Uranium and coal mines look nasty at close range but are tiny areas of land compared to the whole. They can be reclaimed though it takes a while so enviros can always show early days of reclamation and claim it proves that reclamation is inadequate.

As for nuclear waste, two types of radioactive elements are produced: short half-life ones which are economically and medically valuable and long half-life ones that are less dangerous and can be easilly stored until uses are found for them.

On the other hand, fissioning uranium or thorium produces about 940 GW-days/tonne of heat. That works out to a fuel consumption of about 0.15 mg/kW-h of electricity. Current technology only uses about 1% of the energy in natural uranium; the flip side of that is that the ‘spent’ nuclear fuel and depleted uranium which have already been mined still hold a fantastic amount of energy.

A true comparison of current fuel efficiency between solar and nuclear systems would not use the parameters of the older, less-efficient thermal reactors.

I would Zweibel’s post as a jumping off point for your own thinking. Do not use it as the basis for an honest technical argument with anyone qualified to argue the subject.

When considered in that light, one hardly needs to go to the depth of calculating the comparative efficiency of power generative systems to know that solar has an obvious advantage in that its raw material is guaranteed to our planet for billions of years, while nuclear has an obvious advantage of continuous availability.

These advantages cannot be directly compared. And any attempt to do so will raise honest questions such as yours.

Solar is very much preferred as compared to nuclear..
Go Solar Goo!!