Reply #9: Actually, nuclear power in America is very safe.

[BreweryYardRat]

What's the statistic -- 2,000 dead coal miners each YEAR in America?

During the Three-Mile Island meltdown -- the only significant accident in the history of American nuclear -- nobody died, and the massive containment systems and lead/concrete shielding absorbed almost all of the radiation. The little that did make it outside was nowhere near enough to do any long-term harm. The only costs of Three-Mile Island were financial -- an unusable plant and another that had to be left offline for several years.

And before you scream "Chernobyl!", that was a combination of a shoddily-designed Russian reactor with piss-poor shielding/containment, and the fact that they'd been running an experiment that required them to shut down most of the few safety systems they did have.

If safety's such a concern, do yourself a favor. Go Google "thorium" and "molten salt reactors." Even safer than a standard American plant, but the design was quashed by the military-industrial complex during the Cold War. Standard nuclear plants produce warhead-suitable plutonium as a byproduct, which is ideal for a bunch of Pentagon hawks following a MAD strategy. (And before you jump a mile, a single standard nuclear plant -- or even two operating in close proximity -- CANNOT produce enough plutonium for an accident to cause a fission explosion.)

Here, let me throw you a couple links to start off with:

Three-Mile, explained in detail: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf36.html

Chernobyl, likewise: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.html

Wired Magazine on Thorium: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1