/sci/ - Science & Math

Why are liberals so scared of nuclear power?

I'm nothing more than the next ignorant in the subject whose known facts are based more on science fiction then real facts.

But I have a concern and most people don't know how to answer it. Regardless of wether nuclear energy is safe or not (I'm not concerned with eviromental radiation poisoning at all), it is the one power source that doesn't transform a form of energy into another, but matter into energy.

My question is, where does that energy go after it has been used? back to the planet in form of heat, movement, whatever? but it doesn't really turn back into matter. So, can the planet take it?

There's certainly a circle of gain and loss of energy from space itself, but we've been using atomic reactors for some while now, thousands, is there a chance the we may be saturating the planet itself with more energy than there has ever been on it, at least for the past million years?