Nuclear power is a good idea

I will first point out the arguments that "The transportation of nuclear material is safe" went uncontested and so I extend the argument. 1) Chernobyl again. My opponent has stated that the damage done from Chernobyl was horrible, yes. However, he has done nothing to show that it is possible. I have already shown that with PBRs and Fusion Reactors, that meltdowns are physically impossible. And, if they links were read, you would also see the with the PBRs, the actual pellets don't emit radiation unless at a high enough temperature, and so if there was a spill of the actual pebbles, there was no radiation released. [links from previous argument] "I'd like to see a wind turbine blow up." - granted [see youtube video] 2) "Nuclear waste doesn't just go away." I will address this in several ways. A) The nice thing is, that it actually does, just really slowly. But I see that my opponent did not mention anything about how all this radioactive material is found in the ground [my #2 link, last round and my opponent's #3 link this round], it is a part of nature. It physically can be diluted back to what nature had it as and put back in nature, zero sum. B) The sunshine canyon landfill can hold 90 million tons of waste[1]. And a new land fill outside of LA will be taking 20,000 tons a day for the next hundred years (700 million tons of waste)[2]. First thing to point out is that I'm not advocating these particular locations, only pointing out that we have the space. Since the average nuclear site produces 20 tons of waste a year, 10,000 nuclear reactors (which is over 20 times our current world amount of 436[3]) would produce 200,000 tons a year, and would take 3,500 years to fill that one single location (and we could have more then one, easily). C) Looking at the potential a 700 million ton land fill. We can also see that if the land fill was full of 700 million tons of nuclear waste, breaking down with a 1/2 life of 324,000 years, means that 350 million tons would break down after 324,000 years, or at a rate of 750 tons per year (1 - (.5)^(1/324000)), or enough for almost 36 nuclear reactors running full time with the amount of waste they produce actually breaking down, so no net volume is added. And remember that is for a single land fill site (we can have more then one and also remember that I am not suggesting that particular site but only the concept that it is physically possible). Here I have presented 3 options as to why the nuclear waste is not a major problem, without going into futuristic methods (like ejecting it into space, which may become more feasible in upcoming decades). "...unless you can guarantee that absolutely nothing will go wrong, it's not safe enough." So I take it you will never drive a car (can't guarantee that absolutely nothing will go wrong), or have a significant other (can't guarantee that absolutely nothing will go wrong), breath anything other then 100% filtered air (which doesn't exist, even in computer processing plants), or ever step out side (can't guarantee that absolutely nothing will go wrong). The argument that one must guarantee that absolutely nothing will go wrong is not realistic for anything, nuclear included. The only thing that needs to be done is that they are safe enough that the benefit out weighs the risk. For people that live near nuclear power plants, they experience, on average 0.1 millirem per year more then other people [#12 from last round], where as a full set of dentist xrays gives about 40 millirems. There are also a lot of items in your homes that use radiation to work, like a smoke detector. [4] "Still, radioactive matter does cause health issues. Perhaps they didn't find any in this particular instance, but it does happen." This was the worst nuclear incident in American history. If the worst incident in American history had no ill effects and we've made it so it is physically impossible for it to happen again, that indicates that they are, in fact, safe enough. Other sources are great, however they do lack one fundamental thing. Consistency. While I support and encourage the use of solar and wind, they, at best, can provide secondary energy sources. Because they are not able to run 24/7 they cannot provide energy 24/7 and cannot be relied on as the primary source. Nuclear can. [1] http://www.sunshinecanyonlandfill.com... [2] http://articles.latimes.com... [3] http://www.world-nuclear.org... [4] http://home.howstuffworks.com... http://www.youtube.com...