Article

2008-03-30 Science & Technology

How I learned to quit worrying and love nuclear power

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Posted by john frum 2008-03-30 09:08|| || Front Page|| [11124 views ] Top

#1 The largest sustained nuclear reaction generator in our neighborhood operates about 93 million miles from earth and is responsible for the death of tens of thousands every year from skin cancers. I still await the environmentalists court case to get that shut down.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-03-30 09:46|| 2008-03-30 09:46|| Front Page Top

#2 Nuclear Power's day will come again. But first there has to be a solution to the waste issue. Part will have to be reprocessing, another part will have to be long term storage like Yucca Mt. But another part will have to be a reactor that allows the "burning" of waste products to not only generate power but to reduce their radioactivity. All of these solutions require technology that anti-nuclear activists hate with a passion. But they are things we will have to adopt because even if we shuttered every nuclear reactor world wide this second we would still have the waste problem. Sometimes I think that the reason we don't have a real solution to the waste issue that anti-nuclear types can accept is then nuclear becomes a viable option.

Posted by Cheadrehead 2008-03-30 09:57|| 2008-03-30 09:57|| Front Page Top

#3 Ship the nuclear waste to the Sun. Win-win.

Posted by doc 2008-03-30 10:02|| 2008-03-30 10:02|| Front Page Top

#4 We already have the answer to waste: breeder reactors. Pebble beds can be dseign to do this (uranium/thorium), in addition the traditional pultonium/uraniaum breeders.

Take the "waste, process it and put it back in the reactor. IT gets irradiated and turns into fuel, which is then burned to inert material.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-03-30 12:28|| 2008-03-30 12:28|| Front Page Top

#5 Well, this radioactive stuff comes out of the ground, doesn't it? Let's put it back in the ground after we're done.

And launching it into the sun is no solution. The most reliable rockets explode too often, not to mention the cost of putting a pound of anything outside the earth's gravity.

Posted by gromky 2008-03-30 13:55|| 2008-03-30 13:55|| Front Page Top

#6 There is no way the waste will ever be completely free of radiation.

However, in the newer designs the waste will be only a bit more radioactive than the granite counters.

Posted by mhw 2008-03-30 13:58|| 2008-03-30 13:58|| Front Page Top

#7 A little factoid -

"The health risks from granite radiation are small yet not as small as other health risks. For instance, the granite in the Thomas Jefferson building in Washington D.C., will give you an incremental cancer risk 50 times greater than the Super Fund clean up trigger levels."

Now extrapolate that for all the buildings in DC and you begin to understand the strange behavior of beltway inhabitants.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-03-30 20:16|| 2008-03-30 20:16|| Front Page Top

#8 I'm rippin out my counter tops NOW!

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-03-30 20:22|| 2008-03-30 20:22|| Front Page Top

#9 Try as they may to argue/demand the contrary, the Bloggers at OILDRUM + PEAK OIL ONLY END UP MAKING THE CASE FOR MORE NUCENERGY, NOT PAR OR LESS.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-03-30 21:43|| 2008-03-30 21:43|| Front Page Top