>>I think people have an irrational fear<<
No, people have very rational fears because they understand that when a problem occurs in a nuclear power plant/reprocessing facility it can have effects that can last for thousands if not millions of years. For this they don't need any kind of knowledge of physics but a natural inclination to distrust the lies of politicians who claim it's a 'safe' technology. And personal experience.
After Chernobyl it rained here twice(the wind changed direction and sent the rain back for a second dose). I used to bump into guys in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish highlands armed with geiger-counters measuring the fallout years after; to my knowledge they still are periodically checking.
No offence, Chris, but like all undergraduates you're living in a scientific cocoon - at the level you're doing physics it's all intended to demonstrate laws and principles and to give you practical, theoretical and experimental experience for when you graduate and have to deal with real world problems that will annoyingly deviate from modelling expectations.
The step back towards nuclear power - fission reactors specifically - is a political one; economically it costs an absolute fortune, but a fortune that politicians conveniently dilute by separating mining, refining, enrichment, reprocessing and reactor decomissioning costs from maintenance when they're trying to sell the idea to an understandably reluctant electorate.
If you're studying physics, surely you understand that boiling water to drive steam turbines is a pretty inefficient way to generate electricity, particularly given that alternatives exist which have not had the level of state funding that nuclear (fission) has enjoyed over the last half-century. Photovoltaics and fuel cells(which are incredibly efficient) in particular are worthy of mention in this regard; the former must surely be of interest to a country such as Australia with large tracts of empty, sunny desert.
In any event, a shift away from monolithic power generation and expensive transmission(the real efficiency crippler) certainly needs closer examination in my view; I'd personally be more interested in buying a home power system than suffering increasing price hikes and disrupted service from power companies.
One fission reactor on the planet is enough to supply radioisotopes for medical, agricultural and other civilian applications; make it a fast breeder and you further limit the ecological damage of mining and concentrating uranium ores.
Disclaimer: I didn't read the webpage in question but I trust it's as full of misconceptions as you state.
