Nuclear power should be banned

WasteLet's take a look at the total amount of byproducts produced by various forms of generating energy in the USA:Wind - nothingSolar - nothingTidal - nothingGeothermal - nothingHydroelectric - nothingNuclear - 12.3 million kilograms of toxic wasteSo the idea that nuclear emits less toxic byproducts than other industries is a complete lie. Now, is it safe to produce 12.3 million kilograms of toxic waste per year? You can have all the regulation in the world and it still wouldn't be safe! He claims that the huge metal water-vaults (aka toxic swimming pools) are safe, and yet I've already provided a scientific study showing that they're not. Finally he says that there is a financial incentive for the companies to keep them safe. I agree, but I contend that they cannot be kept safe. The companies are going for short-term profit over long-term environmental protection. I agree that coal isn't a good alternative, but how about not comparing nuclear to other crappy forms of energy, and instead comparing it to good energy? If the motion was for abolishing coal-based power plants then I'd be all for it, but right now let's deal with the topic at hand. Then he says nuclear byproducts are less toxic than solar ones. First, those aren't byproducts of electricity generation, they're construction byproducts. Second, the byproducts we're talking about are things like lead and mercury. They're dangerous if handled frequently, but completely safe inside a cell (like how mercury is safe in thermometers or lead in lead-acid batteries), particulary a cell that isn't handled frequently. If a solar panel ever leaks, it can be simply and safely recycled, unlike radioactive material. It is far safer for mercury to be inside a solar cell than for it to be out there in the environment. Same thing applies to lead. The differences to nuclear are that:1) the byproducts are not byproducts because they are part of the cell, not buried or drowned, and2) there is a much smaller quantity of them than 12.3 million kilograms, and3) enriched, spent uranium isn't a naturally-occuring thing we are removing from the environment, rather we are adding it. That's why nuclear is worse. Finally he talks about China importing the solar cells. Oh no, you're boosting your exports! I doubt you'll find an economist who says that more money for American businesses is bad for the American economy. WeaponizationLet's take a step back. What is a nuclear weapon? Dictionary. com defines it as "an explosive device whose destructive potential derives from the release of energy that accompanies the splitting or combining of atomic nuclei. " Now what is a nuclear reactor? Dictionary. com gives the very unhelpful answer of "a reactor", but thefreedictionary. com defines it as "a device in which a nuclear reaction is maintained and controlled for the production of nuclear energy". So, the differences are that one is explosive and destructive, and the other is maintained and controlled. Other than that, the two are exactly the same. A reactor is a maintained and controlled bomb. As to required enrichment, it is true that one requires a different critical mass for a nuclear chain reaction compared with just a slow nuclear reaction, but BOTH are harmful to people and the environment. Both solutions are therefore bad. Also, I think the US would be much safer if they were peaceful and stayed out of everybody's way too, but I digress. The point is that nuclear technology is NOT required for a strong national defense - if anything, it just gives foreign countries and terrorists another thing to attack. JobsRemember how I said Germany is getting rid of their power plants? At a time when unemployment in many places, such as almost every single nuclear nation, is at a record high, guess who are enjoying their lowest unemployment rate in two decades? That's right - Germany - with the interviewed economist even noting that "all available indicators still point to a further improvement of the German labour market" [3]. So why is my opponent so wrong? Firstly he says that solar could only create 10,000 jobs total. If you look at his source, however, he has missed a zero at the end of that number, so it should read 100,000 jobs - and that's not the "total" jobs, that's just the initial ones, for as it says "jobs would only go up over a longer period". He then states that 11% of wind energy jobs are in construction, and 5% are in maintenance. If you look at his source, it doesn't state these percentages anywhere, so he's clearly just making stuff up. I agree that the nuclear industry employs 50,000 people - but when solar energy ALONE, ignoring all the other forms of green energy, will generate 100,000 jobs right from day one if expanded, you bet jobs would boom. Just like they boomed in New Zealand after we banned it, and in Germany after they banned it. CostMy opponent has simply mistaken megawatts for kilowatts. 1 kilowatt = 0.001 megawatts. Bearing this in mind, my source actually estimates the hourly cost of nuclear even cheaper than many of con's sources. And I agree that nuclear is cheaper than fossil fuels. However, green energy remains the cheapest. His source asserting that nuclear energy is the cheapest did not take into account any green energy production, only fossil fuel. SafetyA meltdown is not the only way nuclear energy can break down, so meltdown regulation is a bit of a waste of time. Our favorite lobby group, world nuclear, tells us they try hard to minimise accidents, but the fact is we're still facing a major accident every 8 years or so, despite all these "newer" designs (by the way, the idea that nuclear is too modern to break down predates Chernobyl by a few decades, and was in that Economist article I talked about last round). Then he cites another lobby-group article saying the accidents are easily controlled, using the example of three-mile island. That's where 40,000 gallons of radioactive waste water was dumped into a river, 140,000 people were evacuated, and $1 billion was spent on the cleanup [1]. That's far from being "easily contained" - the accident wasn't contained at all! That's the worst accident in the US involving nuclear power plants. The worst involving solar power? Nobody cares what that is, because when solar power fails, there is zero health risk. Same for all the other green energy solutions by the way. And given how long the list of nuclear power plant accidents is [2] (and that's excluding incidents and accidents at the Springfield power plant), I doubt that any level of training will help the situation. GreenAgain, I don't care what emits more CO2. Don't confuse environmentalism with climate change (though my opponent is wrong about the CO2 thing - solar has zero running emmissions, only construction emmissions from mining minerals used in solar cells, but nuclear power plant construction takes longer and emits more). I also don't care about sustainability, which my opponent tries to talk about twice. A sustainable nuclear power plant is a bad thing, because all that while it will be killing you and your descendants, among other harmful effects. On my part, I do worry about that. I worry about it a lot. We don't need to poison ourselves with more radiation. There are other, cheaper, and most importantly, cleaner alternatives available. My opponent continues to ignore this. We don't need nuclear power to save the planet. We don't want nuclear power to pollute us. My opponent's arguments are wrong, his sources are either lobbiests or misquoted, and he has failed to respond to my case. The motion stands. Sources1 - . http://en.wikipedia.org...2 - . http://en.wikipedia.org...3 - . http://gulfnews.com...