Chernobyl (which was a genuine disaster) is not a rational argument against nuclear power. The Soviets designed it using graphite moderation, which is inherently unstable under the conditions in which they forced a meltdown by their incompetently managed test procedures. Under the conditions they created, it couldn't have NOT melted down.
Read the facts for yourself, if you care to understand them. Also, the Soviets were never especially famous for their concern about their citizens. They designed Chernobyl without a containment building. It was a disaster waiting to happen. In other words, they were idiots. The U.S. has never used such designs for commercial reactors, and even the Russians don't build such reactors any more.
What happened at the Fukushima reactor complex was of a completely different nature. In that case, the wall that protected the emergency generators was about 1 meter too short to keep out the tsunami. In other words, no one planned on an earthquake (or resulting tsunami) of that magnitude. Actually, the reactor DID shut down as it should have. But without the emergency generators that provide the necessary power to complete the entire shutdown process, there was still an accumulation of pressure that had to be vented in order to prevent a far worse catastrophe.
I'm far less likely to point the accusing finger at the design engineers in Fukushima's case. There had never been an earthquake or tsunami of that magnitude in Japan. The facilities were over-designed to handle the historical worst-case scenario. It's easy to say, "They should have known better" after the fact. Well, now they do. They'll learn from their mistakes. That's how a great deal of what we call "progress" happens. The answer is not to run the other way in ignorance, and the fear it breeds.
As for the waste problem, we've been managing it successfully for more than a half century. Unlike the wastes from fossil-fired power (which end up in your lungs), nuclear wastes can be contained and safely stored with relatively little difficulty. And as far safety is concerned, naval vessels have been using reactors for nearly 60 years. There have been a few accidents, but there are always accidents with any power-intensive technology. The long-term safety record of nuclear still surpasses that of any competing technology.
Anyhow, if you genuinely want to understand exactly how it is entirely accurate to say that nuclear power has been demonstrably safer than other methods of large-scale power generation, the information is available. But anyone whose purpose is to cherrypick the facts to make an opposing case, regardless of its validity...well, there's plenty of disinformation available for that purpose too. I doubt that I'm going to persuade anyone otherwise in a few posts here.
In any case, it wasn't my intention to turn this into a unresolvable debate on nuclear power. All I can say is that where fear and ignorance are regarded as an acceptable substitute for actual information in planning for large scale power generation, there is a price for that ignorance.
It shows up on your electric bill.
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