&gt; Then Fukushima happens<p>Which was <i>nowhere close</i> to as bad as Chernobyl. There is a lot of fear-mongering going around that tries to imply they were somehow similar, but most of that relies on people not understanding the difference between a steam explosion in Chernobyl&#x27;s reactor core (which <i>had no containment building</i>) blowing finely pulverized radioactive graphite and fission products across the landscape, and Fukushima&#x27;s hydrogen explosions <i>outside</i> the containment chamber, which caused far less damage and left most of the fuel still contained in the reactor cores.<p>Nobody has died from radiation at Fukushima Daiichi, and there is a good chance any future cancer risk is <i>extremely</i> low. In fact, the way the reactor survived the worse earthquake and tsunami on record without causing a radiation hazard like some places around Chernobyl shows how <i>safe</i> nuclear power is, even in old designs. This was confirmed at the nearby Fukushima Daini reactor, which survived the earthquake and tsunami.<p>&gt; perhaps we&#x27;ll see a major nuclear accident every couple years instead of decades<p>Extrapolating from two incidents isn&#x27;t useful. Since one of those data points wasn&#x27;t significant nuclear accident, you&#x27;re now trying to extrapolate form a single data point, which is not the kind of math we should base policy on.<p>The bigger problem with this kind of fear is that you&#x27;re giving a pass to the coal industry (among other industries) which have <i>far, far worse</i> disasters regularly. Even if you count every single nuclear <i>associated</i> disaster (including Chernobyl), there number of people injured&#x2F;killed and the land impact of those disasters is insignificant noise compared to what the coal (or chemical) industry has done.<p>&gt; we haven&#x27;t even started with waste disposal and non-proliferation considerations here<p>So you haven&#x27;t looked at any of the advances in nuclear power that have been  made over the last sever decades? Modern breeder designs don&#x27;t have the waste problem. Most technologies advanced a <i>lot</i> over the last 40+ years - why would you assume that nuclear never advanced past the 60s?