Yes, Chernobyl was rather sucktastic. Also note that was an early type reactor mismanaged and misdesigned in Russia. America doesn't build or use those type of plants, and Russia has revamped that style.
Even including Chernobyl and only including the time period that includes all the nuclear incidents (1970-1992), nuclear power is 10 times safer than natural gas, 42 times safer than coal, and 110 times safer than hydroelectric power. If you only do 1993 to present than the safety record shoots through the roof into the thousands, as there haven't really been any nuclear deaths since then.
If 3 mile island happened once every 2 months and you lived there you would get the same radiation as everyone living in Denver just gets from the altitude.
Research it, there isn't a power source safer than nuclear power. Even wind power is much, much more dangerous (3504 deaths per terawatt year compared to 8 deaths per terawatt year for nuclear. (I guessed wrong earlier when I thought wind was safe). Even rooftop solar cells are more dangerous (these tend to kill people during installation).
Even if we had a chernobyl every single year it would still be safer than every other alternative.
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16809http://www.uic.com.au/nip14.htmYes, due to alarmist environmentalists pushing legislation that actually hurts more than it helps.
See also the endangered species act and recycling (yup, recycling is harmful to the environment).
When push comes to shove and we run out of options then there will be reactors going up all over the place. We could build enough reactors to supply the entire energy need of America (including transport). Only reason it isn't happening now is that people have been lied to about the so-called dangers of nuclear power (which is safer, cleaner and cleaner than coal, oil, natural gas, and basically everything else that isn't wind).
A facility that they're currently unable to use, if I'm not mistaken.
Safer ? Tell that to the people in Chernobyl !
The only safe nuclear power is fusion. And we were told 20 years ago that they would have it "fixed" in about 20 years......
Well, I don't see it ever happening.
But I think you're right, the only and last real option will be nuclear power in the end.