Are all these articles then just..hoax and bullshit?

Yes. Pretty much.

Read the article. These claims are not the result of any scientific evidence or rigorous analysis. They come from a “request” published by a collection of anti-nuclear organizations (and a few random ones like “Aloha from Hawaii” — WTF?) which merely expresses their opinion, something that is obviously severely biased and not grounded in reality.

Don’t let the number of organizations fool you. Any random loon with a web blog can form an NGO with the help of a couple of his friends. Some of these NGO’s definitely look like mom-and-pop operations.

By the way, the article that you referenced even includes the fake map discussed above. How can anyone take any of this seriously?

Would an insurance company even be willing to offer coverage?

In fact, yes. There are about 21 large insurance companies that insure nuclear plants in the US. Don’t worry about the job being too large for any one insurance company to handle. Nuclear plants are insured by a joint underwriting association.

http://technorati.com/lifestyle/green/article/fukushima-reactor-4-release-would-doom/

This kind of articles have been spreading widely around the internet at the moment.
Are all these articles then just..hoax and bullshit?

It would be great to have you answer this.

There are expenses not shown. Believe when all the costs itemized are added, nuclear energy will prove to be the most expensive.

Not really.

Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 13 are all included in the O&M and fuel costs.

There is nothing unique about nuclear power when it comes to item 13 (upgrades), by the way. All forms of electricity production have a risk of tightening environmental regulations. Although many old coal plants were grandfathered out of having to meet modern pollution standards, it is highly doubtful that a coal plant built today would ever be exempted from future regulations in any scenario short of Congress abolishing the EPA.

Item 5 does not even make sense. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 has required that the generators of nuclear power pay a fee of 0.001 USD for every kilowatt-hour of electricity generated. This money does not go to FEMA; rather, it goes to a special fund that is to be used for disposing of the so-called “waste.”

Item 7 is also covered by “waste fund” fees that is explicitly included in the fuel costs given above for nuclear.

Item 9 is part of the capital costs for a plant. There’s nothing hidden about that.

The remaining items, numbered 10, 11, and 12, are covered by the fees paid by the licensee to the NRC. Since the late-eighties, federal law has required the NRC to recover about 90% of its annual budget from fees imposed on the entities that it regulates (i.e., the owners of the power plants). No other federal regulatory body has this mandate. These fees are included in the costs of the plant.

The fees paid to license the facility for construction and operation are absorbed into the capital costs of the plant, but the licensing cost of several million dollars for a plant that costs several billion dollars is truly a drop in the bucket. It’s almost not worth mentioning. The remaining NRC fees are absorbed into the O&M costs.

1. Nuclear plants require many more and far more highly trained personnel than other alternatives at higher salaries
2. Security is far more demanding and expensive. NRC also requires periodic live security exercises.
3 Plant insurance charges far exceed all other type energy sources
4 Personnel training costs in a nuclear plant are more extensive and demanding
5 FEMA charges a waste fuel depletion fee
6 Spare parts are more expensive, and usually one backup is insufficient.
7 waste fuel dry storage casks are expensive.
8 Cost of a nuclear plant calls for considerably higher annual depreciation.
9 redundancy of a backup duplicate control room adds cost
10 required NRC communications control center with local communities cost money
11 required NRC evacuation exercises further add to the costs
12 Contribution for NRC support.
13 costly upgrades demanded by NRC as weaknesses in present plant designs are exposed

There are probably other hidden costs not reflected in this evaluation. Most of these requirements do not exist for the other alternative energies.
Let’s get these cost in this evaluation and we can get a more truthful picture.

I have certainly found the information in your research very interesting. I was surprised to see that wind overall was cheaper than natural gas!

I stumbled onto this site while looking for info on emissions of coal in comparison to natural gas, other than CO2. I understand coal is much more dirty than gas, but how so, and by how much? I haven’t found anything so far.

I really like the idea of solar, but I think the current systems of subsidies is only giving it a bad name. Even at it’s current cost, it does have it’s place – but not at the expense of the taxpayer. Perhaps if building permits for mansions and very large single family residences required a certain amount of power be generated on site from solar, some of the excess load on the grid could be lessened. The benefit would then be to the taxpayer and electric bill payer, as it might lessen the need to build a new power plant down the line. Otherwise, when a excessively large house uses a disproportionate amount of electricity, the burden is unfairly shared with the general public.

I do understand that solar has a long way to go before it will ever be cost effective to the average person, but one other benefit I haven’t seen mentioned here, is that when an individual installs a system on their roof, it means less square footage used in an off site power source. I think there is also the “cool factor” – I think some people like the idea of being able to generate their own power, much like a person might like to have a very fast car (bragging rights). It may not initially be practical, but the R&D going into supplying that customer eventually trickles down into mass produced versions.