Nuclear power is a good idea

Thank you for your very thoughtful response! 1. While you are correct that Chernobyl was a steam explosion, the reason that it was so catastrophic was because of all the nuclear material, not directly because of the explosion itself, so that is a moot point. What you have implied in this argument is that you have such a strong trust in the personnel and technology of nuclear reactors that you feel that accidents absolutely cannot happen. Ah, how I would love to live in your Utopian world. Even if the accidents that could happen only have a very slight chance of happening, and even if they aren't as catastrophic as Chernobyl, accidents still happen. Think about this: Would you have liked to have been in Hiroshima right after the US bombed them during WWII? There would be plenty of radiation, and you would very likely contract Cancer. Now imagine a nuclear power incident 1/400 the size of the Chernobyl incident. The amount of radioactive fallout in that would be the same amount of radioactive fallout in the Hiroshima bombing [1]. So it's not as if a much smaller explosion wouldn't be catastrophic. Even if there is only a tiny chance that a catastrophe could happen, that's still a chance, and there are so many other ways that wouldn't cause a catastrophe (I'd like to see a wind turbine blow up). 2. Nuclear waste doesn't just go away. Yes, it will decay by itself to a safe level eventually, but for high level nuclear waste, that could take many millennia, many radioactive isotopes decaying into other radioactive isotopes. Granted, most nuclear waste is low-level, but not all of it is. For example, Nuclear power plants usually produce U-234 [2], which has a half life of about 236,000 years [3], so it's not particularly radioactive, but it's radioactive enough that you wouldn't want to be spending long periods of time with a large quantity of it. Also, it produces Pu-238 [2], which has a half-life of about 87.7 years, in which it turns into our good friend U-234 [4], and it is so radioactive that it actually glows from its own heat that it produces. And a half life of 87.7 years doesn't mean that it will be gone in 87.7 years, it means that half of it will be gone in 87.7 years. Then half of what's left will be gone in another 87.7 years. It keeps going like that until there are only a few atoms left. Unfortunately, we'd be continuing to produce it at a faster rate than it was decaying, so we'd have it for quite a while. "However, it is possible to upkeep the containers (since we upkeep all our roads and buildings and everything else from corrosion), and we can even design the containers to be extremely immune to corrosion...so that the life span goes from decades to centuries to possible millennia." Well, assuming we don't put any more waste in a facility, it takes 87.7 years for half of the Pu-238 to go away. It takes 236,000 years for half of the U-234 to go away. Centuries certainly won't cut it. Millennia won't really either, especially if we keep producing more waste. "Nuclear power plants also don't produce that much waste, about 20 tons a year per plant...That's the same amount of waste (by weight, not volume) as about 25 people, per year." But the waste produced by humans isn't radioactive. And I'm all about "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," but that's completely different from Nuclear waste. And I'm not going to directly quote you on your discussion of safer nuclear plants, but as I said, unless you can guarantee that absolutely nothing will go wrong, it's not safe enough. "While just over the vent stack, readings up to 1,200 millirems were recorded (indicating that radioactive material was making it out into the environment. The government maintained a registry for 18 years of the 30,000 people that lived in the vicinity and found that they did not experience ANY health fallout (no increased rate of cancer, no increased rate of birth defects, no increased rate of brain issues)." Still, radioactive matter does cause health issues. Perhaps they didn't find any in this particular instance, but it does happen. But even with that, the issue of waste kind of trumps that in the first place. Because that produces a lot of radiation and a lot of problems. "Research has shown that nuclear workers will, on average, be subjected to about 1,000 millirem per year (compared to the average individual who gets about 360 per year), and that will, on average, lessen the workers life by about 50 days" That's an average. If you don't get cancer, then your lifespan isn't affected. But it raises your chances of cancer by that much. "It is also only fair to compare this energy source to other ones, such as coal or oil. Those industries can only wish for the environmental and safety history of US nuclear power plants." I agree. But don't you think you're being selective there? You ignored wind power. And non-invasive hydropower. And solar power. That's just naming a few. Our nation is lucky enough to have a wonderful geography for harvesting these kinds of power. We have many rivers and an extensive coastline that we can put non-invasive hydroelectric turbines. We have Huge areas where there could be wind turbines. The city of Portland has pioneered in technologies such as wind farms on top of tall buildings. While that doesn't provide all the energy for the building, they hope to be able to make it more efficient on other buildings. Also, some cities require solar panels on all buildings. One thing I really strongly remember about Jerusalem is that every single building, be it a house, a store, a hotel, or anything, had solar panels on the roof. We could do that. Yes, coal and oil are dirty and yucky. That is why we have all these alternatives. We don't need nuclear power. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org... 3. http://en.wikipedia.org... 4. http://en.wikipedia.org...