"To stretch federal dollars across more proposed [nuclear] plants, the Energy Department has been lobbying the Japanese government to extend export credits and loan guarantees to the plants using Toshiba designs and to persuade the French export credit agency, Coface, to help back the Areva design at Calvert Cliffs. Those agencies usually help promote exports to poor or developing countries, not to aid a project in the world's richest economy."

I am not knowledgeable about the ethics of Coface's or another credit agency's projects, but this is a perfect example of the legitimate concern over nuclear power's risk, and the amount of insurance needed to mitigate that risk.

Not every large construction project that carries a lot of risk is unwise, but in nuclear power's case, we have so many alternatives, including the simplest one: reducing wasted electricity generation.