The US indeed has a similar cost level but it just puts that out in tax form or takes on more debt. Result: lots of outdated infrastructure and plants like this and companies that leave their mess for tax payers to clean up rather than investing themselves. Like in this case with a nuclear plant that was bought last year and promptly shut down by its new owner. Why would they buy such an old plant at the end of its life?

Now instead of taking the cost of decommissioning it (which costs lots of money) they are now looking to reopen it using public funding. So, they are happy to profit from this deal but not without public funding. The permit is probably less of an issue than finding the hundreds of millions needed to refurbish this plant. Kind of weird if you look at it like that. Until of course you realize that the prospect of public funding was the whole reason for this company to buy this plant. Basically, tax payers and consumers take all the risk. They take the profit. That's how the nuclear business works. Never mind that this plant still needs to be shut down and decommissioned eventually. Who is going to be paying for that?