Why don't people get this: RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL DOES NOT BLOW UP. That means if you have a barrel of nuclear waste and a terrorist puts a stick of dynamite on it, it will not blow up. Nuclear explosions require very precise chemistry to achieve what is called critical mass. A nuke is not nuclear material with a bomb strapped to it.
Why don't people get this: RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL DOES NOT BLOW UP. That means if you have a barrel of nuclear waste and a terrorist puts a stick of dynamite on it, it will not blow up. Nuclear explosions require very precise chemistry to achieve what is called critical mass. A nuke is not nuclear material with a bomb strapped to it.
Ummm... hint everything before seriously was not serious and was a reference to a olde time TV show called Space:1999 where the nuclear waste shipped to the moon exploded and sent the moon off into space. The show revolved around a moon base that had been established on the other side of the moon and was fighting for their survival.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space:_1999
"Nuclear power is not a clean energy source: it produces both low and high-level radioactive waste that remains dangerous for several hundred thousand years. Generated throughout all parts of the fuel cycle, this waste poses a serious danger to human health. Currently, over 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste and 12 million cubic feet of low level radioactive waste are produced annually by the 103 operating reactors in the United States. No country in the world has found a solution for this waste. Building new nuclear plants would mean the production of much more of this dangerous waste with no where for it to go." Make sure it goes in your back yard and your neighbors vote and agree.
gsaldivar
Diamond Member
- Apr 30, 2001
- 8,691
- 1
- 81
IFR reactor:
"The Integral Fast Reactor or Advanced Liquid-Metal Reactor is a design for a nuclear fast reactor with a specialized nuclear fuel cycle. A prototype of the reactor was built in the United States, but the project was canceled by the U.S. government in 1994, three years before completion ... The goals of the IFR project were to increase the efficiency of uranium usage by breeding plutonium and eliminating the need for transuranic isotopes ever to leave the site. The reactor was an unmoderated design running on fast neutrons, designed to allow any transuranic isotope to be consumed (and in some cases used as fuel)."
Actinide Burning Fusion reactor:
"fusion reactors as so called "actinide burners" where a fusion reactor plasma ... could be "doped" with a small amount of the "minor" transuranic atoms which would be transmuted ... to lighter elements upon their successive bombardment by the very high energy neutrons produced by the fusion of deuterium and tritium in the reactor. It was recently found by a study done at MIT, that only 2 or 3 fusion reactors ... could transmute the entire annual minor actinide production from all of the light water reactors presently operating in the United States fleet while simultaneously generating approximately 1 gigawatt of power from each reactor."
"The Integral Fast Reactor or Advanced Liquid-Metal Reactor is a design for a nuclear fast reactor with a specialized nuclear fuel cycle. A prototype of the reactor was built in the United States, but the project was canceled by the U.S. government in 1994, three years before completion ... The goals of the IFR project were to increase the efficiency of uranium usage by breeding plutonium and eliminating the need for transuranic isotopes ever to leave the site. The reactor was an unmoderated design running on fast neutrons, designed to allow any transuranic isotope to be consumed (and in some cases used as fuel)."
Actinide Burning Fusion reactor:
"fusion reactors as so called "actinide burners" where a fusion reactor plasma ... could be "doped" with a small amount of the "minor" transuranic atoms which would be transmuted ... to lighter elements upon their successive bombardment by the very high energy neutrons produced by the fusion of deuterium and tritium in the reactor. It was recently found by a study done at MIT, that only 2 or 3 fusion reactors ... could transmute the entire annual minor actinide production from all of the light water reactors presently operating in the United States fleet while simultaneously generating approximately 1 gigawatt of power from each reactor."
Thats not a mess. Thats non disposable waste that can be stored. The same can be said for lead, mercury, and about coal energy. France doesn't seem to have a problem getting 79% of its own energy from nuclear reactors and exporting a lot of it to Europe.
Why are you people stuck on fictional scenarios that will never happen. Nuclear waste will not be stored in any yard or school. It never has and it never will be.
You know what Michael Crichton said about science fiction? He said that before you can write good science fiction you need to know science.
I'd vote for McCain if only for this.
Its fucking ridiculous that we havent had any advancement in civilian nuclear reactors in decades. There hasnt been a reactor built in the US since longer than I've been born.
We are definitely going to need the power they produce to power all our electric vehicles and what not as we transition off of oil. We will need this atleast for the meantime till fusion reactors are developed and become viable.
I still support renewable energy too, but it just isnt possible to deploy it on the scale needed to fulfill all our energy needs at the moment.
Obama and most democrats are wrong on this issue.
We also need to change the laws so that we are legally allowed to reprocess our waste, so as to cut down on it and to extend the lifetime of our fissile material.
Its fucking ridiculous that we havent had any advancement in civilian nuclear reactors in decades. There hasnt been a reactor built in the US since longer than I've been born.
We are definitely going to need the power they produce to power all our electric vehicles and what not as we transition off of oil. We will need this atleast for the meantime till fusion reactors are developed and become viable.
I still support renewable energy too, but it just isnt possible to deploy it on the scale needed to fulfill all our energy needs at the moment.
Obama and most democrats are wrong on this issue.
We also need to change the laws so that we are legally allowed to reprocess our waste, so as to cut down on it and to extend the lifetime of our fissile material.
My thoughts exactly, for now fusion should be the ultimate goal. We will need nuclear power as a stopgap measure but we should be putting a whole lot more funding into developing fusion reactors.
You mean no advancement in tech? Cause thats not true...but yeah, its ridiculous how long its been since the last one was built here.
Is this a joke? We havent built a nuclear reactor in this country in nearly 40 years. We have thought it through enough mmmkay?
yes, but how many years before those 45 reactors (heck, just 1) are operational? Gotta pick out a site.. design.. engineer.. etc
It's weird what's going on with nuclear energy in the western world. Some nations are cutting back, others are expanding. It doesn't make sense.
I like how moonbeam completely ignored my post about the bacteria that eats nuclear waste, the point was that we are close to a long term solution the the nuclear waste problem.
And I'll take nuclear power vs. an air polluting spewing oil/gas/coal plant any day. This risk of getting cancer from the oil/gas/coal plants is much larger
And I'll take nuclear power vs. an air polluting spewing oil/gas/coal plant any day. This risk of getting cancer from the oil/gas/coal plants is much larger
Doc Savage Fan
Lifer
- Nov 30, 2006
- 15,456
- 389
- 121
I agree as well. If he's smart, Obama will accept the fact that nuclear energy should be a big part of our energy production.
K1052
Elite Member
- Aug 21, 2003
- 52,983
- 47,017
- 136
Anywhere from 7-10 years from NRC license application to going online. Most utilities will probably elect to add units to already existing plants in an attempt to speed up the process and will face less hostility from the locals who've already had a plant in the area for a few decades.
This is inevitable anyway as a decent portion of the current reactor fleet will be nearing retirement age within the next 20 years. We're going to have to replace all those megawatts pf generation with something.
The money will come from private financing. Further federal insurance to cover the loans/bonds in the event of signifigant cost overruns due to regulatory and other delays will probably be necessary to reassure lenders. This was actually authorized for 4 plants in the last energy bill.
On site dry cask storage works remarkably well. It would be great to have a single location to store the dry casks but you have the entire NIMBY thing.
Arkaign
Lifer
- Oct 27, 2006
- 20,736
- 1,379
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That couldn't be further from the truth. Read up on the Thorium-cycle power system, which is incredibly efficient (by-products of various stages can be used in other stages, and the final waste can then be reused).
It's very common in the earth's crust, it's 3 times more common than Uranium, and it's also a lot easier to handle.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html
"The 2005 IAEA-NEA "Red Book" gives a figure of 4.5 million tonnes of reserves and additional resources, but points out that this excludes data from much of the world."
Over the last 30 years there has been interest in utilising thorium as a nuclear fuel since it is more abundant in the Earth's crust than uranium. Also, all of the mined thorium is potentially useable in a reactor, compared with the 0.7% of natural uranium, so some 40 times the amount of energy per unit mass might theoretically be available
Hint : 1 ton of pure Thorium is enough to power an ADS reactor for decades. And there are millions of tons of the stuff abundantly extractable.
So yes, we need Nuclear energy, and the Thorium-cycle is the best long-term solution at this point, unless someone breaks open Fusion.
Arkaign
Lifer
- Oct 27, 2006
- 20,736
- 1,379
- 126
I don't know but I'm very curious
Nuclear is far from perfect as a solution, but is worlds better than coal/hydro/solar/oil/etc.
Coal is dirty, and enormously destructive during virtually every stage, mining, transport, etc, etc.
Hydro is impractical other than to supplement certain areas where it can be properly harnessed, but even then the power output is only a fraction of total needs.
Solar is impractical (at this point), as even the newest Solar panels have only a few % of transfer efficiency, and the vast amounts of land and wiring necessary to power even a small city are just not possible. More development is definitely advisable in the R&D side of this though. If we can go from 4% efficiency to 40% efficiency, it will start to become practical as a major supplemental source of totally clean energy.
Oil is probably the worst fuel source, as it's so volatile as a market commodity, and major geopolitical events and manipulation/speculation can drive prices artificially high.
BassBomb
Diamond Member
- Nov 25, 2005
- 8,390
- 1
- 81
I work in the Nuclear sector for this term (4 months) and I do NOT think it is a feasible solution for the US at this point.
The main people who can build reactors get their ass reamed by regulatory body in the United States (which are much more strict than in Canada).
With the debt you have right now, it would be extremely difficult to undertake the possibility of 45 new reactors.
Not to mention how long it takes to build and commission plants. He would be well out of office before they would even be running, likely leaving problems for the next guy (like the War).
As for waste, an average CANDU plant over its life cycle (which I believe is 20-30 years) will produce enough waste to cover a soccer field, 1 metre thick. This is not that much but people are scared of it. Plants would normally remain in remote locations anyways.
Nuclear plants would have the problem of the lifecycle and refurbishment too. Our company is heading the Bruce Power refurbishment/restarts here and it takes quite a long time to get an old reactor running again. So that being said, once all these nuclear reactors have reached EOL and US relies on them for power, they will likely want to re-use them which will take even more time and money to procure.
I do not think this is a solution to the situation while they are in debt. If they were not in the War in Iraq which took the bulk of thier money, it would have been a good idea
The main people who can build reactors get their ass reamed by regulatory body in the United States (which are much more strict than in Canada).
With the debt you have right now, it would be extremely difficult to undertake the possibility of 45 new reactors.
Not to mention how long it takes to build and commission plants. He would be well out of office before they would even be running, likely leaving problems for the next guy (like the War).
As for waste, an average CANDU plant over its life cycle (which I believe is 20-30 years) will produce enough waste to cover a soccer field, 1 metre thick. This is not that much but people are scared of it. Plants would normally remain in remote locations anyways.
Nuclear plants would have the problem of the lifecycle and refurbishment too. Our company is heading the Bruce Power refurbishment/restarts here and it takes quite a long time to get an old reactor running again. So that being said, once all these nuclear reactors have reached EOL and US relies on them for power, they will likely want to re-use them which will take even more time and money to procure.
I do not think this is a solution to the situation while they are in debt. If they were not in the War in Iraq which took the bulk of thier money, it would have been a good idea
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