Originally Posted by
Roller
Chernobyl happened because of a series of monumental screw-ups. Bad control-rod design and failure to follow proper procedure resulted in nuclear meltdown. Nuclear meltdowns in themselves do not cause explosions - the explosion at Chernobyl was the result of steam build-up which caused the core lid to blow off. The Soviet Union being the Soviet Union, the clean up and handling of the whole thing was a mess.
The way that nuclear chain-reactions work, modern nuclear poser-plants can be constructed to be amazingly safe from melt-down. Once the control rods are enacted, the reaction stops. Easy as that. Most power-plants around the US store all their own waste on-site because of a lack of location to store the material. That seems to be the biggest problem.
Renewable energies such as wind energy may be the most environmentally friendly, but most fail to provide a reliable base-load of power that modern economies need. China, when its growth was 11%, was building a new power-station every week.