it seems that the french power plants are not so well maintained as I thought – just by looking at this new information.

“In short: if mankind is unable to deal with this rapid expansion it probably doesnt matter how we blow up our planet.”

Why do you think this is even possible with commercial nuclear reactors.

Also your argument for “renewables” is not founded on physics. No matter how efficient you think that wind mills will become, they will not provide the power needed. You can debate this, but you will lose. Solar is the same. The cost of these technologies are also (meaning in addition) prohibitive.

Spent fuel rods are DANGEROUS. Stand within a score of meters of one after it has been pulled from a reactor and it will kill you with an absolute certainty. So will standing inside a blast furnace. I do not suggest that you do either. So what? Nearly every home in the Western world, by law, has trace amounts of Americium. It is classic reactor waste. It is probably in your hall way, keeping you safe. Millions of smoke detectors are thrown away in land fills every year. This is the same stuff that the famous radioactive boyscout used to drive his back yard nuclear reactor. I do not advocate being caviler about this, but you definately have expressed a favoritism towards coal over against a technology that is vastly less polluting, not just in terms of heavy metals but CO2 and acid rain. It is safe and efficient and you would prefer that we put up windmills that are inefficient. Reactor and fuel designs are evolving very rapidly as well. You are using statistics to swat at gnats when there are vultures circling. Compared to the heterocyclic hydrocarbons, heavy metals and other toxins produced by a variety of industrial activities, the trace amounts of radiation that might leak into the environment from nuclear power plants is not harmful. We live in a cocktail of chemicals, how do you so easily single out radiation as the source in any epidemiological study, it seems like it would be very hard. People get worried about harmful isotopes within fuel rods but drink organo-mercurial compounds without a second thought. They fret about radiation causing the leukemia around Sullifield, even after it is demonstrated that the real culprit was munitions manufacturing during WW II. Is it better to figure out a way to clean up the chemicals or get rid of the reprocessing plant. I’ll bet if you did the later it wouldn’t affect out comes that much. but would cost resources that may be better spent attempting the former, I’m just guessing. If you shuttered the nuclear plants you would replace them with coal fired ones. Would that be a step in the right direction? You believe that you are doing the right thing in your opposition to nuclear power, are you?

U233 is the desired product of the Thorium cycle, not a waste product.

I can give the British Jounal of Cancer Research article that shows the inverse correlation between proximity of children to nuclear power plants and the incidence of cancer.

When I spoke of cancer causing chemical agents I was not referring to those leaching from nuclear power plants, I was speaking for those from the hundreds of vastly less regulated industries that are in the same areas nuclear power plants are located as well as distrubuted through out the country.

You vastly underestimate the difficulty in containing the witches brew of heavy metals that come form coal burning power plants and claim falsely that it is easier to contain mercury from coal plants, which accounts for up to 40% of all environmental mercury and will stay with us for a very long time. Mercury is only one toxin emmited and rarely contained from coal plants. The waste from nuclear plants is contained. Very little ever makes its way into the environment.

Although I should feel honored by the attention, your analysis is more polymical than analytical and so I really am just frustrated by your response.