Coal-powered plants, sure (they even release radioactivity, moreso than nuclear plants). But while nuclear power plants are generally huge (no good reason for t

Coal-powered plants, sure (they even release radioactivity, moreso than nuclear plants). But while nuclear power plants are generally huge (no good reason for that, though, you can make them the size of car too), their environmental impact relative to their production is almost nil. Why ? http://xkcd.com/1162 http://xkcd.com/1162 Calculations suggest that nuclear power has less impact than solar power installations (panels need to be produced, contain lots of toxic chemicals, take yet more toxic chemicals to produce, and -eventually- end up in the garbage can. Add to that, that panels are only specced to produce about 20x their energy production cost over a period of roughly 20 years. Installing solar panels means that the first 3-4 years (more if you're not in Florida) you're actually making the co2 problem worse). The worst nuclear power plants produce 50000 times the energy needed to build them on a yearly basis (compare solar panels, perfectly placed, 1/4th to 1/3rd). For the best ones, that factor is tens of millions. If you actually need power, of course the only metric that matters is environmental impact relative to power production. Now we can argue about what is included in that and what isn't, like mining (coal, of course, has mining too, and much worse). And look at that graph, in reality uranium mining is less impactful than coal mining for thousands of time more energy. I also like the argument that when people say "but nuclear plants produce long-lived radioactive waste". Well, no, technically they massively reduce long-lived radioactive waste. If we don't use it, it's effectively in the ground, massively dispersed over large areas (generally not deep), and not dug up, constantly irradiating humans and animals. There's a city (in Iran, called Ramsar) where the natural background radiation level is more than in the reactor of a nuclear power plant. It's healthier to swim in the reactor pool of a nuclear reactor than to walk around in that city. Yet people just live there, unaware and unbothered.