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it could though. I remember reading an article that said they could run the waste from a uranium plant through to create energy, and if they keep running the waste through, eventually there will be no waste.
the thing about nuclear is so many people think "oh shit nuclear that can't be good. what if the plant blows up?"
what most people don't realize is there's quite a few reactors in america alone
here's a map of the us showing where they're at.
link if pic didn't work--- http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/
the only problem is that it forms plutonium.
they already do it in france and the uk.
Targets for terrorist...well there are already several in existence so I'd say that is a moot point. Terrorist hit the twin towers in NY, not a nuclear plant.
Solar and wind energy have several caveats, the biggest being that they don't put out that much power at all for how much space they take up. Nuclear power destroys them in the context of magnitude, so I think it is very hard to compare the two.
If solar power was more like 80% efficient instead of 10% ish, then it might take a larger part in our society. For now, it's super expensive to put a panel on your house that can break, is inefficient, and only supplies power when the sun shines directly on it. Those solar arrays take up a huge amount of space for the relatively small amount of power they produce.
Wind power takes up a huge amount of space, can be loud, is also intermittent, and only works if you aim that sucker right into the wind. Maintenance? Expensive.
Just pointing out that these are hardly the end all be all of our energy problems. Can we utilize these more in creative and more efficient ways, especially with the progresssion of technology? Hell yes.
But nuclear is a source of incredible power and it should be utilized more now while we figure out the other options. If we can shoot that nuke crap out into space when we're done with it, we wouldn't have many problems. But we can't just do that....
and if the launch fails then what?
I feel like the government has thought of launching it into space, but leaving the atmosphere is just too risky...