Actually you can, at least estimate it. Let me explain with a taylor series expansion: You’re arguementing in the third order. Come on, there are first order problems, and a lot of second order ones, but really, you come with the “societal level”, “fossil fuels” etc.. There are good arguments against nuclear energy, but this is somehow, like a retreat from the good ones to the “might have some impact ones”.

Because even if adequate money for the purpose has already been set aside – which we are free to doubt, given the probable escalation of costs – the fact remains that at the societal level, a large quantity of actual resources will have to be expended to decommission those plants. It doesn’t just take the deletion of some zeroes from a bank account; it requires materials and labor and fossil fuels, which then can’t be utilized for another purpose. It also requires that more resources must be expended to keep repositories for contaminated waste functioning for millennia – or else other resources will be expended to treat cancers and birth defects – or if not, the deaths or unproductivity of the victims will reduce future availability of human capital. You can’t put out optimistic numbers about how much net energy a nuclear plant can supply or how cheaply without taking into account ALL of the costs in energy and other resources from the moment when ground is broken to the moment when the former plant site and all its wastes cease to be dangerous. TANSTAAFL.

In my defence: mentioning Fukushima twelve times in the title, body and conclusion of the text does muddy the water.

Yes, you are right about that citation. My mistake. Hardly maters though, if, again, you refer back to the original point of this post. You are creating straw men then mowing them down. That is not very impressive.

I can’t help you with Fairwinds site.

I appreciate your comments, but I’m still going to spend 500 billion on my project.

This is not how science is supposed to work. You don’t out of hand dismiss all data that does not fit your preconceived notion. If you want to declare that your preferred estimate of the costs is 500 billion, fine. But at least also mention the other figures and explain why you don’t agree with those estimates.

No, “Nukeapologist Math fudge factors” is not a grounded or adult explanation.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that we should look at the entire estimated clean up cost. The wiki you link to estimates 100 billion, but not just for reactor 1 as you state, a cursory reading would learn that cited figure is for
“Estimated at ¥10 trillion (US$ 100 billion) for decontaminating Fukushima and dismantling all reactors in Japan and considering long time damage to environment and economy, including agriculture, cattle breeding, fishery, water depuration, tourism”

Unless I’m mistaken, this was a very sloppy citation on your part.

I’ll accept the estimate of 71 to 250 billion dollars as holding weight, but again would like to draw your attention the the fact that 250 is the upper margin given here.

Incidentally, the link to the 500 billion Fairwinds article does not work. Care to share the working link that you obviously used to base your opinion on?

Also, I am not ballistic and I do not know who or what nuclear guys are, but if I meet one use your advice and wear my tinfoil hat while keeping in mind that they are all liars and cheats.

I implore you to not cherry pick references when writing for something called “science blogs” and to be more careful with your citations.