The answer is so simple, it's painful to try to understand why it isn't recognised by those that matter. We are in a world of ever more scarce and expensive hydrocarbons, which will run out as an energy source in their own rights and as a back up source for renewables. The prospects for maintaining peace and prosperity rests on the inevitable global deployment of breeder reactors; it needs to happen sooner rather than later.
The arithmetic for breeder reactors proves that the technology does exactly what will be required, free of greenhouse gas emissions, with ease. Breeder reactors are inherently safe (that means walk-away safe - they shut themselves down according to the laws of physics, even under a common-mode failure, as happened at Fukushima). Breeder reactors work on a closed fuel cycle to 'burn' over 90% of the energy in the fuel as opposed to the 1% burned by the PWRs currently used. Breeder reactors can burn all of the world's plutonium, spent fuel and depleted uranium stockpiles to produce electricity whilst making the 'problem' of nuclear 'waste' disappear. Breeder reactors produce only a tiny fraction of the waste from present day reactors and the radioactivity of that waste decays to background radiation levels in 300 years - easily, cheaply and safely capable of storage.
http://lftrsuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/breeder-reactors-it-is-but-will-it-be.htmlBreeder reactors can supply all of the energy (including liquid fuels for transport) to every individual on the planet (at developed world standards) for all of time (from inexhaustible uranium and thorium deposits).
