The problems at Fukushima had to do with design and siting of the overall plant, which is, in fact, very much an element of engineering. Truth is, there are lots of ways for a nuke to fail, and the small comfort that Fukushima didn't fail in the same way Chernobyl did doesn't make Fukushima any less of a failure.
The Japanese have also exhibited some spectacularly poor nuclear management in the past (a criticality incident in fuel handling at Tokaimura: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident) and significant involvement by the Japanese mafia in TEPCO). In fact many or most nuclear incidents anywhere can be chalked up to poor management -- it's a major risk factor.
As for the US Navy, the man who made that happen argued strongly against nuclear power. US Navy Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover:
I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all. I am not proud of the part I played in it. I did it because it was necessary for the safety of this country. (see full quote and others at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Willingness_...)
Rickover also explicitly noted that the US Navy's safety was the result of a total philosophy and approach, not a solution which could be ladled or patched on to other systems.
This is true of any field in which, in the words of Feynman in his report on the Challenger disaster, "reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled".
the man who made that happen argued strongly against nuclear power.
As the Rickover quote you give shows, Rickover thought of "radiation" as having magical powers, like many members of the uninformed public. His arguments on such grounds are not cogent. (Another quote in the Wiki article shows that Rickover also disliked nuclear power because of its relationship to nuclear weapons, which is more reasonable, although still not sufficient to justify getting rid of nuclear power IMO.)
His comments on the US Navy's particular philosophy, which worked for a military organization but would not work for civilian power companies, are valid as far as they go. However, to me that's a bug, not a feature. To see why, consider the following sketch of an alternate history: in the mid-1970's, having realized that OPEC is not going to play nice any more and therefore foreign oil is not a good basis on which to run the US economy, the US government makes nuclear power a national priority on national security grounds (much as France did). Knowing that existing reactor designs require skilled operators and strict procedures to ensure safety, the government institutes licensing similar to what is done with professionals in various fields, such as engineers, whose activities can, if done incorrectly, pose significant risk to the public. The US Navy program is used as a model, but the military-style aspects of it are adjusted to something more appropriate for a commercial endeavor.
Result: in the alternate 2014, the US imports no oil (except possibly from Canada), the majority of base load electricity comes from nuclear power plants, coal mines are all shut down and their sites cleaned up to serve as ski resorts, offshore oil drilling is a thing of the past (so no Deepwater Horizon spill), and the US can just leave the Middle East alone (so no special treatment of Saudi Arabia, probably no 9/11, no invasion of Iraq).
There are some technologies which are inherently riskier than others. A solar meltdown or wind fuel spill isn't going to risk tens of thousands to hundreds of millions as a nuke plant incident could.
[Rickover's] arguments on such grounds are not cogent.
Y'know, blithely saying that of someone who spent 35 years in the nuclear industry, pretty much creating it, shows ... a certain hubris. I'm unpersuaded by your argument.
Your nuclear alternative universe omits the one glaring limitation of conventional nuclear: there's not enough fissible material to run nukes for more than a few decades, and much less than that if the fraction of energy produced from nuclear is increased. The alternatives are breeders (weapons, proliferation, and processing risks) or thorium MSR (MOX designs don't achieve the fuel utilization rates necessary to achieve a long-term sustainable energy source status). Thorium MSR suffers from the slight limitation that some 40 years after initial and very preliminary exploration, it's still at least 25 years from commercial deployment -- by the assessment of the usually optimistic Chinese: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uy239/energy_c...
I'll omit the other glaring omission: that oil provides fuel for transport, while nuclear doesn't. Synthesis of transportation fuels is a challenge of engineering, complexity, and scale.
Rickover actually addressed aspects of this in a 1956 speech:
I'd recommend reading it in full (he articulates and builds his argument well), but:
For it is an unpleasant fact that according to our best estimates, total fossil fuel reserves recoverable at not over twice today's unit cost, are likely to run out at some time between the years 2000 and 2050, if present standards of living and population growth rates are taken into account. Oil and natural gas will disappear first, coal last. There will be coal left in the earth, of course. But it will be so difficult to mine that energy costs would rise to economically intolerable heights, so that it would then become necessary either to discover new energy sources or to lower standards of living drastically.
Huh? No nuclear plant incident has even come close to this level of impact; this number is at least four orders of magnitude too large, and quite possibly more.
someone who spent 35 years in the nuclear industry
I didn't say all his arguments weren't cogent, just the particular argument he made about "releasing radiation".
there's not enough fissible material to run nukes for more than a few decades
Sure there is, if you reprocess the spent fuel (spent fuel actually still has a fairly large fraction of fissile material in it) and/or run breeders (sure, you have to keep control of the nuclear material, but that's a lot cheaper than the alternative of making us all poor because we don't have enough energy).
I was surprised to see the Chinese that pessimistic about the time scale for thorium reactors; I haven't had time to dig into the details to see what the roadblock is. They're not the only ones working on those, either.
oil provides fuel for transport, while nuclear doesn't.
But oil provides fuel for other things besides transport as well. If it only had to provide fuel for transport, that would change things significantly.
(Also, battery technology is a lot better now than when Rickover made his speech; electric cars can now actually have decent range for things like commuting.)
Rickover actually addressed aspects of this in a 1956 speech
Yes, I've read it. One thing that struck me was that he came right out and said that energy == standard of living, which is true, but it's an inconvenient truth. Of course, he wasn't a politician.
Self-followup: Global Warming was in fact a thing by 1956. In fact, noted as early as 1932 (with earlier work on CO2 as a greenhouse gas dating to the 19th century):
The Japanese have also exhibited some spectacularly poor nuclear management in the past (a criticality incident in fuel handling at Tokaimura: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident) and significant involvement by the Japanese mafia in TEPCO). In fact many or most nuclear incidents anywhere can be chalked up to poor management -- it's a major risk factor.
As for the US Navy, the man who made that happen argued strongly against nuclear power. US Navy Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover:
I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all. I am not proud of the part I played in it. I did it because it was necessary for the safety of this country. (see full quote and others at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Willingness_...)
Rickover also explicitly noted that the US Navy's safety was the result of a total philosophy and approach, not a solution which could be ladled or patched on to other systems.