> Fukushima happened

Yes it did, and it finally pushed me over the edge into full support for a nuclear renaissance (I was leaning before). Let's recap what happened:

1. A Tsunami of unexpected size hit Japan, overwhelming sea walls and other technical infrastructure, and as a result killing somewhere between 15000 and 19000 people. Most drowned, but 165 died of fire.

2. One of the many pieces of technical infrastructure that was hit and wasn't able to cope was an old nuclear power plant with severe safety deficits.

3. Yet there have been zero casualties of the resulting meltdown (and future predicted casualties are somewhere between low and non-existent). That's despite the fact that Tepco and the authorities appeared to be woefully unprepared.

165 people died of fires resulting from the Tsunami, a number much, much larger then the casualties from the meltdown. Banning fire and flammable substances would be a saner response to the Tsunami than banning nuclear power.

Your source [1], the Wikipedia article on nuclear accidents is the most ringing endorsement of nuclear power I can think of. Did you have a look at the "fatalities" column? It reads 0 or 1 for all of the accidents except the one in Idaho falls, where the number is 3. Do you know what the death toll of other energy sources is? Forbes put together the statistics[2], and the results are staggering: even in the relatively safe USA, the death-rate per Trillion kWh for Coal is 15000. Worldwide it is 150000 and in China 280000. Nuclear is 90.

Again, the gap is so staggeringly huge as to beggar belief, but it tallies with other sources. Now I'd obviously prefer that number to be zero, but that option is not available on the menu, so I'd like the least bad option, and nothing else comes close (even solar and wind are higher).

In terms of waste, I just want to reiterate what others have stated: technically, it is a solved problem, the problems are purely political, because of an unreasonably scared populace and spineless populist politicians. Heck, ash from coal plants is more radioactive than nuclear waste[3][4].

Now there are problems, for example being stuck with a military reactor design that whose express purpose was to make bombs, whereas other designs are much, much safer and would burn waste[5], but those can be overcome and even with those problems it is a damn good option, so good that many thinking environmentalists have come around[6][7]. Alas in Germany everybody "knows" that nuclear is bad, so our Dear Leader decided to cave in to popular demand, no matter how brain-dead.

If you haven't seen it "Pandora's Promise"[8] is also really worthwhile.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_accidents_in_th...

[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de...

[3] http://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_is_coal_ash_more_radioa...

[4] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-r...

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor

[6] http://e360.yale.edu/feature/stewart_brands_strange_trip_who...

[7] http://archive.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2007/11/mo...

[8] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1992193/plotsummary