Now that the government has provided free insurance for nuclear power plants, much of the claims business has moved to Madison Avenue. Nuclear power plants produce no emissions. Nuclear power plants produce electricity too cheap to meter. Nuclear power plants can be made inherently safe. An energy economy based on nuclear power plants can be made proliferation proof.
Nuclear power is a good way to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
There is no particularly polite way to accurately describe the first five of these claims. In plain English, one could call them balderdash. For more scientific descriptions, see the editorial and Science for the Critical Masses in this issue, the table comparing fossil fuels and nuclear power, and the book Nuclear Power Deception , wherein there are also large numbers of references. The one claim that merits more detailed discussion is whether nuclear power plants might be a good way to eliminate the build-up of greenhouse gases. In theory, nuclear power plants emit relatively small amounts of carbon dioxide compared to coal-fired power plants.