I hope I got the attributions above right.

The nasty accidents you want to read about were the Snake River (US)
and Windscale (Renamed Sellafield) in the UK. They happened in the
50s. You can google the data.  Snake river was experimental.  The AEC
made a movie about it, which I saw in an engineering class in 1964.

FWIW, here's some data on nuclear production I googled together for an
article:

" . . .  France is  the most enthusiastic proponent of nuclear power
generation, but the United States produces almost double France's
output. Germany is generally seen as having abandoned nuclear power,
but that assessment may be premature.

 "France operates 59 nuclear reactors that supply more than 420
Terawatt-hours per year, 78% of the country's total consumption.
France is the world's largest exporter of electricity, which is the
country's fourth largest export. Much of it is purchased by Italy.

  "In the USA, there are presently 103 fully licensed and operational
nuclear power reactors.  The most recent data has them producing about
750 Terawatt-hours/year, or about 20% of the country's electricity. A
Department of Energy report says that even a 3% reduction in US carbon
emissions will require not only license renewal for all the existing
nuclear plants, but also possibly the construction of about 30 large
new ones by 2012.

  "The political status of nuclear power in Germany is complex and
predictions about what is going to happen are always hedged. Over half
the country's electricity still comes from coal. However, under the
Kyoto accord, Germany is committed to a 21% reduction of greenhouse
gas emissions by 2010.

  "Thus, Germany continues to operate 17 nuclear power reactors. (All
the Soviet-designed reactors in the old East Germany have been shut
down and are being decommissioned.) Output in 2004 was 167
Terawatt-hours, roughly a third of the country's consumption.

Here's a table of the rest of the countries around the world producing
commercial power, ranked by output.  The data is from 2003.

Country    Terawatts (2003)
Japan    314
Russia    141
Korea    113
United Kingdom    81
Ukraine    78
Canada    76
Sweden    65
Spain    63
Belgium    45
Taiwan    38
Switzerland    26
Peoples Republic of China    23
Finland    21
Bulgaria    20
India    20
Slovakia    18
Lithuania    14
Mexico    10

The rest of the article is here:

http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Print.cfm?ArticleID=10607

There's some current info on pebble bed reactors, but nothing anybody
couldn't get off the Web.  You have to read past the fuelcell and
solar sections to get to the nukes.

Don

[snip]

Well, I can't speak to that one, but if it was experimental, I'm sure it
was dubbed as such for a reason.  There are huge differences between
experimental reactors and production reactors; at least here in the US.

I have read a little bit about the Russian sub disaster.  And again,
disaster is better applied thann "accident".  Once again, the Russian's
proved how they can cut corners and throw caution to the win to prove they
could best America during the cold war.  I personally believe this falls
well into the flour mill analogy.  Heck, Forrest Gump can be quoted here,
"stupid is as stupid does."  Seems like a good fit here too.

The Thresh sank for completley different reasons.  It sank because the
Navy wanted to see how far they could stress a sub, without maintenance,
before it failed...and they wanted to observe the nature of the impending
failures...all before the Thresh has actually gone through it actual
trails.  Long story short, inexperienced crew, unproven ship, and refused
maintainence just for the sake of seeing how bad, bad can get...."stupid
is as stupid does", once again seems like a good fit.

Hey, make no bones about it.  I have absolute faith in nuclear
technology...assuming it's done right.  Places like China and Korea and
Iran, scare the crap out of me.  You can do anything right or wrong.

"Servicable" is a nice way of putting it.  Substandard, is what I would
put it as.

Cheers,

Greg

Everybody seemed to think it was important enough to stay inside for
the whole week following, while Chernobyl rained down on all of us. The
guys doing the checking were military, and using their special cold-war
doohickeys to take measurements. You can emagine they were excited, as
GI's don't get to use their special toys in the real world very often.
I would assume they would be capable of telling the difference between
normal background radation and elevated levels given that was their job
in the event of nuclear war. It rained all that week, and all the kids
in the neighborhood were locked indoors to keep from playing in the wet
grass. We were probably better than a thousand miles away, and were
effected.

And we aren't talking about just 2 disasters. Wasn't there an
experimental reactor in the midwest that iradiated its operators and
bunch of firefighters? And what about that russian submarine that
nearly went critical while irradiating it's entire crew. (Is that at
the bottom of the ocean, or am I thinking about thresher?) So how many
reactors are there world wide, while having had 4 significant
accidents? So even if there are 400 reactors, we are still talking a 1%
failure rate.

I take your point that the USA has probably learned it's lesson, but
that doesn't mean the rest of the world has. To think that there will
be a reactor in Iran is some scary sh.t. And nobody is going to stop
building them, or gaurantee safety until there is either a global ban,
or a global enforcable manufacturing standard.

In the case of Chernobyl, some humans took some servicable equipment,
hosed it up and created a global natural disaster. Though I have some
faith in modern American engineering, I have no reason to think that
something like that wouldn't happen in say Pakistan. Given the global
effect of Chernobyl, significant concern is warranted no matter where a
reactor is located.

And as I understand Three mile island from the documentary I saw, even
when engineers where considering the possibility of meltdown, the
officials from the parent energy company were telling everyone that all
was cool and go home. So though I may not be an engineer, there is no
reason for me to think that what I'm being told by basically the same
people is anything remotely resembling truth.

I would say that the deception at three mile island probably caused
more fear and more domestic protest than if they would have just told
everybody to evacuate and then brought them back in. Now nobody trusts
Nuclear energy, and rightly so. Whether it is the technology they don't
trust, or the people selling it is of no consequence. No trust, no
sale. In any case I sure as well wouldn't want it in my back yard.

-Matt

Yes, Really!

Background radiation is normal.  Heck, just flying in a plance
considerably increases the dose of radation you get that day. You really
didn't say how far about background you were, but....all said and
done....this is all completely beside the point.

Simple fact is, Chernobyl was based on substandard 40's and 50's level
technology and failed to have even the minimum of proper shielding and
containment. Even during the 50's, here in the US, Chernobyl would never
have been allowed to be built.  Worse, the Russians then decided to
disable what failsafes they had in place to see how low and unsafe they
could run their reactor, without proper coolant and again, with safeties
disabled.  Basically, you can sanely argue that this was an act of
terrorism by Russia against people in that part of the world.   It's a
horrible situation because Russia did *everything* they could to make is
as bad as is humanly possible.

The closest failure that the US has had was 3-mile island and even that
place was considered technologically substandard for the period.  Three
mile island was properly contained (less than one millirem released to the
surrounding community), contrary to many reports. To add insult to injury,
had TMI actually had the proper instrumentation, which was considered the
norm at the time, the disaster would have been completely avoided.

Now then, advance many technology years and we now have self regulating,
reator designs.  Many of them in fact.  Basically, what happens
is...before the reactor can get close to meltdown, other components either
melt (e.g. b/c of loss of coolant) within the core or vaporize within the
core, which prevents futher nuclear reaction.  This means, the core will
continue to cool, all completely on its own.  If it destroyed it self, it
cools inside of its own containment shielding. From there, it can be
disposed of as seen fit.

Long story short, while I am sorry you were near Chernobyl, place Russia
for doing everything they could of inflict it on you.  Chernobyl was not a
nuclear accident.  Chernobyl was purposely engineered through stupidity
and complete and utter lack of concern, compassion, or understanding of
what they were doing.  Basically, a lot of people died and/or were injured
because they didn't give a dang.  To hold Chernobyl up as an example of
why we should not use nuclear is to point to flour mill (in case you
didn't know, flour mills sometimes explode) and insist the world should
stop making bread.

Simple fact is, more people in the last ten years have died as a DIRECT
result of coal power plants than have, in total, ever been killed from
nuclear power plants.  But, I sure you wouldn't know that because fear
mongering is just so popular and politically correct these days.

Greg

<SNIP>

Really?

I lived in Europe during Chernobyl. I was 6 years old and remember that
week vividly. Chances are I'm still carrying part of that
son-of-a-bitch around with me today as are all the inhabitants of
Europe. I lived near a US military base at the time, and yes
gigercounters were picking up radiation on my front f.cking lawn! We
were told it wasn't at hazardous levels, but detectable.

But I guess thats just fear mongering and ignorance talking. Perhaps
you could pass on that wisdom of yours to that town that was next to
the reactor. Oh, sorry, it's gone. Gee whiz, I wonder where all those
fear mongering ignorant folks went. Thats right. They're all dead.
Oops.

-Matt

I don't know that I buy into that.  Nuclear has a lot of life left it.
There are lots of newer and improved nuclear technologies that can
actually run off of nuclear waste produced by existing nuclear plants.
There is pretty much a life time supply available...just in current waste
supplies.

The only thing that keeps nuclear from ready availability is fear
mongering and ignorance.  Heck, what do you expect in a culture where
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NMRI) had to be renamed to Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (RMI)...the name scared too many people so they had to
rename it.

Greg

Since the only primary source of power (not stored and thus limited ) is
solar ( i.e. conversion of mass to energy by fusion or fission), you are
just blowing smoke. Solar *is* and always will be the only long term
solution. But it is more likley to be solar power satellites so as to
maximise the power per unit of collector. Concentration can be used on the
surface to get similar economies of silicon vs energy conversion.

Right now, wind is the best way to utilise solar power, and it can compete
with coal power in many locations.

I have to chuckle when I see solar recommended as the final solution. No one
seems to consider the amount of energy it would take to manufacture the
panels, to convert the DC to AC, to make the large-diameter/low resistance
conductors necessary to carry such small voltages, and finally, the amount
of land taken out of production because it is in constant shade.

Bob Gardner

The problem with burning hydrogen is that solar panels can't make enough of
it. To replace today's vehicular use of oil, we'd need 230,000 tons of
hydrogen daily.  Solar cells to make that much hydrogen would cover about
20,000 square kilometers.  To get this much power -- 400 gigawatts daily --  
without carbon emissions, the only cost-effective solution is nuclear
plants. And that has its own political and ecological consequences.  See
http://www.world-nuclear.org/opinion/grant.htm

Seth

I think you're mostly right for short term, but long term belongs to
hydrogen.
The problem with solar is storing the energy. Stick a solar panel in your
back yard that converts water to hydrogen, and you can store as much as you
want.

I would like to present to you the (near) future of transportation...

Diesel hybrid cars (full two-mode plug-in hybrids)
Diesel for motorcycles
Diesel (probably 2-stroke) engines for general aviation (including
rotorcraft)
Extensive use of bio-diesel

Hybrid cars (gasoline)are in production
Diesel hybrid trucks and busses are in production
Diesel motorcycles are / will be in production soon
Diesel aviation engines are in production...more are coming

Very soon we will see the first diesel hybrid passenger car in
production

Diesel for aviation or motorcycles...they have been around for some
time. Think of Junkers "Jumo" 205. Decades ago there were several
Diesel aircraft engines built by Guiberson, Packard, Rolls-Royce,
Clerget, Fiat and others. Royal Enfield (India) has had a diesel
motorcycle in production for some time. I believe it is now
discontinued.

Some diesel hybrid car prototypes...

GM's Ope Astra diesel hybrid
Citroen Berlingo diesel hybrid
VW Golf diesel hybrid (so I hear)

Some diesel aviation engine prototypes...

SMA Morane Renault MR 200 www.smaengines.com
Teledyne Continental Motors CSD-283 www.teledyne.com (Nasa GAP)
DeltaHawk V-4 www.deltahawkengines.com
Zoche 01A www.zoche.de
Diesel Air Ltd. DAIR-100 www.dair.co.uk

Some (gasoline) hybrid cars in production...

Toyota's Prius and Lexus
Ford's Escape Hybrid

Some diesel motorcycle prototypes...

Diesel Kawasaki M1030 M1 (KLR 650) F1 Engineering / Hayes Diversified
Technologies (HDT)

For third world countries a diesel motorcycle could be ideal. It is
probably very dependable and durable and relatively easy to fix. It
could be bi-fuel, meaning it could use diesel, Jet A, light heater oil
and most importantly... bio-diesel and even straight vegetable oil
(SVO). It could ne equipped with a small (max 200kg) 2-wheel trailer
and a power take-out (PTO). The PTO would mostly be for a generator
and/or (water) pump.

Picture this. In a third world country, a motorcycle travels 100km @
80kmh with 2 litres vegetable oil that they have made themselves. It
then pumps (with a pump attached at the PTO) from a deep dwell 150
litres of fresh water into a tank that's on the trailer, drives back
and delivers the fresh water to the families in the village. Later at
night, it runs to provide electricity (with a generator attached to the
PTO) for many houses in the village and to recharge the batteries. This
motorcycle and its accessories the families in the village have bought
together, with some help from some organisation like the UN.

Of note: Of course the best way to produce electricity in these often
sunny third world countries is solar panels!!