Washington Post-Why Nuclear Energy Can Save the Environment

     Patrick Moore, author of the article below, helped found Greenpeace in the 1970s.  In the article, Mr. Moore begins to talk about how he was skeptical of nuclear energy due to "all the bad that can come from it."  He then states how nuclear energy can save the environment and is a controllable natural and reusable resource.  Yes, this article was written in 2006, but the point he is making here is that nuclear energy is not all about the bad myths that people are always concerned with.  For example:  Moore states the argument that nuclear energy is not safe.  He then goes into talking about how nuclear energy is a lot more safe than coal and how the two nuclear power plant disasters were not all that they were cracked up to be.  He states that coal mining attributes for about 5000 deaths every year and that all nuclear radiation deaths from mining uranium is a problem that has been long solved.  Moore states that Chernobyl was a disaster waiting to happen because the plant was a failure from the start and that "its operators literally blew it up."  He also makes the point that there are other means of fuel (car bombs that use diesel oil) to blow up and kill people.  Moore says that if people were to ban all means of  energy used to kill people "we would not have harnessed fire."  Moore makes the argument that nuclear energy does have its downsides, but its positives greatly outweigh the negatives and is a use of energy that all "responsible environmentalists should support a move in that (nuclear energy) direction."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209_2.html