A similar news article talks about Westinghouse contracting for a pair of Florida A1000 plants for $7.65 billion. That's for a capacity of 2.2 MW. Double that to $15 billion to get into the 4 MW range of Pickens' wind farm, and we're still not talking a factor of three.
Note that for both China and Florida, the contracts are for construction costs (which include the cost of construction labor). Note in the article the final $14 billion cost after things like "inflation, site preparation, licensing, and financing" are thrown in.
A rigorous analysis would require a lot more information to ensure "apple-to-apple" numbers, but even if you assume the Pickens' wind farm cost included these extra non-construction costs and compared the $14 billion for 4 MW of wind in Texas to $28 billion for 4 MW of nuclear in Florida, we're only looking at a factor of two.
And there's still the reliability issue.
Space/Science » in reply to Re: nuclear power costs
Re: apples and oranges
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- Lamar Alexander on the state of nuclear power in the U.S.