Obama giving go ahead for Georgia nuke

[Lissa]

Hi,
That is a very complex question. Many do indeed embrace nuclear power as the best solution, usually in combination with various eco-friendly renewable sources. Some are anti-nuke because of the waste problem (made worse by the present once through policy). Others fear accidents, both possible and fantastic, or the use of waste in a dirty bomb. Many are just Luddites and hate anything more complex than a sharpened stick. An amazing number do not distinguish between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. And at least one, whom I know personally, thinks that cheap and readily available energy will just continue to fuel the population explosion leading to a bigger collapse when the day comes.

And those are just the ones that come immediately to mind. I'm sure there are more.

--Pete

This is more to expand on what Pete is saying.

Western style reactors are nigh impossible to meltdown now, in most designs it takes an act of sabotage to cause the meltdown due to so many passive design safety measures. One design I know of uses natural bouyancy to have the normal coolant water flow over the reacotr with a borated water in a trouph pool below. If the coolant starts to boil off, the borated water then flows upwards and over the reactor shutting it down without operator involvment. There are other designs even more elegant that this.

The funny thing is that some of the rabid environmentalists don't realize that some of the power options they push have very detrimental effects on the environment. Wind power tends to kill large numbers of migrant birds, hydro tends to cause issues with fish stocks and removal of habitats for some animals, geothermal can't be done on large scales except in very specific areas and it lowers the water pressure of the area over time, tidal can only be done on a coastal area with significant altitudual changes of the coast line (works on the west coast of the US, not so well on the east), and solar isn't that effected on large scale either (typically a solar plant to supply a city will end up taking up twice the size of the city to supply everyone with power).

If you look at all the pros and cons, Nuclear really is the best choice for large scale power production.