I guess this discussion is about over judging from the dates, but I'd like to add one or two anyway.

Coal plants put mercury into the environment. It has no half-life. It's forever.

Many people die in coal mining accidents. Nuclear power has a safety record second to none.

If, as raydelcamino says about the government having to spend trillions of dollars on nuke plants is true, which I doubt, that's still cheap when compared to losing a planet to global warming and our lungs to bad air.

Ezefiyer shows lack of knowledge. Check it out yourself. A big coal plant actually puts out more radiation than a nuke plant.

I worked in the nuke industry for many years. I am not their stooge. I didn't like nuke people and quit. However, the technology is still the best thing we have going. We need to use this tool for today's problems. Cast your fears aside and look again with an open mind. The nuke business faces a great deal of unreasonable fear.

According to my friend, Jonathan Swift, a nuclear engineer in Tennessee, storage of spent fuels is no longer a problem. Through a combination of Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions and a foreign policy of perpetual war on the opposite side of the globe, the U.S. can dispose of all the spent fuel (depleted Uranium) that the nuclear industry can produce.

Though there is always a slight risk that peace could break out for a few years at a time, the nuclear plants can easily store up to a decade of spent fuel on site without the need for an external storage facility.

Nuclear power is, thus, doubly beneficial in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. First, of course, by not burning conventional carbon-based fuels to produce energy, and, secondly, by eliminating millions of would-be fuel consumers in the nations the U.S. chooses to destroy. The benefits are lasting, too. Cancers caused by DU fallout in the destoyed countries keep eliminating the surplus population for thousands of years to come.

The viability of new build nuclear plants in the US is vitally dependent on taxation on coal, either by cap and trade or carbon taxation. The utilities need a clear economic signal that coal is no longer financially viable. As of last month, there was 18GW of coal powered generation under construction versus 1GW of nuclear power (a single old plant that was stopped in the 1980's and has now been restarted).

Nuclear power plants are quite capital intensive. In the current economic environment, loan guarantees would be very valuable. The currently authorized loan guarantee level is only adequate for supporting perhaps 2 or 3 reactors.

Japan extracts nuclear fuel from oceans at a competitive price. In mining, the energy of digging is a fraction of percent from the energy of the nuclear fuel - unlike solar where making panels consumes more energy than they produce in a lifetime, they also pollute chemically. Nuclear power plants do not release radiation in the environment. The states which don't want them, are free to not build them. The truth is, everyone wants them. There are plenty of investor money for nuclear plants, there is no need for government handouts. The problem is, the government doesn't allow them because of other lobbyists. Modern nuclear technology can reuse spent fuel in many cycles. The residual waste is insignificant in volume and weight. Coal plants reduce more radioisotopes in the AIR than the waste produced by a comparable wattage nuclear plant - coal is dug from the ground and contains radioactive materials. The coal/oil can last us for at most 100 years, the nuclear - millions of years. The energy density of solar/wind is such that they can't pay for their material, land and energy expenditures, they can be used only on a small scale in selected areas. Do your homework, research.

Reduce greenhouse gases by increasing cancer forever???