How do you feel about the use of nuclear energy as an alternate source of energy?

The use of nuclear energy as an alternate source of energy is very short sighted, and wasteful. It is a very costly way to heat water to turn a turbine gene rater to make electricity. What gets avoided is where does the nuclear waste goes. And how long that waste has to be stored, and how poisonous it is. Solar, geothermal, and alternative fuels are the way to go. Nuclear is a way to poison the future, to solve our need to watch a 40inch tv all day.

Nuclear power, I believe is the best, safest, most reliable, current technology to provide energy. The plants operating now are safe and the new designs are even safer. Building 100's of new nuclear power plants would improve the economy, reduce or eliminate dependence on foreign oil, create jobs, reduce pollution, and provide for future technological advancement. I have been working with nuclear power for about 30 years, I would be glad to have a Nuclear power plant or high level waste disposal facility in my backyard. My family and I live in a home within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant. (where I work) I have a great understanding of the risks involved and am completely comfortable with a plant "in my backyard". I have confidence that my grandchildren’s grandchildren will be smart enough to treat the nuclear "waste" as a valuable resource or at least smart enough to handle it safely . If the cavemen thought their children would be too stupid to use fire safely, where would we be now? Using Chernobyl as a reason not to build is like saying because of the Hindenburg I will never fly in a commercial airliner. Nuclear power has the smallest environmental impact of any current energy production method per unit of energy produced. One fuel pellet about the size of a pencil eraser produces the same energy as about 1 ton of coal, and if reprocessed 2/3 of whats left can be reclaimed. Nuclear power is our best option for reliable, environmentally friendly base-load electrical power.

http://www.withouthotair.com Renewable technology is decades and decades away from being able to fully power developed nations. The choice isn't 'renewables or other stuff', even if we build renewables as fast as we can then the choice is what mix of fossil fuel and nuclear power goes with them. I'm concerned about climate change & nuclear is low on carbon emissions, it looks affordable and most of the worries about nuclear are unfounded. There are decades+ of fuel (more with breeder reactors), the waste takes up a very small space and the threat of radiation is massively overrated. The problems are security and cost. I think we should put a cap on pollution from power stations and let the market work out whether it's cheaper to build nuclear power stations or capture and bury the carbon dioxide from coal power stations. Modern power stations are safe: you don't hear anything of the hundreds that've been operating for decades without blowing up. As far as I understand it from speaking to specialist nuclear physics, it's effectively impossible to get a repeat of Chernobyl unless you bypass the safeguards (which they did at Chernobyl)

Switzerland and especially France run on nuclear power. If no nuclear power than the much dirtier coal will be used all over the world. Nuclear energy will be vital in the future because of the draught problem. Newer generation nuclear plants will be hybrid, they will supply electricity during the day and at night time they will desalinate seawater to make drinking water. Under proper international supervision a nuclear plant can run safely anywhere but this still would not eliminate your concerns. I am sure we all hope for clean energy but that is simply not feasable right now.

The technology is safer now days than what happened there. We also have more routine safety checks to make sure things happen right. My uncle works at the Hanford site in Washington and they shut those reactors down after Chernobyl. He told me that we had a totally different setup, which would have never allowed what happened there. And for Three Mile, just checking to make sure everything is working would have fixed that.

It would be a good thing with the exception of the very high start up costs. Once running it produces cheap clean energy. Russia has never been much for safety and both were years ago. Many things have been improved since they occurred. There are hundreds of these plants in the US and all over the world that operate with no problems. Every type of power plant has had some type of major accident at some point in time. You shouldn't let 2 accidents scare you off. Large scale solar plants are a joke. It takes huge amounts of land which will probably be in the middle of nowhere and remove all the plants and animals from the area. Then you need huge amounts of water to cool the panels. You need huge batteries to store energy so you aren't sitting around in the dark all night. Then you need to build huge power lines back to the city so they can get the power. On top of that the power is inefficient at best.

I am uncomfortable about it too. I wouldnt like to have a leak in it!

Nuclear is extremely safe. Do you realize Three Mile Island did not kill anybody and Chernobyl only killed four people? Those were old reactors. If we build a nuclear powerplant today it's even safer. Like other said though, the real argument against nuclear power is that it's not nearly as cheap as people thought it would be because of the need to mine and enrich the fuel.