Found an interesting article on Green Collar Economy, via PESWiki, about Thorium Nuclear Reactors.  These have been proven, effective energy generation plants (to the tune of 1000 MW production), that have much lower risk profiles than uranium-based nuclear generation.  According to the article on PESWiki:

The thorium nuclear fission cycle eliminates the risk of meltdown and weapons proliferation while the byproducts have a reduced half-life on the order of 1/2 century rather than thousands of years. Thorium can be recycled and poses no direct risks to our environment unless the facilities themselves were attacked. Even in this situation we would not have another Chernoble.

Man, a half-life of 50 years?  That changes the game on nuclear waste storage in a massive way.  Why haven’t we all heard of this?  Why are we not discussing a way to roll out 100 of these plants?  I am definitely going to look into this more.  Here is a Google Tech discussion of the concept for more details.

Apparently there is a bill going through Congress right now called the Thorium Energy Independence and Security Act of 2009.  This is one we should all demand more information about and work to get moving.