PRICE-ANDERSON GOES PRIVATE...

The supreme contribution that government can make to energy production is to get out of the way; and this month there is a number of such contributions to report.

On November 15, the 80^th US commercial reactor (San Onofre unit 3 in southern California) was licensed, and with it, under the strictest secrecy observed by the mass media, the government essentially got out of the nuclear insurance business. Under the Price-Anderson Acts of 1957, the government would have paid liabilities in excess of $120 million, up to $560 million; for 25 years it took in the premia, but never paid out a cent, for all claims remained well under the limit (none over $300,000) and were paid by private insurance companies. In 1977, the Act was reformed and the government gradually phased out; the old-type insurance remains in force only for a handful of small reactors (under 300 MW). In the energy industry, only nuclear has a no-fault insurance, and virtually all of it is now covered by the private sector ($5 million per reactor paid into a common fund by the utilities, the rest paid by private companies; the liability limit rises with the number of reactors).

"Those superb realists, the American insurance companies," claimed Nobel-prize winning brainwasher George Wald a few years ago, "refuse to insure nuclear power."

Where is he now? Screaming for preemptive surrender.