Because our government (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/31/AR2006103101109.html?referrer=email) can't be trusted with nuclear waste.

RICHLAND, Wash. -- Out on the Hanford nuclear reservation, a fantastically poisoned plateau where the federal government brewed up most of the plutonium for its nuclear arsenal, the cleanup is going rather badly.

Now in its 17th year, the nation's largest and most complex environmental remediation project is costing many billions of dollars more than expected and will continue far longer than experts once predicted.

Houses are being built all over the Tri-Cities area of eastern Washington state near the Hanford nuclear reservation, where a costly cleanup has been going on since 1989. The effort has proved lucrative for area residents.
Houses are being built all over the Tri-Cities area of eastern Washington state near the Hanford nuclear reservation, where a costly cleanup has been going on since 1989. The effort has proved lucrative for area residents. That dismal forecast is music to the ears of local residents.

"The silver lining is all local, where there are no consequences for failure and no misdeed goes unrewarded," said Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and a former Energy Department official who monitored the cleanup during the Clinton era.

and our government is doing an awesome job with cleaning up Pollution from coal plants?

I'd rather deal with nuclear waste and small amounts of C02 then vast amounts of C02 from coal

Are you sure about that when it starts getting into the drinking water?

as opposed to pollution already being in the air?

Nuclear Waste can ultimately be managed and regulated to reasonable degrees of safety. (something bad happening eventually is always a possibility, but I dont see how people dying/having problems because of nuclear waste is worse then people dying/shortened life spans/asthma etc from Pollution.

There is no free lunch when it comes to power. While ultimately I hope we invest much more into some forms of renewable energy (IE a decentralized solar network where most buildings have solar power) we still need consistent largescale production, which is ultimately going to come from Nuclear, Coal, Natural Gas, Hydro etc, all which have real and potential pitfalls.

People dying from a nuclear spill, accident, improper dumping etc is undoubedly much more "emotional" and visable impact, then problems with others, but is a death or a crappy life, not a death or a crappy life regardless of what caused it?

Yep. Nuclear is by far cleaner, and its waste is smaller and more easily contained. I'd much rather have all nuclear plants than what we have now (~20% nuclear).

To borrow something Thicket said several months ago, having a "Diverified portfolio" of power generation is the best.

From what I've read, nuclear (and coal) power is a little bit slower then some other forms when it comes to dealing with increasing power output quickly. Hydro is best (or better) for that, as it takes several days for a nuclear plant to change it output, while a hydro does it rapidly)

Nuclear is one of the best for "baseload" (constant reliable flow) but still need things like Hydro (and lesser degree gas/oil) to deal with spikes in power flow. and of course renewable sources like Solar to lower the average power needed to generate)

If you have 90 minutes to burn I found this a pretty good debate on Nuclear Power

http://www.economist.com/media/audio/The_Economist_Debate-Nuclear_power.m3u

Don't confuse Fast reactors and reactors used for producing materials for nuclear weapons for modern reactors used for civilian power generation. They are two entirely different animals. Not to mention that most of Hanfords eight reactors were shut down around 40 years ago or longer. Most of the waste still on the property was produced in the early days of nuclear technology. And long before the EPA was ever created.

Modern reactors like Pebble bed reactors produce waste that's easier to handle and less radioactive than anything ever done at Hanford which was specifically there to produce highly radioactive weapons grade material.

We had nuclear blasts in the Nevada desert.

What are left are essentially huge glass lined radioactive caverns.

Dig a deep hole into each one. Robots could do the work, if you don't want to irradiate workers.

Lay a track to the entrance of each hole. Again have robots lay the track.

And just train the stuff down into the caverns.

The land is going to be uninhabitable for the next million years or so, you really only have to worry about containment until it gets there.

All types of energy sources have their place. There is no reason why solar and wind can not have an increasing role. Ultimately, it will depend on how able a nation is to set asside land for these expansive types of energy collection.

American reactors are much better than Russian but that is not the reason to want reactors. The Hanford reactor was working way before 1989. That is when the clean up started. The question is... when did the "pollution" start? I would suggest to look at articles that talk about the Manhattan project...

For those looking for a job, the old Westinghouse had the contract for the clean up... Not sure who has it now...

Modern nuke plants have certain amounts of nuclear spillage but coal plants release sulfur which results in acid rain or mercury... which is a real threat relative to CO2.