“Although electricity produced through nuclear power has been competitive, this price is not representative of all the costs along the nuclear energy value chain. For as much as nuclear energy is touted as an American fuel source, the Energy Information Agency of the U.S. government reported in 2007 that 54 million pounds of uranium oxide (what fuel rods are made of) were purchases imported into the U.S., compared to domestic production of 5 million pounds.”

This is because it is cheaper to do so, not because we don’t have the resources. The import/domestic ratio has nothing what so ever to do with “costs along the nuclear energy value chain.” We have been getting most of our Uranium off old soviet war head pits that have been blended down and dumped on the market here. It has been cheap. The cost of Uranium is such a small part of the cost of nuclear based electricity that this suggest you haven’t done your homework, except for listening to every word that comes off of Avery Lovin’s pen.

The only real alternative to nuclear is coal. We burn 3.8 Billions of tons a year. The energy content of coal is efficiently converted into electricity, far more than any of the alternatives, except for nuclear. If you think of the Terra Watts that exist in that coal, and then think about how much can be harvested from solar and wind, your argument becomes comical without the willful suspension of disbelief. Germany has been phasing out its nuclear power because of people like you. They are now building 24 new large coal burning plants to replace the nuclear, and they have been the best at wind and solar implementation. Coal is dirtier than people like Lovins will admit. It sits in the ground for hundreds of millions of years. It absorbs heavy metals that are dissolved in the water that peculates through it, like a Brita filter cartridge. When the coal is burned, it releases these metals into the atmosphere and then into the water sheds and ocean. Coal plants burn 30,000 pounds of mercury a year, and there are 600 in this country. This is far more dangerous than all the combined radioactive waste combined. Coal also releases tons of Uranium and Thorium. There is so much Uranium in some coal that the US military used to burn coal in order to extract the concentrated Uranium from the ash. People living in the shadows of coal fired plants have up to 10 times the amount of ionizing radiation in their bones than the general public. This is the cost of opposing nuclear.

Avery has it backwards:

EVERY PENNY SPENT ON WIND AND SOLAR IS A PENNY THAT COULD HAVE BEEN SPENT ON RESEARCH ON NEW NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGIES AND INCREASES GLOBAL WARMING AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION THAT IS KILLING THE PLANET.

Look up technologies such as the LFTR and Deep Burn pebble bed reactors. These produce enough heat to directly replace coal fired plants and burn down their fuel to near completion, the run 24/7 at vastly higher efficiency as coal, which is vastly more efficient as wind, solar and even hydro.