Actually I'm a mechanical engineer and new reactors aren't any safer, not like that even matters because there are many other social and economic reasons why nuclear is not a viable form of energy.

It takes nothing less than ABSOLUTE GROSS NEGLIGENCE or OLD DESIGN to pull the same kind of accident as Fuki, Chernobyl, or TMI.

would you like to explain to me the exact derivations of all the equations (including the uncertainties based on material properties, validity of equations of state based on a certain phase of the material, etc) used to calculate meltdown risk in new reactors vs old ones? I didn't think so.

the problem with nuclear is actually a problem with computers. Until we can model every atom in a reactor design they aren't safe at all. newer designs are actually more dangerous and prone to human error, because they are new and different. A lot of these new safety designs always assume a piece won't break, which is the key to the whole design, well guess what? the very important pipe can break. Guess what the meltdown risk of a solar panel is?

Also you are forgetting about the spent fuel pools, they often don't have the proper safety designs. The thing with nuclear is that it MIGHT be possible to make it safe, but it would be so expensive it wouldn't be worth it economically. This is what the president of germany said, and the japanese public will not allow any nuclear plants to be turned back on. We would first need much larger computing centers to design the reactors and put every single expensive safety device on them.And there is no way the american nuclear industry will agree to do nuclear as safe as possible, because there would be no profit. At the very least all the nuclear plants should be nationalized like france, so the army can come in and actually spend the money to make these things safer. No where is safe from natural disasters.

Also you are forgetting that nuclear could never stop global warming, because nuclear produces massive amount of co2 during the building of plants and mining/refining of fuels. Much more than solar/wind/geothermal/etc, and nuclear technology will not evolve fast enough to lower its co2 emissions to counteract global warming. Plus if you ever tried to use nuclear in a big way, uranium prices would skyrocket. Also the basic economics of the plant don't work because they take 10 years to build and no one knows what the energy needs will be then, they are completely unscalable and not practical.

Plus if you want nuclear power, you have no right to ask iran not to have nuclear power, or every other unstable country, which then means nuclear weapons because they go hand in hand. So you if you like the idea of every country in the world having nuclear weapons, then you should support nuclear, but that is a death wish.