Reading comprehension problem??
Where did I say I wanted some change in regulations? You've claimed that I wanted to go back to the '60s or whatever and looser regulations. Where did I say that? I certainly don't see where I've advocated laxer regulations.
At some level; you have to trust the scientists / engineers when it comes to nuclear power, aviation, medicine, automobiles...there's always going to be something that you aren't expert in. That's when you need to trust the experts.
NOT absurd at all concerning Palisades. The Palisades plant was licensed when society's mal-contents were busy protesting the Vietnam War; so they didn't have time for nuclear power.
Using your figures above; we should be able to build nuclear power plants for about $1 billion per gigawatt; assuming linear scaling which is not a good assumption. Some parts of the plant don't scale linearly with power. But a billion per gigawatt should be conservative and not bad. It's all these nuts saying that nuclear power plants should cost $25 billion per gigawatt that are out to lunch.
You made a statement about decommission; as if that was some problem. If left unfettered, the plant earns its decommissioning funds during its lifetime; and the NRC requires that the money be put away for it. So money isn't the problem. Some anti-nukes "think" that there is no way to disassemble a plant; and that is off course WRONG.
I cited the non-inflation adjusted value because I assumed people could do the time-costing themselves. I didn't want to get into a meaningless argument about what the proper inflation adjustment should be. I just wanted to draw a contrast between the $149 million that Palisades cost ( official NRC number ), and the cost of plants that were built just a few years later when the anti-nukes NEEDLESSLY inflated the costs due to their obstructionist tactics.
The New York / New Jersey area as well as California seem to attract scientifically ignorant mal-contents, and Oyster Creek, Nine Mile Point, Diablo Canyon, Rancho Seco, and San Onofre were built in that environment.
The Midwest seems to have some more intelligent and enlightened people, so Consumer's Power and Detroit Edison as well as Commonwealth Edison in Illinois were able to bring nuclear power plants online without all the obstructionism.
After all, the Commonwealth Edison area of Chicago and Northern Illinois has almost the same fraction of nuclear power as does France. There's almost a dozen reactors in northern Illinois.
PamW
PamW