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Let's suppose you're right, then the other 50% remains as subsidy.

You're supposed to be all "free market" yet you're desperately digging to try to find ways to justify a socialistic market of government subsidy. It's called integrity, try it on. Either you're for a free market or your not.

Again, I point you to the government's numbers. For 2007, a total of 6.718 Billion in subsidies for Coal, Natural Gas, and Nuclear.

Are you aware that the nuclear industry has a damage maximum of 12 billion dollars, and anything after that is shoulderd by the people. Yeah, that's a free market. Once again, privatizing the reward while publicizing the risk. [bleep] is tilting over 250 billion currently, and they have a way to go.

Being a conservative requires you recognize when a market is truely free and when it's not.

No, Kevin, I'm not. You are attempting to justify subsidies for those stupid green energy sources.

Also what I'm saying is that even the most cursory look at your numbers shows them to be horse schitt.

Nobody will ever accuse you of not being consistent - consistently Marxist.

You want to discuss stranded costs, you tell me what your argument is, and I'll discuss it. Your last link was a Sierra Club hallucination, I'm not here to do research.

Nuclear is the most highly (over)regulated industry, and we pay for it ourselves. I didn't notice you refuting that, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

If subsidies stopped for wind and solar, they'd disappear overnight. Nuclear isn't going anywhere.

Any guess as to why China, Russia, and India aren't hesitating to build those "inefficient" nukes as fast as they can? Because energy security trumps everything else and they're counting down the days until they can step on out throats and kick us in the balls, and charge us for their troubles.

You see, that�s what�s wrong with people on this site; you�re so damn stuck on defending against the �liberal boogey-man� that you have to put words in my mouth. Where in the hell did I ever say I was in favor of alternative energy subsidies?

You might want to actually read your references and do some critical analysis before you throw them out there.

75% of the "nuclear subsidy" is R&D, which is really a subsidy to the numerous National Labs, and has about zero impact on operating nuclear plants and absolutely zero effect on the cost of electricity.

The remainder is practically irrelevant compared to the other industries, especially renewables, which are generating what % of our power, 2 % maybe, to 20% for nuclear?

Sorry, you are completely wrong on this, and your own references prove it.

One need only look at who you esteem and the ideas you promote to know where you are coming from.

Seems like I'm busting you for Marxist horse schitt at least twice a day. Yesterday it was getting your economic understanding and tax policy from HuffPo & Buffett, today it's energy market disinformation from the Sierra Club & the 0bama administration.

Again, we're back to la-la-land. Those regulations aren't going away; nor should they.

You want un-regulated nuclear power; you get Chernobyl. Come on, do you REALLY want a non-regulated nuclear power plant? Even regulated, their safety record isn�t the greatest.

You�re trying to make this a left vs. right argument; I�m not advocating against nuclear at all. If you look back you�d see that I�m very pro-nuclear (which you wouldn�t know because you somehow have it in your head I�m some sort of liberal nut). The fact is, I�m neither liberal or what you call conservative; I just objectively look at issues and typically find that both sides have some legitimate issues.

I�m not against nuclear power at all, it�s our best source of baseload power. But I�m not against alternative energy either and you shouldn�t be either. When you remove the subsidies, many (but not all) of the alternative energy sources are cheaper than nuke or fossil fuel. The reality is, we need both because no single source is going to be sufficient for the future. And here�s where I always run into issue with the hard core Right and Leftists. Both think in terms of single �silver-bullet� technologies, and seem unable to expand their minds to understand the entire energy slate.

You uncritically accepted all the numbers in your references.

That's what we'd like from you, Kevin, a little more objectivity.

Okay, sorry if I posted a link from some lefty site: I really didn�t look. But I have posted links from the EIA which is the definitive source and it shows billions in subsidies.

I find it so entertaining that you�re calling ME the Marxist, yet you�re the one defending the socialistic subsidized energy market. But I guess it�s okay to have a communist market when it�s YOUR kind of communist market� and I�m the Marxist.

Let�s see if we can agree on this? What say we remove the subsidies on all energy sources and see what happens to the �free market�?

Just as soon as you recognize the energy market isn't a free market. And don't take my numbers, look at the governmnet numbers.

You think there's not excessive regulation?

I built part of the nuclear power plant at River Bend in St. Francisville, LA.

Post 9/11 they upgraded the security gate checkpoint. They redid the big gate and then for the guy who stands there and actually pushes the button to open the gate he got a new deal about the size of a phone booth. We had to get a nuclear certified welder to weld up his little phone booth because itw as on a nuclear site lol. That building that literally was 3'x3' and 7' tall cost damn near $50k.

Now multiply that times about a 1000 times across an entire plant. The specifican package for that little gate building if I had printed it out would probably have been over 500 pages. I had to have two people go thru it several times to quadruple check everything. I built an entire cracking unit and associated platforms at Exxon in Baton Rouge and the entire specification package was about 30 sheets.

When we repaired a piece of handrail at the loading dock at River Bend that was damaged by a forklift we literally spent more money on the labor of reading specs, filling out forms than the actual cost of building and erecting the rinky dink piece of handrail. After that one we quit doing work out there. But I mean really I can see why you need to fill out 30 forms to fabricate a piece of handrial at a loading dock that is in the back of the office where the office supplies are delivered. No reaosn it shouldn't be nuclear safe

Of course I'm not calling for unregulated nuclear power. But there are entire agencies of the government with office buildings full of people who do nothing everyday except sit down and think of new regulations on existing industries/processes that have worked forever without them.

If you think even a majority of regulation that the government puts out actually covers something that could happen/would happen you are mistaken. But by god you better have an entire department in the office dedicated to filling out all the forms associated with it even if it's to check off "NO" on every damn instance. It just sucks the life out of you and the money as well.

NRC budget is about $1B/year, 90% of which must be recovered from licensees.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1100/v27/fy2012-press-briefing.pdf

$900M per year from the nuclear industry straight to the Treasury. Are the windmills and solar panels sending those kinds of checks in?

I think yer figures are off. I don't know helicopters, but I get ratios.

If the mast is 1 foot in diameter the circumference is 3.14 feet. If the blade is 10 feet long (seems a little short in my mind, but I like easy math) the diameter is 20 feet and the circumference is 62.8 feet.

If...the "root" is traveling 100mph the blade tip is moving 2000 mph (ratio of 20:1). I'd bet these are really measured in fps. Imagine the centrifugal force at the tips of those blades.

I didn�t say that over-regulation didn�t exist, I said that complete de-regulation is a bad idea; again, you�re putting words into my mouth.

The problem with this discussion is the extreme nature. If I say something, you guys immediately move it to the extreme of whatever realm I�m discussing.

I started with saying that the energy market isn�t a free market, now suddenly I�m a pitch man for the Sierra Club and a Marxist. To jump to such extremes makes me think ya�ll are a bit insecure.

For the record, I�m VERY pro-nuclear power; VERY. The BS that the industry has to go through to build a plant is extremely excessive. But that doesn�t mean I�m willing to just throw off all regulation and �trust� the company that�s building the nuke plant either. Again, throw out the extremist bull-chit and come back to a reasonable discussion.

OK, Kevin.

Of course it's not a free market, and I don't think there should be any subsidies except possibly to fix what the Gov't screws up. And I sure as Hades don't think we should be subsidizing green energy, maybe not even research.

I'd like to see personal nukes of some sort. But, of course I realize that the Gov't will never allow democratization of energy like that. I'm looking for them to regulate wood burning any time now.

Yeah we're using the extreme part of the argument when you said we would wind up with a Chernobyl type situation....

But you wanted an answer as to why nuclear isn't cost effective - there it is. Regulations in one way shape or form of another.

Even if you decided to build a carbon copy of a plant that has decades of reliable service across multipe sites you start at square one on the licensing end which takes decades.

Entergy has been in the licensing phase for at least 10 years on their next nuclear power plant and it's an excat carbon copy of the plant built they operate both in St. Francisville and Port Gibson, MS. Yet it was back to submitting the design for review and wait and answer the same exact questions and review process they did in the first two plants.

Didn't say the regulations should go away. I'm pointing out they're a unique cost to the industry, which would be pretty much the opposite of a subsidy, right?

And the safety of US nuclear plants is unparalleled. Zero deaths in forever from the nuclear part, and industrial safety record better than just about anywhere else.

I'm not interested in any left-right argument, and I know you're not a nut. You said nuclear is heavily subsidized, and I'm saying it aint so, and compared to "green" power sources its not even a sane argument. You're EIA link shows that pretty unequivocally. And that's not counting the counter-subsidy effect of regulation.

You're clearly unwilling to accept anything I come up with; I'm wasting my time. Whether we agree on the level of subsidies, you still don't conceded that there are any, so I got nothing to work with here.

You keep asking if they want completely unregulated nuclear power, which is an extreme...and typically a fear tactic. So it's not too surprising that you get extreme arguments from the other side.

Or wolves....