Instead of trying to scare us I suggest the Greens give us an alternative energy plan with output figures and costings. If it has a basis in reality the electorate should be impressed. Currently it seems hard to argue that windpower and ethanol will ever be enough to replace coal and oil. It's not that nuclear problems are being glossed over, it's just that with nuclear the numbers add up.

Another Chernobyl may or may not happen. Except for a meltdown or accident of the same size, the main worry I see with nuclear is the storage and containment problems, that are so long term. Nuclear like other technologies will pass by as we develop more understanding as to how our solar system and the universe operates, then we will be able to harness the energy created by our planet orbiting the sun.

I expect we will have another and better energy producer within the next 5 years, then we'll see nuclear go of the radar. Our next energy step will be to fully renewable and inexhaustible supplies. We may even be able to harness this energy from within the earth or between the earth and moon.

Its inevitable that as we evolve we find other and better ways. They are pushing the nuclear to try and move the goals posts to where they can control energy resources, nothing else. Its just part of the merry go round thats used to keep us all under control when they want to increase their profits at our expense.

Nothing like a good conspiracy theory I say. The greens, they are a necessary part of the system, without them or some other socially aware party, we would revert to serfs, which is what its beginning to look like now.

Before we start arguing again, why not get an education?

...with this video:

rtsp://web5.ead.anl.gov:564/video/fullduf6.rm

...on this US Government page:

http://web.ead.anl.gov/uranium/guide/video/duf6story.cfm

Here you will see that the "cutting edge" engineers are sitting on well over 700,000 tons of DuF6, all stored in iron cylinders - a whole sea of them - requiring repainting, nursing and patient attention. That waste dates back to 1946. Yes, cutting edge engineers have been biting their nails for 60 years, still with no result.

The whole toxic brew begins because we need to dissolve uranium in hydrofluouric acid (UF6) in order to separate the isotopes by weight in (naughty, naughty) centrifuges. UF6 compound gasifies easily at moderate temperatures, so the whole processing stream and equipment can be maintained at this temperature. But that is the easy bit.

The hard bit to swallow is that approximately 90% of our yellowcake ends up as radioactive waste in the form of toxic, foul DuF6 - and never gets near a reactor - never even boils one cup of tea.

If we try to dissassemble this huge stream of tailings back into something more benign, nuclear energy begins to look like a loser.

The fluorine component is valuable in fertiliser, but hey, the residual radioactivity builds up in the soil. One of nature's cruel jokes, I'm afraid. Anyone for fluoride (only SLIGHTLY radioactive)? Toothpaste maybe? Ah, come on!

The uranium metal IS valuable for DU penetrators. The Iraqi holocaust has shown that it is possible to have something like a slow working gas-chamber for people that we don't like. DU oxides take longer to work than cyanide gas, but hey, by the time the corpses need burning, we've shot through cobber! Another plus for the cutting edge engineer.

On balance, I am for the storage of the world's nuclear waste here in Australia - seriously.

If we are to be the "boutique" sellers of McYellowcake at the drive-thru (don't forget the Smurf), we are honour-bound to be the dunnymen at the sewerage plant.

...and if your local plant goes critical, "Do you want that with fries?"

It's is all very easy come up with a alternative stop whining and raise the funds. That is one of the strengths of our system we will use the cheapest reliable system we can. There are clean fission methods, solar, geothermal and others that need funding to get off the ground to be proven on full size systems. Put your money were your mouth is, and reach into your pocket I am.

Perseus, I don't know how you define a meltdown if you don't think that the Chernobyl reactor had a meltdown. The core of the Chernobyl reactor melted and flowed down into the basement. In fact the steam explosion and subsequent graphite fires were more damaging than the meltdown. Wikipedia helpfully tells us that a meltdown is "generally considered a serious nuclear accident", they're certainly masters of understatement there in Wikiland.

The operators had no idea what was going on at Chernobyl, it was in no way an "accident that was contained before a meltdown took place". 20 years later there is still dispute about the exact sequence of events. When they later drilled a hole in the reactor pit all 180 tons of nuclear fuel was gone. Check out this photo of the "elephant's foot" one of the radioactive lava formations they found in the basment http://chernobyl.in.ua/en/disaster/9 The coloured dots in the photo are from the radiation it is still emitting (eek). I'd suggest you get your head out of the paper bag.

Chernobyl was old technology for sure. But today's technology will be old technology in thirty years also. At what point can technology provide absolute assurance?

All technology has its risks, and in this debate we find one group seems to deny this, as though for some reason the safety engineers for nuclear power stations are far smarter than safety engineers in other industries.

It is difficult to accurately quantify the risks of nuclear power, but we can make a pesimistic argument which says that a reactor will fail from time to time. If that were one every fifty years, then we'd have three uninhabitable places on earth by 2100.

I wonder what the cost would be for an underground nuclear power station.