Nice. Yea, it’s all rhetoric.
Welcome to the forums.
Yes, nuclear power is subsidized. But it, and all the raw materials and labor it requires, is taxed too. And other energy sources are subsidized too, likely more. I read that half the cost of nuclear power is complying with regulation, and currently it is barely a little more competitive than coal. So with reasonable regulation it would be way cheaper than coal. Plus all the bureaucrats telling them what to do raises operation costs. Not to mention that nuclear power plants are still relatively inefficient, once we harness their full potential the energy might actually be ‘too cheap to meter’.
There are other potential advantages. Nuclear power plants might be small in the future so every city could have one, we might even each have one in our basement. Coal plants have to be big to be efficient and they have to be near where the coal is, solar has to be where the sun is and wind has to be where it’s windy. Which means all these have to transport the electricity to the consumers, which is inefficient and expensive. Nuclear can be brought to the consumers. Of course that might become redundant with efficient batteries or efficient methods to convert hydrogen.
As for insurance, I think that’s not a big problem. Modern nuclear reactors are very safe (and only produce a soda can full of nuclear waste per person per lifetime). Most of the regulation of current reactors is mandating backup generators and such to prevent meltdowns, which can’t happen to modern passive-safe reactors. So the whole risk of nuclear power, that they can explode and spread radiation, is just not relevant any more. They wouldn’t be expensive to insure because the risk of disasters is so low. In a free market a coal plant would really be a bitch to insure, because they’d have to expect residents with asthma and cancer to sue them. (Which costs the plant money even if they win or settle.) The current state legal monopoly protects coal power.
Insurance companies want to compete, so they would require reasonable but not unnecessary safety measures. Which is a good thing, that’s how we know we wouldn’t grow three eyes in a free market. But their safety requirements wouldn’t be overkill, government requirements are mostly unnecessary. And they are more about sounding good than actually making people safe. They are political too, meaning they are often driven by irrational fear and lobby group interest rather than factual consideration of what’s necessary. And then it’s really their purpose to burden nuclear energy so it can’t compete with coal and oil.
The main problem with nuclear power is that it sounds scary, and people are way overreacting to it’s danger. If people are too freaked out about nuclear power, they might boycott it. So it is certainly possible that we wouldn’t have nuclear power in a free market. But my guess is that we would have lots of nuclear power in a ree market, of course in the end nobody knows and we have to let the market figure it out.