Money for Nothing and Nuclear Energy for Free

The promise of cheap and efficient energy is a very exciting prospect. Including all the additional social and environmental costs, however, is it really as cost effective as it can (should) be?

"Nuclear energy is, in many places, competitive with fossil fuel for electricity generation, despite relatively high capital costs and the need to internalise all waste disposal and decommissioning costs. If the social, health and environmental costs of fossil fuels are also taken into account, nuclear is outstanding." From the Australian Uranium Association.

The interest of the organization is to advance the use of nuclear energy by railing against use of fossil fuels, but it brings up an intuitive point about nuclear energy itself: take away all the bad things about it and it is actually pretty good. Seems simple enough, but what will it take to do so? The social, health and environmental concerns cannot simply be thrown to the wind. When plants are built in remote areas to power nearby cities, is it geographic discrimination? When nuclear near-disasters happen, who flips the bill--nuclear power companies, the government or a combination of both?

Nuclear power companies themselves and their lobbies thus have a compelling interest to bring together scientists and policy makers to address these issues in conjunction with advertising the benefits of more cost-efficient energy. Simply extolling the wonders of nuclear power for its own sake doesn't cut it. So, the question is "if all other factors can be mitigated should people embrace nuclear power as an energy source". I think the answer is a resounding "Yes". For the time being, there are obvious concerns which cannot be ignored--unless you are an economist with a one-armed chair.