The shift from “intolerable = public health disaster” to “intolerable = uninsurable tort risk” says everything about why nuclear stays economically cornered. You can engineer away meltdown risk, but you can’t engineer away a liability culture that treats perception as damage. Until the tort model aligns with real dose-based harm, we’re stuck. Any serious path forward has to address the regulatory model’s outdated assumptions, not just reactor design.
I wish I had this knowledge at the start of my Nuclear Energy career 45 years ago...
The shift from “intolerable = public health disaster” to “intolerable = uninsurable tort risk” says everything about why nuclear stays economically cornered. You can engineer away meltdown risk, but you can’t engineer away a liability culture that treats perception as damage. Until the tort model aligns with real dose-based harm, we’re stuck. Any serious path forward has to address the regulatory model’s outdated assumptions, not just reactor design.