In 1982 the Nuclear Waste Policy Act established the Nuclear Waste Fund which does exactly this, but for nuclear waste. Rate payers have been paying for nuclear waste disposal ever since, and it's up to around $40B! [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Fund#Nuclear_Was...
Whatever way it's done needs to provide a level playing field to permit real comparisons of cost, environmental impact, and real consequences for not bothering to fix the pipeline leak etc. If you want to subsidise green energy (or fossil), it should be a visible layer on top, not baked in so you can't easily compare.
Maybe then, markets could start giving the correct answers...
How about requiring some large percent of turnover or profit to be held in escrow until decommissioning? Set it at whatever level necessary such that all companies will eventually get a refund from it, only if they still exist, otherwise it goes to state coffers, or distributed to the population. Added bonus of encouraging some long-termism.
Beats socialising all losses and cleanups via the state. Might not be quite so popular with the extremely wealthy. :)
There are 90000 metric tons of nuclear waste in need of disposal in the US [1]. That’s half a million per ton, available right there. A pretty intriguing startup idea ...
[1]https://www.gao.gov/mobile/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_...
The total economic damage caused by Chernobyl is estimated to be 235 billion dollars (but who really knows).
Cleaning up after a disaster isn't the same as cleaning up a plant's stored waste.
I could as well say that I've calculated that 42 dollars will be enough to take care of all the leftover nuclear waste forever.
The fund has $40 billion, but there are 60 commercial plants in the US. Even with the optimistic $2 billion per plant and ignoring scientific plants and interim storage facilities and Fukushima situations, there are still about $80 billion that are not yet internalized into nuclear power production costs.
The obvious alternative are renewables, though, not fossil fuel plants.
Decommissioning is paid for by plant-specific trust funds that are also paid into throughout the life of the plant.
In general, it's looking to be slightly cheaper than expected to decommission plants, and so there's a bit of a gold rush to access these funds. That's why you see stuff like this: https://www.ipsecinfo.org/2018/11/23/holtec-seeks-approval-t...
This is another element in the equation of why nuclear plants are shutting down early.