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Stable governments don’t do this because it calls into question all the other agreements they have made.


Yet even the most stable western democracies do it often enough to make investors consider nuclear power plans too risky - not because of the technology but because of political risk.

For instance here in Finland companies that invested in nuclear made good profit, because of not having to pay costs related to carbon offsets. Politicians saw the profits, considered them "windfall" and taxed them away.

So why would you ever invest in carbon-free nuclear power on those terms?

Simultaneously there's a lot of jobs in coal, which ensure politicians keep subsidising it. From an investor perspective it's a sure deal.


> For instance here in Finland companies that invested in nuclear made good profit, because of not having to pay costs related to carbon offsets. Politicians saw the profits, considered them "windfall" and taxed them away.

Can you please expand on this a bit? Did they the change the law to tax something that was previously un-taxed? Did they tax it at an effective 100% rate so all the benefit would go to the state and none to the investors, or did the investors benefit too?


Yes I wonder that me too, and also, what does "considered them windfall" mean? Not a native speaker, sorry

It means the politicians looked at the profits they could get from the taxes, as apples and fruit that had fallen from the trees (because of a wind), and they could pick it up with no effort?


> Stable governments

Are there any stable governments, when the one with the most money can buy Twitter and FB ads, or a foreign country can setup a troll army of internet manipulators, and get to choose the president?

How long is the, say, 2 x return-of-money-invested, for a nuclear plant, compared to how often elections happen


Yet the UK government has admitted in parliament it intends to break an international treaty signed just a few months ago




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