Nuclear power is beneficial for society

In each argument I plan to only post one point. Now to refute my opponents idea that hydro power combined with wind and solar could in theory power the US, I would first like to point our that that hydro power causes huge habitat destruction and involves the flooding of an area in order to build the dams necessary. The main problem with hydro power is simply that it requires water in order to build and usually involves damming up a river. However, in many states and in US and places all over the world, there are places where water is not abundant enough to be dammed up as opposed to being used. Now, in order to refute his second point that energy that is most easily found is the supposed "best" energy. Following my opponent's logic, then fossil fuels should be the best alternative because there is a large amount of it. I beg to differ. Furthermore, his point on how there has been "catastrophic" disasters in nuclear, there has not been a single casualty or even injury in all of the year's that the US has used nuclear reactors and nuclear energy. Now, I can nearly guarantee that my opponent will at some point bring up the Chernobyl incident as why nuclear energy is unsafe. However, one must understand that the Chernobyl nuclear plant had NO CONTAINMENT dome for some reason over the plant. Also, the plant was made using soviet style nuclear plants, which have improved tremendously in terms of safety. Nowadays, all of the plants in the US are build using the western style and no casualties have happened in the US as a result of a nuclear plant malfunction. Furthermore, my opponents point about how there is no chance of hydro, solar or wind of hurting citizens is rather unfounded. The following is a table obtained from . http://nextbigfuture.com... It is the deaths per TWh produced by each energy. Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity) Coal – China 278 Coal – USA 15 Oil 36 (36% of world energy) Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy) Biofuel/Biomass 12 Peat 12 Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy) Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy) Hydro 0.10 (Europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy) Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead) Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy) My opponent's point that nuclear technology can be stolen and turn into potential nuclear weapons is rather amusing. Every single country in the world that currently has nuclear bombs first made the bombs as a result of military use and AFTER that began to develop civilian use nuclear factories. N. Korea already has nuclear bomb but has never actually used the on another country, and as you claim, if a country is so dangerous then there is a very high chance they will use nuclear bombs. However, N. Korea has not currently done so. Finally, if the technology of nuclear is as easy to steal as you claim it is, why don't terrorists just steal the thousands of nuclear bombs that the US already has? Now, back to my second point. Nuclear power can actually produce enough power to replace fossil fuels. It is actually viable. If solar were to replace the power that nuclear is producing CURRENTLY, it would have to cover New Jersey. If wind were to replace the nuclear energy currently produced, it would have to cover West Virginia. Hydro power can only be made on a river or lake and thus has very limited areas where it can actually produce energy. Nuclear power plants can be built anywhere and the energy produced by a single nuclear atom is 10 million times that of a coal atom. France is currently the world leader in nuclear energy and it has never had any casualties as a result of nuclear power. France has also reduced its CO2 levels compared to other countries. Essentially, my second point is that nuclear power can actually replace fossil fuels at a low cost and can easily generate enough power to power the US. Hydro, wind, solar etc. do not.