"It is also true, though, that even before the regulatory tightening in the 1970s, no one was willing to insure a nuclear plant against accidents. In the Price-Anderson Act of 1957, Congress basically made the industry free from liability in case of accidents and said that the U.S. government would cover the costs of any incident, up to some cap (currently about 9 billion). Without that immunity -- unique in the energy sector -- it would be very difficult to build a nuclear plant even if the state PUCs were on your side, due to the tremendous expense or outright unavailability of private-sector insurance coverage."
Yet accidents from other forms of energy being generated are considerable higher then from the 100 or so nuclear plants generating power in the US. It's all about perception- rather than reality.

"Likewise, the government has taken on responsibility for waste disposal, which would also be a big headache for nuclear plant owners if they had to take care of it themselves (again, including paying for insurance against any accidents)."

Nuclear plant owner will paying the govt part of the cost- this portion of the cost is excessive. But it's a govt program with all the costs of all these kinds of govt program- it costing at least 10 times what it should cost- and nuclear plant owners are paying about 1/5 of cost- so they paying about twice as much as it should be- and tax payer is getting reamed for the rest. The end result will be the US nuclear plant owner will probably ended paying twice what the cost compared to other countries waste disposal. You could goggle it I guess, but US costs are still not known- probably end up costing double from existing cost projection- if it ever gets completed that is.