Ok, first I should say I lived through the Reagan years and found nothing good about anything that happened under his administration, no matter how many people he made feel good. His total time in office was a disaster. So again I state, any reference to Reagan does nothing but make me feel uneasy.

I'm not trying to argue that Reagan did good things, I'm arguing that he could. He was able to move people to his agenda. In my opinion, it's one thing that no president or candidate has been able to do since.

As far as nuclear power, I am a Nevadan who is in favor of the Yucca Mountain Project, enough said.

Ok, fair enough :)

Some people look at Obama and see something new, I look at him and all I do is flash back to McGovern and Carter. Both of whom I like and have great respect for, but neither was what the country needed at the time.

I don't have much experience with either but right now it does feel the country does need something drastically different. It's an opportunity to repair our party, which has done little to reassure independent voters that it can actually achieve what they say they can. I don't think Hillary would do this.

Obama supporters keep talking about how we need to compromise and stop the fighting. Would someone tell me which things that we have been fighting for we should abandon in order to have this peace? I really don’t think the other side is going to change just because you ask them nicely, do you? I think Obama supporter are naive in thinking Washington can be easily changed. They seem to think by being nice and logical change will occur, I suggest they study the Carter years.

I don't believe it can be "changed". I think it needs to be looked at more realistically but be open to compromise and reduce partisanship. Hillary automatically incites partisanship. Just mention her name to a rural independent voter and see the response. Her health care plan is also a perfect example of why her "fighting" isn't realistic. Mandates will not get passed by republicans. This, to me, indicates the flaw with our party. We can't fight our legislation through. If we fail, we get nothing and we do not do justice to the people we support. There has to be compromise and Obama seems to understand that.

I think the 2008 election is going to be a contest between a group of people, none of which should be in the White House, thank goodness that in Nevada we have a box on our ballots for “None of the Above.

As far as my political affiliation I’m a Democrat that has read every book Abbey Hoffman ever wrote.

You would vote "none of the above" even though you've been a long time democrat? You are in a state we could and should win in November. I hope you don't choose the "none" option.

Cost is the primary issue with Nuclear even with waste and other issues people bring up. However, this piece seems like another hit job on the nuclear power industry while supporting wind and solar, as always.

I'll agree, costs of nuclear power plants are an issue and they must be brought in line with other forms of energy. However, you cannot discount an energy production method on the basis of one dimension of analysis alone.

First, all forms of energy production leave an ecological footprint. You cannot escape that fact. But for pro-solar/wind people, nuclear is the first one they take a swing at while 50% of the country is powered by coal. Cheap to put up, cheap to fuel, oh, but spews toxic gas into the air.

Secondly, technologically solar and wind are not at the point where they can support our energy needs. Even if you covered Arizona with solar panels, it's still not a solution. Current energy projections do not give renewables over 10% of the total energy production of the country. There are reasons for this.

As far as waste disposal, Nuclear actually controls 100% of its waste. For every kilowatt produced and sold, a portion of that revenue goes back into a fund that is to manage the waste. Coal certainly does not and while many would argue that there is no waste from Solar and Wind, there is and it does not control this either.

The global warming gases produced from nuclear are 0. Compare that with other forms of energy, and this is yet another area where one could debate in favor of nuclear power.

As far as Uranium costs, the U.S. has not reprocessed spent fuel since the Carter administration. This was largely due to nuclear weapon proliferation concerns however, cost was also another factor. Uranium is still cheaper to buy and use in a once-through cycle than reprocessing it, separating the plutonium and U-235 (which a LWR reactor needs ~4% to run) out and reinserting it back into the power plant. We have the technology, we choose not to use it. Of course there are reprocessing costs, but this also would reduce the amount of waste requiring storage. France, Japan, and Russia all reprocess currently.

In the end, this article really just chooses one dimension of policy analysis to beat up on Nuclear power again, which makes little sense. You need a full spectrum of criteria to analyze, then create a final conclusion taking into account all criteria for a particular energy policy. This certainly does not do it.

On a final note, if anti-nuclear writers put half as much effort into looking at and tearing apart coal energy, they would do much more for the global warming debate than using nuclear power as their punching bag.