It looks like the Fukushima meltdowns, which with better reactors design would have been manageable.

If you want to get worked up about risks, do the math on meteor and comet impacts. There is a reason that American defense planners are blasé about nuclear reactors and worked up about extraterrestrial impactors. It's only a matter of time before we lose a city to a meteor. That's lose, not temporarily evacuate or have an unfortunate increase in cancer rates.

Perhaps. An energy shield (like in starwars!) would also make them safe. But we don't have these things. Most reactors are over 20 years old[1] and not going to be replaced with better designs any time soon.

If you want to get worked up about risks, do the math on meteor and comet impacts

We can't do anything about meteors and comets. But we can get rid of nuclear plants.

[1] http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/images/npp-ww-a...

The meteor problem is even easier to solve. We need to build observation telescopes, lots of them. We then use off-the-shelf rockets to paycheck off-the-shelf nuclear bomb interceptors mounted on almost-off-the-shelf delivery platforms.

Looking at Fukushima, it is not the terrorists and the meteors that frighten me the most. It is the simple combination of the everyday events like earthquakes, with corruption, inefficiency, cost-cutting and the culture of secrecy that fosters and supports it all. These are the real but invisible dangers that you cannot shoot down from your robotic space platforms.

Wait a minute. Last I checked it was not "environmentalists" running these facilities?

Also, nobody would turn against a design that can be proven safe. The problem is: that design doesn't exist.

The meteor problem is even easier to solve.

Your naivety is somewhat amusing. It seems you are watching too many bad hollywood movies.