49 States have snow

[a completely inoffensive name]

Chernobyl? Radioactive Waste which stays active for thousands of years, which has to be disposed at in special sites? Limited Fuel Desposits? A host of other major concerns.

Nuclear Fusion (ie: ITER) on the other hand doesn't have radioactive by-products or would cause a nuclear explosion, it is effectively has fuel in mass abundance (There is enough fuel in Lake Guevara alone to power Las Vegas for a trillion years) and can be easily set up on coastal sites. It's waste product is "Helium", which is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert monatomic gas. Intrinsically safe.

I think it is pretty clear which is the best option. When Nuclear fusion hits the gold, we will be on the verge on potential "unlimited energy" (produce it faster than we can use it), which will drastically reduce the constraints on resources such as water, it would get rid of concerns such as CO2, and it would put an end to wars over resources such as Oil/Gas as they become obsolete.

What is not to love about it? Everybody wins.

Chernobyl as Lord Winter has said was largely part to the shoddy work of the USSR in the second half of the USSR while (although we didn't know at the time) it was already beginning its long decline. Not to mention that their clean up and contingency plans were not exactly the best thought out ("Let's just bury it all in the forest!").

Also to note is how the nuclear fission power has only been around for 60 years, at that time it was only around for 30. All technology is inherently dangerous in its first few decades of being used. The Model T came out in 1908, in 1958 after 50 years of development on cars, they were still death traps. It has only been in the last few decades that the standards on cars have become sufficient to become truly safe for the driver and his/her passengers.

Nuclear fission waste is actually much better than any other source of power. It is extremely dense which means that a years worth of waste can be stored in a relatively small room if it is shielded correctly. Coal plants actually also produce nuclear material as well in its byproducts and that material is injected into the atmosphere along with all its other toxins. The nuclear waste issue is quite frankly, not a problem. As I have said before as well, there are also plants that basically use that waste as its own fuel and turn it into inert waste which isn't nuclear.

Nuclear fusion is always being toted as being 50 years away. People said the same thing 50 years ago. To advocate on a technology which at this point has not even been successfully fulfilled is pretty much foolish if we are trying to make an impact now. Fusion is the best option, when it becomes available, but we have to do something now, not wait for it to come down 50 years from now.

Chernobyl's meltdown was due to shoddy engineering and is not really representative of nuclear power as a whole. Nuclear waste is become less of an issue as new reactors become capable of reprocessing fuel more and more times. In addition storage methods have become better over time and we can now store waste with minimal risk. The fact is, fusion is currently a purely hypothetical source of energy. Maybe in fifty years it will turn into the holy grail that we need but until that time what should we do?

Also what he said.