I feel Nuclear power should be considered as a viable, long term energy source.

My only concern remains, like Robert, with the safe long term management of the wastes, in all its forms.

Certainly the industry has had "Accidents" but every "Industry" has had "Accidents".. the Longford Gas Plant Accident, for instance.

Commercial use nuclear power generation has been a FACT for the past 50+ years.

During that time, for an industry using technology which did not exist 70 years ago, it has developed and matured.

All of the anti-nuclear posturing is based on the politics of fear and needs to be balanced against the rapid development of process / handling / security changes which have evolved during this short span of time.

As we see, terrorists can take a car and turn it into a bomb. I see no sane person demanding we ban cars, fertiliser or petrol just to deny weapons to "terrorists".

If we are to believe the primary challenge facing humanity is Global Warming due to Carbon Emmissions, sufficient to justify the Federal Government force-feeding us a brand new tax, (I say "if" because, personally I do not think that case has in any way been proven) then Nuclear power becomes the most compelling alternative to coal and oil burning power stations.

The other alternative, we all wean ourselves off electricity useage, except for renewable sources (wind, wave etc), can be best described as the constructive intellectual contribution which could generally be expected from an ameoba.

Chernobyl was a disaster that should never have happened.
As I said on another thread the Russians were warned in 1956 that
their design had a flaw that ultimately bit back many years later.

My friend also tells me that waste radiation levels can be reduced by
very large amounts by reprocessing the fuel a number of times.

Here is an up to date article on nuclear fuel supply on the oil drum.

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5677#more

It seems that 1/3 of fuel comes from nuclear weapons but that is
coming to an end.

If the number of reactors continues to increase then the peak uranium
date moves closer and will eventually mean that the life time of the
power station may become too short to be economic.

If we leave it too long it will not be worthwhile building a nuclear
power station. We could of course restrict exports of yellow cake.

I have read every reply think I agree more with col than others.
Waste is being generated, and will continue to be.
Some from product we sell to many country's, and some of ours finding its way to country's we do not wish to sell to.
We have even been asked to store other country's waste, and we will.
Five Mile Island was another failure, a near miss of massive size if it was not for luck.
Chernobyl? well second grade care in second grade hands it at least played a part in ending the cold war.
How can some be so confident coal is on the way out?
Or that petroleum is?
For that matter research just how many country's are planning to go nuclear.
Far from old it is and will be one of our main power production systems.
Coal is no further than 20 years away from becoming much safer to use, maybe in liquefied form, we will continue to use coal but in new ways.
New power may, well will change our world in the next 20 years, with help every one of us could right now be cut from the power grid with solar or wind generation.
But industry's we truly must keep are leaving because power is too costly.
We will use nuclear I am amused by the prospect of Labor finding a way to change its mind on this issue, but change it they will.

Hasn't this b*&*#y server error been fixed yet ?

Yes Belly, Labour will change its mind the day after there is a big
uproar because the lights went out.
Trouble is it will then take ten years to get it up and running.
Peak oil appears to have happened last year around May July and the
IEA now says the existing non Opec fields are depleting twice as fast
as they previously thought. The rate is now 6 1/2% per annum.
Regarding coal, well the German Energy Watch Group has put a date of
20 years to Peak Coal. Others seem to agree. They originally suggested
2025 a few years back.

Whatever, we have to do something about it and the Hirsch report said
20 years for a smooth transition to an alternative energy system.
However, we are now at -1 instead of + 20.

Do the pollies care ? I don't think so although I think they know
about it all, it is just that it is after the next election and who
wants to scare the horses ?

WTF?
Get real. Its 2009 - we now know that nuclear energy will last 40 years tops. Sorry you have been duped.

The simple meaning of the words 'non renewable' is, they are going to run out. Not 'may'; will run out.
That makes it 100% certain that one day we will be 100% reliant on renewable power supplies.
Currently, the arithmetic indicates the time will probably come within the lives of our children, certainly within the lives of our grandchildren.
We need oil and coal and maybe uranium to build wind turbines and solar panels. If we wait until all the oil and coal is gone before we push the panic button, what sort of lives are we condemning our grand children to?