I am not against nuclear power, but I am also slightly skeptical of such high praise which seems to appear in every thread related to "green" energy. To refute

I am not against nuclear power, but I am also slightly skeptical of such high praise which seems to appear in every thread related to "green" energy. To refute your comment about batteries, there was an article 2 weeks ago on HN[0] analyzing the significant drop in battery prices over the years. It's not a Moore's law but the present price is also better than some earlier cost-projections[1]. According to Wikipedia's entries about France[2] and Germany[3] neither country is without accidents, albeit not Chernobyl or Fukushima-level incidents. The list of accidents involving Gen-II and Gen-III reactors is quite long[4], with USA leading (of course they have the highest number of reactors worldwide so it makes sense). Please correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I can determine, a majority of operational reactors worldwide are still quite old (1965–1996) Gen-II designs with a smattering of Gen-III and most recently a handful of Gen-III+ upgrades, with most plans to upgrade being put off due to Fukushima. The safest Gen-IV designs are planned to start construction earliest in 2030. I can't find any installations of Gen-III+ reactors anywhere in Europe, they seem to be spread across Asia with a small handful of US installations. Also considering the reality of climate change and the resulting expectations of increasing frequency and strength of weather events, I would think another Fukushima-type event is not far away, especially factoring in the age and possible lack of preparation for such extreme weather events. Also waste management is not a minor issue with no real solution other than "bury it underground and hope nobody digs it up by accident in the future". [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19312154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19312154 [1]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260339436_An_Overview_of_Costs_for_Vehicle_Components_Fuels_and_Greenhouse_Gas_Emissions https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260339436_An_Overvi... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Accide... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Accid... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident...