> Nuclear is vulnerable to the weather too.

Technically true. Practically, not as much. Solar/Wind power is several magnitutdes more vulnerable to weather than nuclear.

There is a huge difference that you're out of power because a heatwave is hitting your country, and that you're out of power because it's been raining all day or there wasn't enough wind.

How long does a rainy day last? How long is climate change such that California is seeing going to last?

It is insane to consider nuclear a safer choice than solar and wind. I will concede solar and wind aren't firm resources, but that is quickly changing with utility scale battery storage and distributed rooftop generation.

  >It is insane to consider nuclear a safer choice than solar and wind.

It isn't.

Nuclear is by far the safest choice, of the given, It account for 17% of electricity output and when you look at deaths per Kwh it's the safest source of energy, bar none.

Nuclear energy is the airplane of transportation. Safest form we invented yet, but when things go wrong, which rarely happens it makes for a better news.

I should've constrained my statement; nuclear is safe when properly managed, and a sensible choice when it can be completed on time and under budget. Rarely, if ever, is a nuclear generation facility completed on time and under budget.

No, the problem is that nuclear is overall safest it contributes a large portion of electricity and small percent of all deaths. Because it's both a powerful source and its nature makes people very careful, so they generally are good at avoiding stupid mistakes.

The nature of other power sources is that have a slow trickle of uninspiring deaths - worker falls into turbine (OH NO THE TURBINES ARE EVIL!), person falls off a roof installing solar panels, workers killed in a mine, workers killed on the oil rig. They are so small and numerous it becomes background noise.

When nuclear powerplant goes bad, it goes with a bang. International press coverage, rescue operations, etc. Look at Fukushima. It took a friggin' tsunami to mess up that old plant and even then, they managed to avoid Chernobyl scenario.

It remains to be seen if distributed rooftop generation will be a viable long term strategy. What is proven and viable, as an investment we can make today to combat climate change is nuclear power. It is truly insane that we continue to use fossil fuels decades after knowing what they are doing to humans and the planet.

> It is truly insane that we continue to use fossil fuels decades after knowing what they are doing to humans and the planet.

This we agree wholeheartedly on.

> There is a huge difference that you're out of power because a heatwave is hitting your country

Do you really think rivers flowing low is a "heatwave", or is it the new normal?

The fact that river had low flow is more a testament to changing climate, than to any failure of the team that designed it.

France had to shut down several reactors in the 2003 heatwave due to the river water getting too hot and had to try and cool some of them by spraying water on them from the outside.

http://www.rense.com/general40/reactors.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/12/france.nuclear