Nice graphic. It speaks to the reason why, in my opinion, many environmental organizations continue to oppose nuclear power while the "grassroots" is warming to the idea, and that reason is fear and the fundraising that fear can generate. For the vast majority of people, the science and technology behind nuclear power is largely unknown, and it's easy to raise fears about nuclear power and distort perceptions of risk, as opposed to providing sound risk analysis. It seems that often, nuclear power is to environmental organizations what illegal immigration is to Republicans.

renewables > nuclear > everything else > coal > biased writers with more opinions than anything constructive to say

(the last one referring to the utne article)

Wasn't there an article on how global warming itself threatens the viability of nukes? The Tennessee Valley Authority, which uses some of the rivers in the region as the heat sink for their nuke plants, found that the river got too hot this summer to serve as a heat sink, which forced a shut-down of the plant. The river's temperature rose to 90˚. Compare that to concentrated solar power, which only gets more powerful as the seasons get hot.

Nuclear power still doesn't solve the problem of uranium being mined in regions that are unstable, such as Africa. Fuel reprocessing can only go so far, and has many inherent risks, which is why it has been scaled back and abandoned in many places. The Swedish and the Germans have both given up on fuel reprocessing to recover plutonium from nuclear waste to re-use as fuel.

Worst of all is the fact that for decades, the nuclear industry has been subsidized in both research, development, and deployment. If the same aid were given to renewable energy, we would be so much further along that nuclear power would be largely irrelevant. Consider that in 15 minutes, the sun imparts more energy on the earth than all of humanity uses in a year. We have hardly begun to exploit the free energy coming down on us from the sun; why shackle ourselves to an infrastructure that still depends on a non-renewable fuel? I concede that nuke plants may be more practical in some limited applications where the sun does not shine enough year round and there isn't a good geothermal source or tidal or wind source, but certainly not to the extent that the nuke industry says it is.

"Compare that to concentrated solar power, which only gets more powerful as the seasons get hot."

Solar surface insolation is not proportional to temperature increase, if anything it's more or less a constant depending on atmospheric and seasonal conditions. And with concentrated solar you still require a thermal differential in order to produce power, raising the ambient temperature has basically a net zero effect. Nuclear reactors can also be gas cooled, but it is easier using a natural heat sink such as a river or a lake. The down-time is still much much less than either solar or wind.

"Worst of all is the fact that for decades, the nuclear industry has been subsidized in both research, development, and deployment. If the same aid were given to renewable energy, we would be so much further along that nuclear power would be largely irrelevant."

There's a lot of cross-link in nuclear and solar fields. The interaction of photons with matter is a an essential field of study to both. Solar is a lot more specific a field than nuclear power and to ignore the vast accumulation of knowledge in physics, materials, and engineering is disingenuous.

"Consider that in 15 minutes, the sun imparts more energy on the earth than all of humanity uses in a year."

However AT PERFECT EFFICIENCY you are still limited to an average of ~220 Watts per square meter insolation on the surface of the earth.

Turn off the tv, turn off the pc, live with a lower light level, do some manual work instead of using your power tools, don't buy so many frivolous disposable items, get your head round the fact that it's only recently become like this, and make a big effort to live with renewables... THEN decide if we NEED nuclear power

To Berkana: You make a really good argument against building any more 1970s vintage nuke plants. Congratulations if this is the first article on nuclear power you have read. You may be interested to know that NONE of the designs that are being considered use river water as a coolant.

To the Utne Reader: Good luck fooling the American people again. You (and greedy/uninformed people like you) long ago tricked us out of building new nuke plants. Now we can be glad that 38% of our total carbon output is caused by dirty acid rain producing coal power plants. Thank you anti-nuke activists. You have proven yourselves to be global warming's best friends so far!

People who are serious about saving the planet know that nuclear as well as solar and wind are our only hope of realistically reducing dependence on foreign oil as well as our CO2 output. Subsidies that we currently give to big oil and the coal industry should be immediately retargeted towards solar, wind and new generation nuclear power.

The Long Now Foundation had a recent gathering where nuclear power was discussed in a positive light:

In the early 1980s Gwyneth Cravens was one of the protesters against the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant on Long Island, and also participated in ban-the-bomb rallies. After 15 years of deepening familiarity with nuclear power, she says she still would ban the bomb, but she now regrets that the Shoreham reactor was shut down.

Who changed her mind was a nuclear expert at Sandia Labs in Albuquerque, D. Richard Anderson, known as “Rip.” “Here was someone who thinks in thousands of years, about climate, about nuclear waste storage,” she said. “He applies to nuclear issues the same probabilistic risk assessment that helps us understand what we’re facing with climate change.”

http://blog.longnow.org/2007/09/17/185/

Audio of the talk is available at (September 14, 02007 entry):

http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/

For me the future is a mix of nuclear and renewable. Both have their place. Renewable energy is only now really being used mainstream. There is still a lot of questions. What is the waste generated by the construction and disposal of photovoltaics? What is the long-term impact of putting up wind farms on a large scale?
Would excessive geothermal use not cause some type of deap earth stress?
But going completely nuclear is a stupid move. The more new plants there are the higher the risk of something going wrong.

The comment about TVA derating its nuclear plants due to water temperature requirements is correct, but does not mention the main factor: drought. The Tennessee Valley is currently experiencing the driest period (I can't remember if it's 2 or 3 consequtive years) seen in over 150 years. So the summer lake levels are way down, and there isn't much flow to carry the residual heat away.

I think that all options should be debated openly and honestly if that is possible in the current state of our world. I don't know much about the subject but tying new nuc tech and nuclear weapon non-proliferation would seem reasonable. The weapon fuel has already been mined and enriched so why not decommision the weapons and use the fuel?

"Nuclear power still doesn't solve the problem of uranium being mined in regions that are unstable, such as Africa."

While Niger and Namibia do produce uranium, by far and away the largest producers (and known reserves) of uranium are Australia and Canada. Not exactly unstable or unfriendly countries.

If you are worried about energy security and stability of supply, look elsewhere (oil comes to mind...).