While nuclear waste is bad stuff, it's also a miniscule amount of stuff, hardly even worth noticing amongst the rest of the trash any given first world country produces and has to burn/shove somewhere every single day.
Nuclear is the only viable option to reduce dependance on fossil fuel power plants. Solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric (which is massively environmentally damaging anyway) are all good supplements, but they are not available to all countries and the technology does not exist yet for them to be the only solution. Nuclear is very simply the only alternative to the massive problems caused by fossil fuel plants (especially coal). The fact some extremely old reactors are having troubles coping with the worst earthquake in recorded history (to say nothing of the tsunami) in Japan is tragic, but doesn't change that fact. It is frankly stupid for the environmentalist movement to be anti-nuclear, though it's hardly the only stupid thing it's associated with.
Nuclear is the only viable option to reduce dependance on fossil fuel power plants. Solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric (which is massively environmentally damaging anyway) are all good supplements, but they are not available to all countries and the technology does not exist yet for them to be the only solution. Nuclear is very simply the only alternative to the massive problems caused by fossil fuel plants (especially coal). The fact some extremely old reactors are having troubles coping with the worst earthquake in recorded history (to say nothing of the tsunami) in Japan is tragic, but doesn't change that fact. It is frankly stupid for the environmentalist movement to be anti-nuclear, though it's hardly the only stupid thing it's associated with.