Nice Article, Jim

Even under current nuclear technology, the world's 400 or so reactors have a pretty good safety record. If we replaced them all with 4000 coal plants, the environmental devastion would be worse. And we have all sorts of deep underground abandoned mines to store the waste, essentially returning the radioactivity back to the mantle.

As Rachel Rogers commented, solar panels have their own unique environmantal costs. Solar has its place and should continue to be enhanced. But we should not count on it replacing nuclear.

Nuclear plants are aging and need to be mothballed. Maybe replacing these reactors with thorium will be the solution.