I reckon Atom1 deserves the award for the most sensible comment so far -

"Nuclear power remains the only energy source to fuel WMDs and potential nuclear terrorism, and on this we have one - deservedly emotive - option: prevention. More than reason enough."

All the other statistics and claims of scientific high-ground become irrelevant with that statement. No nukes needed!

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Since the anti nuke make such a bad job of it ,
it behold the rest to do the job properly

CHERNOBYL : worst peacetime nuclear power accident to date

on the 26 of April 1986 the soviet electrical authorities had the Chernobyl generators perform a simple test ,
in case of a failure of coolant , how much time had the network to cope with a base load failure ?

interesting problem , it affected the configuration of power generation over all western URSS
the nuclear technicians thought it was a very stupid idea and protested vociferously
the ultimate authority was the electrical network , they owned the plants and this was it !
the tech worked out how to make the coolant failure test , removing every safety devices witch would have
tripped the plant as a danger violation . the test went ahead on the unit nbr4 ,
when the cooling water got at the critical level ,that was the end of the test and the operators restarted the pumps flooding the reactor with cooling water.
the sudden rush of water on an heat stressed core created a steam overpressure ,it blew the lid of the reactor , buckled the control rods and destroyed the control room
the graphite shell ignited a fire ,

The plant fire fighters went in , it was to save the number 1, 2 and 3 reactors
all knew radiation effects , all knew they were doomed , they actually removed their protective equipment to fight the fire better in the heat , only stopping now and again to vomit their guts , a sure symptom of being way gone ,they did their job and stopped the fire ,
all died in the following weeks
together 31 people died in the accident 28 from radiation , one from burns and one from heart attack
for all other casualties , an increase in thyroid cancer lead to an excess of three death statistically attributable to the accident

http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/c05.htm

PS: for the millenarian crowd Chernobyl is very loosely translated as wormwood

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Many thanks to anti-green and JudyC for writing in plain English the messages contributing perfectly each other: WMD were existing and used much prior to nuclear bombs, whilst a nuclear power followed a bomb-related extended research and discoveries used to the nuclear engineering fields much later. Of terrorism history started, perhaps, from the dawn of the human history recorded, since the Snake had destroyed human virginity to destabilize a goody paradise and seize a divine power over people.

And randwick’s post of Chernobyl (it is not “wormwood” in translation but “Black Tale”, if even this word, a title of a sort of grass, one could attempt translating from Slavic languages) seems omitting a core of an accident, which is non-authorized scientific experiment undertaken.

Probably, UK-linked nuke accidents occurred routinely till a closure of the most famous nuke station in recent May would much better illustrate necessity to deploy the newest nuke technologies and practices from worldwide if even having initially originated in non-Anglo-world.

Anti-green ("Those in the anti nuclear camp discount on principal the opinions of experts.") this is blatantly untrue and typical of many proponents' narrow minded tech-fix view, as you would see from the factual points I have made. It also discounts those experts who remain all too aware of the nuclear risks, both ecologically and economically. For crying out loud, the industry's not even insurable.

Make no mistake, this issue has little to do with an energy "need" (see sliver cell technology for some true solar power potential) and more to do with riding the uranium market and in keeping a military boot in the nuclear door.

Michael K, the first reactors were used to generate Pu 239 for... bomb making. There's simply too many links between nuclear power and weapons to mention on this forum so here they are:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=214632362&blogID=288871569

www.icanw.org

Wow

We should also stop TNT and dynamite they are fuel for conventional bombs. Let's go back to digging tunnels by pick axe, and men working 12 hour shifts.

There is a vast difference between nuclear power and bombs, they even use a different isotope of uranium. Bombs need an isotope which releases fast electrons and a special configuration to keep the electrons inside otherwise they don't go bang, power reactors need slower electrons because with their design the fast electrons would escape and the reaction would stop.

Guilt by association is never a good idea, it was the argument used against Haneef.

I learnt about the difference between reactors and bombs in a lecture given at the Institute of Engineers by one who has designed reactors. Oops he was an expert sorry.

The ultimate problem with Chernobyl was that it didn't have a containment vessel, something which all reactors built outside of Russia have.

No, Logic, you are wrong - both nuclear power and atom bombs use uranium 235 (the latter simply more highly enriched) or plutoium, produced in reactors, and H-bombs use tritium - also produced in reactors.

In fact over 20 countries which have built N-power or research reactors are known to have used their 'peaceful' nuclear facilities for covert weapons research and/or production.

Uranium exports to China alone will involve Australian yellowcake first arriving at a jointly military-run conversion plant, also exempt from IAEA Safeguards (disclosed in the Q&A of the signed Agreements). Nuclear deals with India allow it to retain 8 reactors exclusively for military use - exempt from international safeguards.

Additonally, the 2,500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considered a scenario involving a ten-fold increase in nuclear power over this century and calculated that it could produce 50-100 thousand tonnes of plutonium. The IPCC concluded that the security threat "would be colossal." (IPCC, 1995, "Climate Change 1995: Impacts, Adaptations and Mitigation of Climate Change: Scientific-Technical Analyses").

http://www.icanw.org/