yesterday?

Did you watch the debate last night? Will you explain something to me because I really don't get it. When did nuclear energy become 'clean?' Have I just been totally in the dark and missed that someone actually found a way to reduce nuclear waste and then convert it into something that doesn't harm everything it touches? If so, that's awesome! Somehow though, I don't think that's happened. So when did it become 'clean?' When we finally acknowledged that we need to cut our dependence on oil and that nuclear energy won't harm the atmosphere? Does that actually make it clean? Are we now calling it clean out of desperation, ignoring how harmful it is to other aspects of the environment? Please fill me in.

(And as a side note, just because you might have been on a ship that had a nuclear reactor and nothing dangerous happened [like it exploding or something] does not mean that it was safe. I regularly drive home drunk and have not had one accident. So following that logic, driving drunk is safe.* Okay, I acknowledge that's a stupid analogy, but you get my point.)

*I do not drive while drunk. And if I ever did I sure wouldn't try to convince anyone that it was 'safe.' I just take the subway drunk, now that's safe, particularly when it's powered with its own nuclear reactor.