Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standard, White House says

Now this is the only way to get my stubborn libertarian ass on board with a more "green" agenda.

I remain suspicious that it is bullshit, though, since the nuclear industry doesn't employ a lot of voters.

I support including nuclear here too, simply because nuclear is only useful in a culture war.

New nuclear is a complete financial boondoggle. I'm always surprised to find any libertarian support for it however, as nuclear is the project of big government. It requires massive financial insurance that only governments are willing to provide. And in the US, it has been such a financial disaster that utilities run far away from nuclear for fear of bankruptcy. The only way that we started two new nuclear construction projects in the mid 2000s was because the state legislature was bought off, and allowed utility monopolies to charge customers for the construction of the project whether or not it finished, completly socializing the financial risks of construction through government force. And in South Carolina, the after spending $9B of utility rate payer money, the project was abandoned as in feasible to complete.

So the libertarian support for nuclear always has me completely puzzled. Without government coercion, it would never get built again. But then, I'm the complete opposite of a libertarian, so I'm probably misunderstanding something of the motivation. I would be interested to hear how a libertarian could support a new nuclear project.

Insurance is what cripples these projects financially, and the insurance rates are based on a woeful misunderstanding of the risks, driven by media fear-mongering about Fukushima and other passive-safe reactors. The bad PR is probably assisted by oil companies - Friends of the Earth was originally funded by an oil baron[0].

But if you would rather fall back on hydrocarbon energy for baseline power, and pray to Elon for magic batteries someday, feel free to vote the other way.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Orville_Anderson

I've been following nuclear closely and never found a single project that was stopped due to insurance. The government is eager to provide that.

Further, so say that the insurance is wrong on its numbers seems fairly fantastical, can you provide a an example of a site where the insurance has been based on bad values?

But all this is ignoring the primary problem with nuclear: its too expensive and not a good fit for the productive capacity of our economy.

The PR side of it is the mere culture war. PR isn't stopping new projects, at least not in the US. There are plenty of sites here that would welcome the economic activity.

I am still curious as to how libertarian ideology is compatible with nuclear power, either as it currently exists, or as some other form not yet realized. Is it just in opposition to organizations like Friends of the Earth in the culture war, or is there some aspect of nuclear in particular?

Also, I find it very strange to call batteries "magic" when they are one of the easiest and quickest grid technologies to deploy, and are seeing absolutely massive market growth because they have reached the tipping point of being cost efficient compared to alternatives. Make an order, lay down a concrete slab, plug the shipping containers into the grid. I guess that could seem "magical" but they are very real and very easy. And Tesla is far from the only battery producer, they're only the best showmen.

> the insurance rates are based on a woeful misunderstanding of the risks

Any self-respecting libertarian would call that a market opportunity. If you're right, there's a lot of money to be made insuring nuclear plants.