Uranium, and opinions on nuclear power

Running a bookshop occasionally means I see a new book, order it, and completely forget about it for 3 months until it arrives. This happened with Uranium by Tom Zoellner. 
Pretty interesting stuff Uranium, and as Zoellner travels to loads of countries trying to exploit it (mostly its sought to sell to the mad countries for bombs), and you get the sense it screws up a country as much as it helps them financially.
Not only does it make the surrounding area radioactive, and therefore full of tumorous Elephantmen, it becomes The Place for the locals to work (as in Niger)- so other jobs and stuff aren't done. Economically worthless countries like Niger are/were foreign owned too (France in their case) so all the money from Uranium goes to France, whilst Niger, and other places like it, are absolutely shit.

Unlike The Gold Rush, there was no Charlie Chaplin film about The Uranium Rush (that would have probably been like Dawn of the Dead),

mmm, shoes for tea.

but The Uranium Rush was a huge thing in USA, with prospectors running around trying to find radioactive rocks- some of whom succeeded and became mega-rich. USA still holds secret bunkers that are stuffed with radioactive waste that no-one knows what to do with. The USA was the primary country buying up Uranium, and has spent $10 trillion - 5/6ths of the current national debt on making bombs out of it, or its by-product, Plutionium. Morons.

Although theres explosions like Chernobyl, it causes radioactive cancers, and it produces waste we'll never get rid of, its got to play a big part in our energy future. Coal has fucked up a lot more of the world than Nuclear-  but because of Chernobyl and the waste element, everyone hates nuclear power.
The supply of Uranium has barely been touched, and it produces no C02, we can store waste in glass in the ocean, and not have Homer Simpsons working at the power stations. So shut up- if you want toast in 2050- you need Nuclear power.

Although any information about uranium I just learnt will disappear within a few months, I was pretty happy knowing about a rock that far exceeds the price of gold, and has seen an unthinkable amount of resources devoted to its enrichment. Uranium was unquestionably the mineral of the twentieth century- and with both Nuclear power set to become more prominent, and rouge states continued desire to produce bombs, it will be the mineral of the foreseeable future too.