codes be applicable here? None of the codes mentioned in our article appear to be relevant. Nyttend (talk) 21:31, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Not really my specialist subject, but does this help? (What a Special Library Can Do for a Trade Association, Special Libraries, Jan 1934) - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:45, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Is nuclear power competitive without huge government subsidies?

The other day I heard a renewable energy advocate and solar power company owner say he'd be happy if government subsidies to renewable power were cut as long as the subsidies to nuclear power (and coal plants) were cut as well. He claimed that the nuclear power industry in the US is effectively heavily subsidized by the government because they insure the plants, and without their subsidies and on a truly level playing field, nuclear power would be completely unable to compete against renewables. Is there any truth to these allegations? -- noosphere 21:47, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem is not the lack of huge government subsidies--no form of energy is cheaper or safer--the problem is huge government regulation and litigative cost, see below. μηδείς (talk) 04:00, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Cost of electricity by source gives estimates by several organisations, at least some of which conclude that nuclear can be more expensive than coal, gas, geothermal, onshore wind, hydroelectric, tidal, and biomass. My understanding is that large-scale hydroelectric dams are traditionally seen as the cheapest source of energy (hence aluminium smelters are often built near dams). Their big downside is that they are only suitable in certain areas, and cause huge environmental damage. 130.88.73.65 (talk) 15:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Not sure about specific dollar amounts, I have heard that US regulations post Three Mile Island are very expensive and some suppliers of waste containment and other processes have moved on to other industries driving up costs for nuke plants. You may want to google Bernard Cohen (physicist) he was the leading proponent for nuke power savings and safety. Great question. Marketdiamond (talk) 22:11, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The new regulations aren't very expensive. The lawsuits filed against new plants post-TMI are expensive. At the moment the plants store waste on site for the most part, which isn't particularly expensive, I don't think (it is just dry cask aboveground storage). There have been moves to have the private plants pay into a fund for disposal but I'm not sure if that's actually something that has happened. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:06, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

There is some truth to it, but the full situation is more complicated than that.

The insurance issue is the Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act — check out the article for it. Basically, private insurance won't cover nuclear disasters — too much potential risk (which maybe should tell us something) — so the government basically guarantees it. Which means the risk is subsidized by taxpayers. If there are no accidents, then there's no actual cost. But if there is... Anyway, that's a valid argument, though it's not quite the same thing as saying that the taxpayer is propping up the industry. But not far from it.

But more practically, the development of nuclear power was heavily subsidized, if not outright sponsored, by the US government. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission spent billions on making commercial nuclear power viable. So there are sunk costs. That's something.

More directly, the main issue with nuclear is that it has very high capital costs (which post-TMI also include very high costs for fighting all of the lawsuits that come up trying to open a new plant), and that in order to make it truly profitable, two things must happen. The first is that the plants have to operate at reasonably high efficiency for a very long time — many decades and decades. That makes them poor short-term investments for obvious reasons, and also means that anything which reduces the efficiency of the plant operations (such as accidents or shutdowns or just ineffective staffs) cut deeply into the bottom line. The second is that the cost of nuclear energy, which is more or less fixed (it is pegged at the cost of uranium, which is not especially volatile, though there is a market there) needs to be competitive against other industries. This is something that can change over time — with nuclear, the only way it becomes a good payoff is if the plant runs for basically half a century or so, and the relative costs of other energy sources almost certainly will change over that time. So that makes it a difficult investment, and explains to a large degree why utilities, on the whole, have not been super excited about making new nuclear plants. At the moment, most of the functions of the cost of nuclear power — fuel pricing in particular — run, I believe, on a private market, but historically they were pegged at fiat rates by the US government, whose investment in their nuclear weapons program during the Cold War gave them an abundant supply of uranium and enrichment facilities during the Cold War. (It gets more complicated if you talk about the non-US situation, so I'm ignoring that.)

Three Mile Island gets a lot of credit for killing the US nuclear industry, which is partially deserved — the aforementioned lawsuits add a huge amount to the bottom-line capital costs in starting up new plants (look at the history of the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant if you want the nightmare situation from an investor point of view). But it should be noted that the nuclear industry was already tanking before TMI — because it became clear that it wasn't that great an investment compared to other energy sources from a purely profit standpoint, and the cost of oil and coal had dropped considerably by the late 1970s. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:06, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Mr. 98 raises some great points, I can see how the lawsuits are very expensive from NIMBY's, greens and others, however you need standing in court, so in those legal complaints they are citing regulations, many of which were passed in response to TMI, technically I believe Mr. 98 is correct that its the threat of suits and actual suits but before you can sue you need a law or regulation that has been or is being violated. Great info Mr. 98, forgot about those good 'ole market forces in the 80's too with price drops in oil, NG and coal. Marketdiamond (talk) 00:20, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Is the cost of nuclear power really pegged to the cost of uranium ? I would expect all those other variable costs, like shutdowns, facility costs, and labor, to completely dwarf the fuel costs. StuRat (talk) 04:30, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Nuclear is by far the cheapest form of energy save legal obstruction. μηδείς (talk) 04:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I very much doubt that. If you only consider the price of the raw Uranium, then that is probably true. But If you include the cost for building, operating, and safely decommissioning power plants, and for treating, recycling and storing nuclear waste, then the claim is very much nonsense. Not to mention the fact that both initial research and much of the infrastructure for the nuclear industry has been paid for by tax payers. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:59, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The reason insurance companies won't touch nuclear disasters isn't the high risk - they would just charge a high premium if that was all there was to it. The problem is the concentration of risk. It is very unlikely for there to be a nuclear disaster, but if there is one it will be extremely expensive. Insurance companies like to have a large portfolio of risks that average out so they know roughly how much they'll have to pay out, they just don't know which policy they will be paying it out on. You can't do that with nuclear disasters. They would have to keep an enormous reserve to cover the potential cost, which would lock up almost all their capital, but would be very unlikely to ever get used. That means they would end up having the charge a premium equal to the maximum cost in order to create that reserve (they won't have any other source of capital with that kind of business model), which obviously defeats the point of having insurance. --Tango (talk) 13:40, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not just the insurers (really the underwriters) won't provide liability insurance for nuclear accidents; it's that they can't. It's a fundamental precept of insurance that the insurer is able to pay any claim on the policy (either by themselves, or by dint of reinsurance they already carry). The potential cost of a nuclear accident is so vast that no one can honestly promise they'll be able to pay out. If they were to write a policy and charge a premium anyway they're be committing fraud. It's the same reason that your car insurance doesn't cover damage caused by global thermonuclear war. 176.250.67.119 (talk) 01:32, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Our article says the cleanup from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster is expected to cost $13bn. I'm not sure what the total cost of the disaster will be, but List of Atlantic hurricane seasons#2010s puts the damage from the last Atlantic hurricane season at $20.8bn and the insurance companies managed just fine. It isn't the size of the potential claim, it is the high variance that causes the problem. Insurance companies are fine with hurricanes because they know roughly what a hurricane season will cost. They don't know where is going to get hit, but that isn't important, they only care about the total cost. There is no way to know what the total claims for nuclear disasters next year will be. It will probably be zero, but there is a very small chance that it will be enormous. Insurers can't deal with that. (There is potential for a nuclear disaster to be far, far greater than Fukushima, but the insurance policy could easily include a cap on the total claim for any individual disaster to protect the insurance company from that. It's not at all unusual to have capped insurance policies. The government would have to pick up the excess, I guess.) --Tango (talk) 11:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, our article says that "the government will spend at least 1 trillion yen ($13 billion) to clean up vast areas contaminated by radiation from the Fukuahima nuclear disaster", not that the total cost is US$13 billion. Note the "at least", and "the government will spend" (leaving out costs borne by the population at large, by TEPCO and its insurers, and remaining damage deemed uneconomical to clean up). The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates the average cost of a severe disaster at US$ 400 billion.[1] --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:15, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The total cost of the Fukushima accident is estimated to be $71bn to $250bn: [2]. That's similar to the ~$100bn cost of Hurricane Katrina... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 16:36, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The major cost of nuclear regulation has been its instability. (I attended a conference where a state regulator boasted that she had more than doubled the regulations on nuclear power plants in her state. I asked if she had actually discovered so many pipes that were not on the original plans, to several minutes worth of unexpected applause, and jeering.) Nuclear projects which used to start under one regulatory regime finishied up fifteen regimes later. My father began his professional career as a project engineer for the Salem Nuclear Power Plant after working at Brookhaven National Laboratories, then oversaw the shutdown of WHOOPS, the unfortunately named Washington State nuclear power authority, due to regulation-driven cost-overruns. He ended his career, after his World Trade Center 77th floor South Tower office was destroyed on 9/11, by building a beautifully designed mental hospital on Manhattan's Upper West Side. μηδείς (talk) 03:45, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Time to plug my idea of building nuclear plants in old (dry) abandoned mines, far from population centers (with the cooling towers above ground). We can relax regulations and let them pollute the cave all they want, just push the radioactive waste to the back of the cave, fill the cave in with concrete when they leave, and call it good enough. The reduction in insurance risks and lawsuits should more than make up for the increased distribution costs from the remote location. StuRat (talk) 06:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you think nobody has thought of that? There are practical requirements that must be met for somewhere to be a viable location for a nuclear power plant. It needs to be close enough to where its workforce live, for instance, so you can't be that far from population centres. It needs a readily available source of water and humans tend to establish their settlements near readily available sources of water, so you are likely to be near a population centre for that reason too. (Water sources also aren't likely to exist near a dry mine, since the mine wouldn't be dry otherwise.) --Tango (talk) 13:47, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Their thought processes seem to neglect game theory. That is, they don't consider the public opposition to building nuclear plants in populated areas, and the resulting regulatory and insurance burdens and subsequent government reaction. If these are factored in and assigned monetary/risk values, other considerations like providing a water supply and paved roads may turn out to be less risky and expensive. They could also do the "company town" approach, where they build living facilities for workers and their families, as was done for the Hoover Dam construction. StuRat (talk) 08:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Surely this already is taken into account - at least, the nuclear power stations in the UK are mostly in the middle of nowhere (Dounreay certainly wasn't chosen for its proximity to large numbers of people). 130.88.73.65 (talk) 08:58, 4 September 2012 (UTC)