There are studies which indicate higher incidences of cancer in communities close by these nuclear plants, and amongst their workers. And the thorny issue of disposing of spent rods.
JottheDiot has no knowledge whether those advocating cleaner power have solar panels or are otherwise living off the grid. He/She just assumes they don't. Many of those advocating clean energy do walk the walk. They just don't run tours and rub it all in everyone's face all of the time.
In the 1970's some houses were built in Toronto which use solar heated water to heat the house, as well as solar generated electrical and rainwater collection. The houses live independent of municpal utilities save sewage. One of my friends lives next door to these houses and their neighbours gave us a tour one evening. One of the heating panels in the house is a glass wall with water flowing through it. With lighting, it was a stunning architectural feature. After taking this tour, I wanted one of these houses. Total annual utility bill $70.
There is a problem for now, though, that energy demand is only going to go up, period, for the foreseeable future in the world. As the developing world develops and until the world's population evens out (which is estimated to be around 2050), the trajectory this path heads is only upwards.
Sustainable technologies tend to require either a lot of investment or very rare minerals (many of the new high-efficiency batteries require rare earths that are being mined slowly), such that it's really not possible to reduce the whole grid in that fashion cold turkey.
In developed nations, particularly the US and Canada, I agree that energy conservation and better methods to reuse it can be done - thermodynmically, the principal loss of energy is through heat and its recapture towards other sources could be better made, whether it be through better insulation, more efficient heat transfer materials, or through revamping systems or simply being ingenious in other methods (for instance, some of Japan's buildings take the human waste and ferment it beneath the building; the resultant heat is then strained from the nitrogenous waste and then recycled in the building).
That being said, given the growing population demographic, I personally think the advisable path to trying to increase sustainability is to try to increase the use of bridge fuels. Though natural gas, coal bed methane and nuclear are both limited in quantity and in the latter case, carries a nasty reputation, the average environmental footprint through the use of these fuels is far less than their predecessors (coal, oil). There are inherent risks in using some of these technologies but I think that they have to be taken. Otherwise, you have highly dirty energy-production or, IMO, your transition to complete green can't be done at a pace to currently match growing demand for power. Minimizing energy use is an important piece of the puzzle but would require the developing nations to really get onside, which I don't see them doing, either for their self-interest (short term unfortunately always overrides the long term) or in interests of fairness, unless the developed nations really take the initiative on this, either by making free license of environmental technology or by supporting the developing world in some other way, or really tamping down on its own wastes (which, unfortunately, didn't work... see Kyoto).
That was before I cracked a newspaper or science book on the subject, but I still think they're a decent option.
