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I'm sure you're also aware of the nuclear industry's new approach to reactor decommissioning as well - set up a dummy corporation with government approval and transfer ownership and liability to that "independent corporation". It's only possible because the nuclear energy commission is loaded with industry insiders, just as with the FDA and the DOE. Let's take Exelon and their nuclear decommissioning spinoff, EnergySolutions Inc. Breaking news as of Mar 24 2009: "An investigation on behalf of current investors in EnergySolutions, Inc (NYSE: ES) over possible breaches of fiduciary duty by the board of directors announced." http://www.pr-inside.com/energysolutions-inc-investor-investigation-r1137251.htm The story begins back in 2007 when Exelon, the large midwestern coal-and-nuclear utility, set up a deal with a Utah-based company, EnergySolutions Inc. to decommission its Zion reactor. The key factor was that ownership of the plant wast to be transferred, making EnergySolutions responsible for all costs. "EnergySolutions has secured additional financial assurance for the unlikely event that the cost exceeds that amount. Conversely, any funds remaining in the trust fund after decommissioning is completed would be returned to ComEd’s ratepayers in accordance with a 2000 agreement with the state." Exelon is trying to claim that this is an example of environmental stewardship, but it in reality what they've done is transferred their liability to a tiny company that is likely to fail, leaving taxpayers and ratepayers stuck with the cleanup bill - because you can bet that Exelon's shareholders don't want to pay it. Similar issues are going on with Exelon and Three Mile Island, where the ownership is also being shuffled around prior to decommissioning. Obviously, Exelon and the other nuclear operators view aging nuclear reactors as "toxic assets" that they want to get off their balance sheets - who knows, maybe they'll end up selling them to the taxpayer with government assistance, just as finance is doing today. Exelon's future plans all revolve around expansion of coal and nuclear, with no plans for solar or wind expansion. Their major shareholders are British and U.S. commercial-investment banks (Barclays, State Street, Vanguard, Fidelity), and they were also the biggest lifetime supporter of Barak Obama before Goldman Sachs, the University of California, JP Morgan, Harvard, Citigroup , Microsoft and Google passed them up. They've latched on to the PR theme of "clean energy", repeated in every forum, as well as in the Presidential speeches. That’s the coordinated response of the coal, tar sands and nuclear industries - relabel themselves as “clean”. Notice how Obama refused to say “dirty tar sands” while in Canada? Solar, wind and biofuels are the only real renewable energy sources (plus various hydro/geothermal strategies, which are not very productive) - uranium is an exhaustible resource. The advantages of wind, solar and biofuel-based economy over one built on nuclear, coal and petroleum are many: 1) No fossil CO2 emissions, meaning no change in atmospheric CO2. 2) With wind and solar, there is no need for cooling water, saving large quantities of water for farm irrigation and other uses (important in the arid West). 3) Nuclear power plants can cause Chernobyls, and are susceptible to attack and sabotage - if the planes had flown into the Hudson river reactors, the whole region would still be highly radioactive. Nuclear power plants are also a source of plutonium for nuclear weapon production. 4) Nuclear power is ridiculously expensive - that's why investors won't put money in to plants without huge loan guarantees from the federal government. They also require laws that limit their accident liability - the Price-Anderson act. 5) Waste disposal and decommissioning costs are proving to be much greater than ever estimated in the past (no surprises there), and if those costs were honestly included in the up-front price of a nuclear power plant, you'd never see another one built. 6) We currently get 20% of our electricity from nuclear, and we can easily get another 25% from solar, and another 25% from wind - thus, we should be able to entirely replace coal with wind and solar while maintaining nuclear electricity production at current levels, and gradually phasing it out as reactors are decommissioned and more renewable energy is brought online. That will have to be done anyway; the world only has a 30-year supply of uranium at current consumption rates, and uranium prices have increased 10-fold in the past few years.