For me the main issue is trust.

For example. Nuclear accidents may result in the evacuation of cities or parts of cities. Not only is the resulting financial cost enormous, the reactor in question ends up having produced a large negative net contribution to energy supply due to the need to replace dwellings, factories etc.

Why are these costs never factored into cost and efficiency figures?

Honesty generally is not the nuclear industry’s forte (recall the old mantra that accidents can;t happen?). I’d be prepared to support thorium reactors, but believe the nuclear industry to be too disreputable to be trusted with anything less.

@onthebeach

As well "as if the Yanks would be giving it away if it wasn't prohibitively expensive to store and its future an enduring pestilence?"

If storing nuclear waste is such a potential money earner why aren't countries with large empty areas like Canada and Russia turning waste storage into a paying proposition?

Both Russia and Canada already have long term established nuclear industries.
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@drgal1

I'd also add nuclear companies keep the profits but inflict the costs of nuclear accidents on the taxpayer.

Hence the Japanese Government is paying $billions in taxpayer money to Tepco. See "Japanese government to bear more Fukushima cleanup costs for Tepco" http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/japan-tepco-idUKL3N0JY1R620131220 :

"Under the new plan, the [Japanese] government, which essentially nationalised Tepco last year with a 1 trillion yen ($9.59 billion) injection of public funds, will nearly double to 9 trillion yen ($86.35 billion) the amount of interest-free loans it provides the utility through the state-backed Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Corp (NDLFC)."

Nuclear advocates can talk around these costs as much as they like.

Pete

Why did this author bother? Using facts against hysterics. Buddy you are wasting your time. See none of these anti-nukes want any thing but the power to look sad and say no, sorry NO! They are also happy to physically attack anyone who does not heed their foot-stamping no!
If solar and wind are so good lets see Christine Milne get the power turned off of her house and all her greens do the same. They can show by example, oh yes no cars and no first class air travel for them. I apologise for being flippant but really.

For what it's worth, here is something I read several years ago.

There are representatives of "Big Oil" at every level of the US government and they have moved from being lobbyists to positions of control.

Since Kennedy, every US President has come from the Oil Industry or from an Oil State.

The exception was Jimmy Carter but he managed - on behalf of the oil men who control most of the country - to put the nuclear scare into everybody. It was under his watch that the drift to nuclear power was effectively stopped.
Before then, their Civil Defence programme had everybody convinced that it was possible to survive a nuclear war.

Now there's a handy conspiracy theory.

However I also read that if every coal fired powered station in the world was suddenly replaced with a nuclear reactor, we would run out of uranium in seven years.

Also, the total amount of energy it takes to construct a reactor (including mining and processing the components, manufacturing and transport and so on) is greater than the amount of power it will ever produce in its lifetime. You don't get something for nothing from nature, no matter how much you manipulate it.

In the end it comes down to power - electrical, political and economic.

Sidestepping the nuclear part of the discussion to touch on the part thats about perceptions vs reality I saw an interesting TED talk recently on environmental perceptions. Leyla Acaroglu: Paper beats plastic? How to rethink environmental folklore #TED : http://on.ted.com/g03Eq

"Most of us want to do the right thing when it comes to the environment. But things aren’t as simple as opting for the paper bag, says sustainability strategist Leyla Acaroglu. A bold call for us to let go of tightly-held green myths and think bigger in order to create systems and products that ease strain on the planet."

Worth a look for those not too entrenched in either side of the nuclear debate.

R0bert

It’s strange that Australians, with no experience of nuclear power apart from the selling of the raw material, are more concerned about it than countries that have had it for a long time. Japan is the latest ‘disaster’ invoked by Australian naysayers; but a few weeks ago, a Japanese friend visiting Australia wondered what all the fuss was about, and she lives in Tokyo. There is evidence of huge upgrades in safety, but the usual suspects close their ears.

If we are running out of cheap energy, and there is nothing to replace it (windmills and the sun will certainly not), then it is inevitable that we will have to go nuclear like the other countries without natural resources. As the Meerkat says, “Simple”.