There's nothing anti-science about the preference, and in the future renewables may be objectively better. But there's nothing rational about the rejection of nuclear as an alternative.
Storage of waste for thousands of years. Why are you so certain that civilisation as we know it is going to survive that long, in the face of disruptive climate change, for instance, let alone madmen with powerful weapons, like Putin and Assad and the psychopaths indulging themselves with so-called islamic state (not to mention your own tea-party taliban)? You all blithely assume that ignorant descendants will have the continuity to maintain storage facilities.
On top of that, it takes years to build nuclear power plants and all the infrastructure for them, whereas we need immediate response to the developing climate crisis. It would be far quicker to build tidal lagoons, wave power installations, and solar farms in deserts etc, which could come on-stream pretty quickly and start contributing much more quickly.
Since we have no idea how far these technologies can or will go, this is pure speculation. It might very well be that renewables _never_ fill our energy needs, and that we _need_ nuclear and other such technologies to do so.
"pure" speculation!? Rubbish!
Bernie's anti-nuclear position is anti-science. So is yours.
This bald statement smacks of an ideological arrogance. I wonder if you have any knowledge at all, since this is all you have to say.
There is actually a ton of anti-science used to support that preference. Not all of it is, it isn't intrinsic to it, but in my experience most all people who are anti-nuclear energy deny some of the science or get it extremely wrong. Even you get it wrong here; there are viable storage and mitigation solutions from the science end of it. It is the economic end that isn't there yet.
What does it matter if some people are ignorant, when as you say those people's arguments are not intrinsic to the rest of the problems with nuclear power, which are real? Your statement of viability in storage ignores the social dimensions as I described above. And since the economic viability is not and never will be sound, the demand for the technology is the ideological blindness in this argument, from where I stand.
It seems that the issues surrounding the running of nuclear power plants are left out of the calculations by proponents of nuclear technology, such as mining and transportation of fuel, along with storage of waste and decommissioning of spent plants and subsequent replacement of plants, all of which demand huge commitment of time and resources. Since China has woken up to their pollution problem and started making solar panels the price has come right down, and every house could and should be tiled with solar panels, a viable solution which could be installed pretty swiftly starting now, and should receive the subsidies instead of the pie in the sky nuclear solution, which will take decades to install.
Climate change is in the nature of an international emergency which demands the kind of response appropriate to putting a nation on a war footing. Tidal lagoons can produce electricity reliably and in large quantities for industry etc. There's nothing speculative in that.
While I like renewables, I like nuclear as well because it will get us off of coal and gasoline much much faster, which is important for climate issues. I don't agree with your 'what if' that renewables would be more viable with earlier subsidies but if you have evidence that they would be, by all means..
I'm still going to vote for Bernie, but I strongly disagree with him here.
The suggestion that building nuclear plants is going to be a swift thing ignores the proven slowness of such builds up until now. It's going to take decades to build and commission enough plants. That's too late. Now is the time to invest that effort and manpower and money in installing a working infrastructure of various renewable technologies. It's viable now, and can only improve with investment of a serious intention to develop it.
The facile dismissal of anti-nuclear objections is no more a sound position than a facile dismissal of socialism in general.
