Good article, really more about making the grid better, I didn't think the article was blaming nuclear as a lone scapegoat. But I think we should keep our nuclear plants open and subsidies are a good place to start.
Allocation of subsidies in the United States
On March 13, 2013, Terry M. Dinan, senior advisor at the Congressional Budget Office, testified before the Subcommittee on Energy of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology in the U.S. House of Representatives that federal energy tax subsidies would cost $16.4 billion that fiscal year, broken down as follows:
Renewable energy: $7.3 billion (45 percent)
Energy efficiency: $4.8 billion (29 percent)
Fossil fuels: $3.2 billion (20 percent)
Nuclear energy: $1.1 billion (7 percent)
In addition, Dinan testified that the U.S. Department of Energy would spend an additional $3.4 billion on financial Support for energy technologies and energy efficiency, broken down as follows:
Energy efficiency and renewable energy: $1.7 billion (51 percent)
Nuclear energy: $0.7 billion (22 percent)
Fossil energy research & development: $0.5 billion (15 percent)
Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy: $0.3 billion (8 percent)
Electricity delivery and energy reliability: $0.1 billion (4 percent)
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-12-EnergyTechnologies.pdfI know there are other tax credit type subsidies, like fossil fuels brought into the U.S. are calculated into the billions. And nuclear and fossil fuel R&D is into the Billions, I think recently nuclear has been more than fossil. But R&D for fossil historically was huge (a long time ago).
The bottom line is unless you've done your homework, you can't really say whether nuclear or fossil has received more subsidies. And then there are indirect subsidies, like how much money it will cost to clean up any pollution/damage to environment by fossil and nuclear (like fracking and nuclear waste disposal). That is a huge debate and a huge amount of info to process. Once again Rerun is grinding his axe to the tune of "I really don't know what I'm talking about, just running my mouth."
The entire U.S. energy situation is complex and the whole thing is subsidized, some of the subsidies are way more complex than a direct $$$ amount of money.