You cannot simply brush aside this issue. Even if we have 100% safe reactors, generating waste that is deadly in a thousand years is simply not a good idea, no paranoia involved.

Besides: nuclear had its chance - they blew it because of greed and sloppiness, the usual thing that happens when large organizations deal with complex issues. I am 100% sure that even with novel reactor designs the same "human factor" would generate accidents like we have seen with the old designs.

Greed and sloppiness? Everyone will grant you that in the case of the Soviet nuclear energy program and the result with Chernobyl, but beyond that, there's nothing to support your argument. If anything, the fact that the only significant accident was the result of human error magnified by institutional decision-making is a remarkably positive argument. Modern reactor designs and procedures are radically different than they were back in the 60s. Ignoring the progress of technology and the safety benefits that it results in is an incredibly narrow-minded position. We learn from history in every other field; what supports your conclusion that nuclear power is somehow different?

Here is some support for that argument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site

A lot of smart people being very very sloppy.

There's a huge difference between any nuclear power plant and the Hanford Site, which was setup as a wartime production facility. The majority of the river contamination took place in the early years, from 1945 to 1951 when knowledge, technology, and experience was extremely limited at the time compared to today. At the time, they sacrificed environmental concerns for expediency because they had a war to win. Even if they knew exactly what would happen in the years and decades afterwards, I'm fairly certain that the same decision would be made. We're stuck with the cleanup, but there's nothing about the situation that would suggest the possibility of a repeat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power...: "In 1990, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ranked the failure of the emergency electricity generators and subsequent failure of the cooling systems of plants in seismically very active regions one of the most likely risks. The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) cited this report in 2004. According to Jun Tateno, a former NISA scientist, TEPCO did not react to these warnings and did not respond with any measures.[35]

Filmmaker Adam Curtis mentioned the risks of the type of boiling water reactors cooling systems such as those in Fukushima I,[36] and claimed the risks were known since 1971[37] in a series of documentaries in the BBC in 1992 and advised that PWR type reactors should have been used.

Fukushima had been warned their seawall was insufficient to withstand a powerful tsunami, but the seawall height was not raised in response"

Still no indication of greed, sloppiness, cut-corner mentality and general incompetence?

It's not paranoia. There are legitimate concerns about storing nuclear waste. It's not perfect and it is expensive. Wouldn't it be better to be able to skip past these problems onto something without those drawbacks?

Very substantial amounts of nuclear waste already exist.

Stopping making more doesn't make the problem go away (...at least for many thousand years). I'm more optimistic that current waste will be reprocessed or stored safely if nuclear power generation continues than if it all gets quietly forgotten.