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Personally, I see nuclear power as an intermediate step. Not because of technology but because of humans. To convert to a system that is dependent on renewables will require changes in our behaviors and in our ability to accept responsibility for our actions and impacts on the planet -- including population control, the 200 kg gorilla in the room.
I don't see that as happening quickly unless there is a crisis. It would also take tremendous political will to move the country in that direction quickly (10 to 20 years). One or two politicians with vision and knowledge and will is not enough. Look what happened to Gore for example.
As for nuclear power, we are in some serious trouble. The power plants that were built in the 60's and 70's were made to last for 30 years. Well, that "warranty" has expired. The metals are getting brittle, the containment buildings are getting weaker, and on and on. Those are also old designs with fewer safety features. Yet, we cannot afford to turn them off as Hugh has pointed out.
I visited the Idaho National Laboratory a few years ago and was quite impressed with the technology of newer designs for nuclear power plants. (The name of this lab is a curious example of public pressure and fear in its own right. The name has changed several times to make it sound more cuddly. Swapping the word "nuclear" for "environmental" and then dropping that all together.)
https://inlportal.inl.gov/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=255&mode=2
They have developed a system that results in glassified nuclear waste that they claim is very hard to reprocess into weapons material or to leak into the ground water. That said, the technology is new and experience with it is limited.
I'd love to see the shift straight to renewables, but I just don't see that happening. I agree with the closing quote that Hugh uses from Chip Giller. But I just don't see the USA heading in that direction because it requires personal change and thinking long term. (I just saw the movie "Idiocracy" which is crude and vulgar in many ways but is disappointingly accurate in even more ways. Maybe that is coloring my thinking right now...)
Even so, we would still be left with issues like uranium mine tailings. I come from a state (Utah) that has one of the worst mine tailings problem on the planet with the old Atlas mine tailings next to the Colorado River near Moab, Utah. A legacy of our 1950's rush to all things nuclear. So even new technology nuclear plants is at best a stop gap measure. But, as Hugh points out, there are loads of problems with coal too.
Short of a national, in your face, crisis that directly impacts the "average Joe" in obvious and direct ways, I just don't see a direct conversion to renewables.What the "average Joe" is concerned about, and rightly so, is his or her job and this or her family's future. By any ethical principle, we need to make sure that our efforts in environmental cleanup and GHG reduction end up being an opportunity for those people to better their own and their families' lots. Proceeds from such things as carbon cap and trade sales or carbon taxes or any other forms of revenue raising that goes on in the name of converting our energy sources to renewables, must be used to provide the opportunities to those whose present jobs will be impacted by such things as closing coal or uranium mines, or operating power plants, or other jobs that have kept them at least existing for decades if not generations. If they can see a future for themselves in what we are trying to do, they will not oppose the efforts and can be enlisted to help in them. A 21st Century "WPA," especially in the current economic downturn, will provide those who are facing a bleak future as our energy economy shifts from coal, uranium and petroleum to cleaner renewable sources with some hope that they will be a part of the new prosperity as it develops.