[kenesom1]

The worst case scenario for a nuclear plant accident is millions of casualties and the long-term contamination of major population centers. 152 of the world's 211 nuclear power plants have more than 1 million people residing within 75 km. A plant in India has 16 million living within that radius. Fallout could be dispersed over an area thousands of miles wide.

The worst case scenario for an accident at a solar power plant or a wind farm - nothing like that.

Today's nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe. Most that are in operation depend on active cooling systems to prevent a meltdown. If these cooling systems are interrupted for any reason (e.g.: power failure, loss of coolant, pump breakdown, loss of pressure control, control rod failure, backup power source failure, control systems failure, natural disaster, attack, etc.) - even for a short period of time - then the fissile material will likely overheat the reactor and result in a core meltdown.

Sheer luck prevented a catastrophe in the case of the 2006 electrical failure at the Forsmark plant in Sweden. Two of the four backup power systems failed to activate [1].

Switching the emtire world's energy consumption over to safe, renewable energy sources would only take 20 years and cost $100 trillion (money which would be spent anyway on non-renewable energy infrastructure) [2]. There is no need to continue building unsafe coal and nuclear plants.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#J...

[2] http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/sad11...

[JibberMeTimbers]

Alot of those plants are old. For instance, the average age of a plant in the U.S. is 34 years old[1]. Nuclear plants have gone through several redesigns to be safer and more efficient - tremendously more than these old reactors.

[1]http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=228&t=21

[rwmj]

Making solar panels produces no pollution whatsoever? Will redirecting 100$ trillion of world output to a big make-work project produce no side-effects or drop in development levels at all?

[kenesom1]

Photovoltaic panels are not used in solar thermal plants.

The money is not diverted from other needs - it's spent on renewable infrastructure instead of non-renewable infrastructure.

[webXL]

> cost $100 trillion (money which would be spent anyway on non-renewable energy infrastructure)

For every dollar diverted from non-renewable infrastructure spending, can you produce the same amount of energy? My guess is that it's not possible; certainly not without a lot of price disruptions and/or mass subsidies. But I do like the idea of savings that come from spending less on security.

[ifdefdebug]

Just up voted this to balance down votes. It's a shame to down vote something just because you dislike an opinion.

[pdeuchler]

Or, you know, it's being downvoted for blatant falsehoods like:

"Today's nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe. Most that are in operation depend on active cooling systems to prevent a meltdown."

[kenesom1]

80% of the world's nuclear fleet are in fact light water reactors - like Fukushima - which require continuous cooling and a constant source of power.

Even the latest passive safety proposals like liquid fluoride thorium reactors don't conclusively solve the fundamental problem of overheating after a cooling system failure [1].

[1] http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2010/6/not-so-fa...

[svedlin]

Only 15 plants in operation have gen-3 passive cooling features and these systems are hardly fail safe.

http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/docu...

[svedlin]

Downvotes are often attached to inconvenient truths.

The safety of nuclear power is based mainly on wishful thinking. It's the classic folly of chasing short-term cost savings and ignoring long-tail risks.