for Duke Energy. How the hell can it be that rate payers have to pay for something that isn't even going to be built let alone paying for it before it was even built.

Something wrong with this picture for sure.

If FL had a "free market"... then those companies would have to compete with alternative providers and if they spent a billion dollars preping for a build that never went through (or screwed up a repair on a piece of equipment)... they would be SOL.

But most parts of the country have regulated monopolies where the government decides who can play and how much they can charge. The company's profits are too often tied to a percentage of their costs... which means that there's little incentive to avoid costs.

It's a pretty clear moral hazard - though it has little to do with nuclear power except to the extent that nuclear projects have large dollar figures associated with them.

Where else is it allowed to charge for something before its built
If what is going on in Japan right now isn't enough to call into question the so called safety of nuclear power plants I don't know what is. Removing the fuel rods in unit 4 is going to be one dicey operation. My hope is it goes as planned but at this point its pretty Iffy

It has been used for lots of different generation and transmission projects (including renewables).

Colorado has used it for transmission projects for years.

There are loads of examples. Utilities have huge capital expenditures required over the next few decades and they don't have the rock-solid credit ratings that they once had... so financing gets more and more expensive. So long-term expensive projects (of any type) become more challenging. States have found CWIP to be more attractive than proviging financing themselves.

in both states but so far I'm not finding anything that suggest that rate payers are on the hook for any of these projects prior to their being built. Transmission projects in Colorado or gasification projects in Iowa, or anywhere else for that matter.
Help me out here with some links or something

There was no reason to ban it before then because it had been used responsibly.
In the 2000's, nuclear industry lobbyists corrupted the political system to get those bans repealed.
In some states they were succesful, in other states they weren't.

In energy, Construction Work In Progress (CWIP) is a legal and regulatory arrangement where, because the capital costs are so high and the fundamental economics so poor, nuclear plants are allowed to charge and collect up-front for everything.
Other generation is built almost exclusively within various economic arrangements that do not pose any similar type of risk for the ratepayer - nothing is payed until and unless it is for power actually generated.

This same practice has traditionally generated huge losses paid that have been for by taxpayers and ratepayers.

If nuclear had to play on a level playing field there would be very few if any nuclear power plants today

yup