nuclear pipedream

The one thing I have taken from this article and from our in class discussions about the oil spill in the gulf is that you can make numbers say whatever you want. In Kurt Kleiner's article on nuclear emissions you had us read for this assignment, he references Benjamin Sovacool a research fellow from Singapore University. He studied over 100 different lifecylce studies and found a range of carbon emissions from 1.6 grams of carbon dioxide equivilant per kilowatt-hour upto 288grams. This is very similar to the situation we brought up in class with the estimates on the oil spill. Even Sovacool had his own numbers. He certainly has alot to gain by proving this point. This is where I don't understand science. I thought it was a precise exercise but when humans and egos and money come into play all bets are off.
Another point from this article I found interesting was the amount of "front-end" emissions a nuclear plant would have. As far as mining the uranium the construction and so forth. Kleiner said it would take at least ten years just to construct a huge nuclear plant. Anyone who has driven to Chicago rescently has seen the huge on shore wind farm outside of Remington Indiana. That seemed to go up over night and the impact to the farm land was minimal. The landscape looks a little different now, but Im sure residents would rather look at soom really cool looking fans with no noise as opposed to a nucear facility and all the added security and not to mention the effect on their land.