Here's the thing: Nuclear reactors MIGHT melt down in a very-worst-case scenario.
Yeah, not really. Petroleum harvesting is relatively safe too, but there is always going to be some drunk captain somewhere running his shit aground, or some company building totally unsafe rigs that explode, etc. The same is true of nuclear power. As long as its in use, once in a while you're going to get a meltdown. When it does there is always going to be an explanation/excuse/whatever (commies suck, the industrial hygienists were corrupt teamsters who have since been replaced, earthquake, etc) and some of them are pretty good...but in the end a meltdown is a meltdown and there is no excuse or explanation that can de-radiate land, bring people back to life, or un-mutate huge amounts of wildlife. Sure these reactors in partial meltdown now are "old", but today's state of the art plant is tomorrow's relic, and they'll use the same lame excuse when that one melts down in 2050.
Batteries in the landfill...it just doesn't rate...at all. Its not even in the same universe as a nuclear meltdown. Its...completely f*cking dishonest/insane to even claim that it is. People don't just pack up overnight and run in fear, abandoning their homes (possibly forever) because there is some lead in the ground.
The stakes are just way WAY too high. A solution to global warming? f*ck, its about the only thing I can think of that is nearly as dangerous as global warming itself short of actual nuclear war.
Nuke power is one of those things that people trust because its been around so long, like the family shotgun or birth control pills, but if the shit were invented today, and all the facts laid out before they went into use, only crazy people would advocate the shit.
