Poll - Nuclear plant in your town

[echomodder]

Pretty simple poll. Given whats going on with japan, I was wondering if people's opinion on nuclear power has changed. So if the government came to your town and wanted to put in a nuclear plant in your town would you support it, oppose it, or don't care.

[UFO]

No way. And I had the same opinion before the failure in Japan.

[euromodder]

As the crow flies, I work 2.09 miles from a nuclear power plant with 4 reactors.
It hasn't really bothered me before, and it doesn't bother me now.

That doesn't mean I particularly like nuclear energy, but it'll have to do until we get something better and safer.
At the moment, we're a long shot away from that goal.

[skyl4rk]

I live in a town with a reactor. I don't work there.

I feel that of all electric generation types, nuclear has the least impact on the environment.

I am concerned about operating the plant correctly, and dealing with spent fuel correctly, which I don't think is happening now.

[NorthCoastEscort]

I live a mile from a reactor and I have no problem, we have had some maitenence issues come up the last few years but it defenatly supports our community and has been a general positive.

[PaleMelanesian]

Compared to my town's current option, one of the dirtiest coal plants in the country, nuclear sounds like a great thing to me.

[d0sitmatr]

I see nuclear power as a very viable option over coal burning plants.
granted, there are even better alternatives, but they arent very viable an option yet, so until they are, nuclear is fine for me.

[Arragonis]

I used to produce software used inside a power station (not as part of the station itself but as part of long term monitoring). Used to visit a number of them quite often and have no problem at all.

When it comes to the Japan incident we have to remember the plant involved is in an earthquake zone, has been around for nearly 40 years (and has therefore survived quite a few quakes in the past) and in that time has no doubt contributed far more than it cost to the Japanese economy during the 70s-2000s.

[moorecomp]

I think there should be more, small, community sized nuclear plants built. Something along the lines of those installed aboard submarines. Put the reactor housing below ground, and the only visible part would be the cooling tower and electrical grid.

[Clev]

I answered "support" with the following caveats:

1. It needs to be a safer design than the old 50 year old designs we have now. Something self-regulating, like pebble bed.

2. We need to get the political clout together to actually create reprocessing plants. We have the technology to reprocess spent fuel over and over again until there's pretty much nothing left but a tiny bit of low-grade material that's much easier to dispose of (and much less of it!)

3. The NRC needs teeth to actually enforce safety, and Congress needs to leave them the hell alone.

Oh, and I want an RTG for my basement.