... there still are a group that think energy independence can happen a lot easier if we built a LOT of nuclear plants to take care of electricity... and also recycled the uranium so we did not throw away 'good' fuel...
How much oil & gas would we free up if we had 70% nuclear?
I think a the "problems" of nuclear energy are more political than scientific. Yes, nuclear reactors do make radioactive waste products, but dealing with that waste is a political hot potato, not a scientific one. Much of the waste is only mildly radioactive, a lot of it can be re-processed and recycled into new reactor fuel, and the last of it can be stored in ceramic cartridges and stored in an old salt mine, never to see the light of day or leak into our water supply until our sun becomes a red dwarf and engulfs the planet anyway.
The one thing I would like to see is a move to reactors that use "safe" technologies that, should the reactor loose coolant and overheat, the excessive heat causes the fuel elements inside to expand, increasing the distance between the fuel elements and slowing the reaction. Such reactors are called "inherently safe" reactors because, unlike reactors that require human intervention in the form of the insertion of control rods to slow the reaction to safe levels, inherently safe reactors are built in such a way that fundamental laws of nature, which require no human action at all, prevent a Three Mile Island or Chernobyl style incident from ever happening.
To my mind the implementation of safe nuclear reactor technologies, an Apollo-type-program to research and deploy renewable energy (wind, solar, tidal, biofuel) resources, a move to alternative fuel vehicles and conservation are the way to go to keep America strong, free, and a great and independent nation.
What obviously doesn't work is to continue to sell our country to the middle east in exchange for crude oil or continue to pump greenhouse gasses into an increasingly warmer sky.
