Don't discount nuclear waste as well. I'm not trying to promote coal here, but nuclear energy has problems too and shouldn't be touted as something it's not: a safe and clean solution.
Don't overblow nuclear waste. Normal responsible operation produces very little waste per electric MWh produced. And we know how to handle it. No energy production solution is perfect but compared to coal/gas pollution it can eliminate it is a nonbrainer.
I do not agree with this overall. It holds true only for some timescales and for some assumptions of risk factors.
Not specifically about waste, but still relevant. Fukushima and other plants in Japan were designed to withstand a 100 year tsunami. Bad luck that 3/11/11 was greater than that.
Every analysis is based on some assumptions and all predictions hold true only for limited timescales. Yes natural disasters happen and we can't prevent all of them. Yes we will have "nuclear disasters". The world is under constant threat of semiglobal nuclear war.
But Chernobyl and Fukushima (and others, let's not kid ourselves) are disasters with minuscule cost in lives and environment harm. Every year 60 million people die and out of that 12 million die due to unhealthy environment. Risks of (non-weapon) nuclear energy to life, while they exist, are a complete non-issue. Apart from political changes, we need cheap reliable energy to fix the atmosphere and to fix that unhealthy environment.
Here in Canada we use the CANDU system which is far safer than the systems like what you found in Three Mile Island - and no-one is as foolish as to do the Russian tests again.
Until the nuclear plant suffers a catastrophic accident...