Could Nuclear Power Wean the U.S. From Oil? 1615
bblackfrog asks: "Is a Federal nuclear energy program viable? That is, can the USA eliminate our economic dependence on crude oil with a large scale federal program to build and maintain enough nuclear power plants to replace our current oil-based energy needs? The obvious political hurdles are (a) the left opposes nuclear energy, (b) the right opposes federalizing energy, and (c) the oil companies and Saudis wield a lot of clout. This makes a federal nuclear energy program far fetched I admit, however I'm more interested in the economics. Slashdot has covered advances in nuclear power technology. China's doing it." (Read more, below.)
"How much energy is required to replace our fossil fuel consumption? What are the initial costs of the program, and just how cheap could the electricity be? How expensive would it be for our industries to convert? How expensive for home and auto conversions? How much of this cost should be picked up by the government? Bottom line: is nuclear power cheaper than our current oil-driven middle-east policy, with all of its blowback?"
Its funny how the left is against Nuclear Power (Score:5, Interesting)
Oil to uranium (Score:1, Interesting)
Very 20th Century (Score:2, Interesting)
The US is a huge country with huge natural resources and a lot of wealth. With every other fuel resource being finite, wouldn't it make sense to try and lead the world in renewables. Tidal Power along that massive coastline, wind power along the sparsely populated plains, hydro power in the mountains. Those sort of developments would not only reduce reliance on foreign supplies in the short term, but would provide massive economic benefit in the medium to long term.
First you need to ask yourself these two questions (Score:5, Interesting)
2) Do we have enough fissionable fuel to accomplish this?
I know #1 is a problem, I honestly don't know the answer to #2. Either way, these need to be addressed *before* we build more reactors.
Re:Uh... (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes we are. But we are not fighting for oil. With our President invested in oil as heavily as he is, I think the purpose of our fight in Iraq is to create a price hike. Which we are succeeding at, so far.
Re:And what'll wean us from nuclear power? (Score:2, Interesting)
There is not enough uranium (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:And what'll wean us from nuclear power? (Score:3, Interesting)
As a card-carrying member of the "left" (Score:2, Interesting)
Try to keep the generalized character assasination out of the posts and preserve them for the flames and trolls in the comments section.
Price-Anderson act (Score:2, Interesting)
On its impact: "Many nuclear suppliers express the view that without Price-Anderson coverage, they would not participate in the nuclear industry." from U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, The Price-Anderson Act - Crossing the Bridge to the Next Century: A Report to Congress, October 1998.
Finally, read economic analysis carefully to ensure that it covers the cost of decommissioning a plant and waste storage. On the other hand, competing arguments must cover the cost of pollution.
Constructing a balanced economic argument for any power source is complicated.
Re:A complete transition is impossible... (Score:3, Interesting)
And we can systhesized "natural gas" which is mostly methane from about any fuel stock on the planet, including coal and biofuels. If we have sufficiently cheap electrical power, we can make it from water and a carbon source...even carbon dioxide.
Nuclear energy plus CNG is a reasonable step forward over the next ten to twenty years both economically and environmentally speaking. Policitally though, it is anyone's guess. Nuclear has no friends now...big oil is in the White House and progressives still can't shake the scare the got from "The China Syndrome."
No Such Thing as Nucelar Waste (Score:2, Interesting)
In long term, energy isn't problem (Score:3, Interesting)
I get disappointed when I keep reading about science's best minds working on new ways to tap huge amounts of energy. Why the hell not concentrate on new ways to more efficiently use available energy resources, that is, do more with less. The U.S. (and Canada) are not energy efficient countries. If you visit Europe you'll see how they are getting used to making do with less. If the U.S. can not learn to do this, in 50 to 100 years they will be wallowing in one big cesspool, because the reality is that waste doesn't just disappear.
Two Crucial Technologies (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Micro-sized nuclear power plants like this one need [adn.com] to be tested and then widely deployed. They are completely safe from melt down, and incredibly cost effective. My town of 50,000 could reduce it's energy costs by about 80% by installing one.
2) Tritium-D needs to be used to replace or augment batteries in electric cars. A very small amount of Tritium-D, which is safe to use and is already used in consumer products like night sights on guns, could power an electric car for 10 - 20 years. It may not entirely replace gasoline for all operating conditions, but could take the MPG into the 100 - 200 range.
Unfortunately, neither of these will happen anytime soon. Not for the reasons listed in this story, but because doing so would take money and power from the top levels of our government, and that will not be allowed to happen.
The fact that our average car gets 15 MPG right now is attrocious. And these low MPG's are actually encouraged by the government. As evidence see the IRS code for a Section 179 deduction, which requires the vehicle to be over 6,000 Lbs, regardless of the industry the vehicle is used in. I'm a self-employed web designer / software engineer, and I used the Section 179 deduction last year. I would have much rather purchased a Hybrid Civic or Prius, but could only get the deduction by purchasing a Ford F-150 (or similarly sized gas guzzler).
Thanks for nothing politicians (wastes of skin).
Re:(D) One problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Nobody's.
Just launch it to the Sun [wikipedia.org]. It's cheaper and safer than you think, and there's already lots of radioactivity, so our tiny amounts of nuclear waste won't make a difference.
Robert
Re:The Bush Factor (Score:2, Interesting)
Why can't the Oil companies convert to nuclear companies? After all it is a very lucrative and future market for energy in the future.
Why can't they use the profit of the oil sale to build nuclear plants and invest in other nuclear programs that would allow them to be the main actors when it is time to switch to Nuclear because Oil is not going to be around forver.
just my thoughts...
Re:Biodiesel (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.mda.state.mn.us/ethanol/balance.html [state.mn.us]
notice there:
gasoline 19% *loss*
diesel 15% *loss*
biodiesel 220% ***gain***
got any better evidence?
Re:Power? (Score:2, Interesting)
Individually wrapped cheese (Score:5, Interesting)
One example is individually wrapped cheese. Why is that necessary?
Nobody in Sweden has ever seen an individually wrapped piece of cheese. And we have survived just fine, eating cheese on a daily basis. We have large blocks of cheese and a special "cheese grater" to serve the same purpose.
This is just one example, but everywhere I look, I see wasteful use of resources.
Oooh, and don't get me started on those who commute to work in a Hummer or a Ford F250.
Re:Pop quiz: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:(D) One problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nevada's (Score:5, Interesting)
And that's where it starts. There are now techniques, called transmutation, which can transform nuclear waste products with halflives in the hundreds of thousands of years into materials with halflives of a thousand years. When you do this on a mass-scale, that means you only have to contain that waste for a thousand years. And that is not only doable, but we currently already have the technology to contain this material for a thousand years.
This effectively means that nuclear waste is no longer a problem (after everything is scaled for mass-use, which of course takes some years to ramp up to).
So we're left with catastrophic nuclear power plant failure. This is something which even in current nuclear reactors is unlikely. The only reason Chernobyl happened is becuase they where stupid: to test one safety feature, they
But even then you can make the case that stupid or not, it did happen. Which is utterly true...and leads us to the next generation of reactors (which the FPP links to). These new reactors are idiotproof. The cannot meltdown. It is physically impossible due to the integrated design: if the cooling shuts down, the nuclear reaction stops. And not because someone presses a button to do so, but because the shape/design of the reactor makes it so: no cooling, no reaction. In about the same way that roller-coaster brakes work: no electricity means the brakes have to engage; look up these auto-engaging brakes to see how designs based on these kinds of physical safeguards can work.
If you don't beleive me, well, everything is google-able. Not only that, but top-environmentalists make the same case: the greenest form of energy is nuclear. Even the most hardcore eco-nut is coming 'round to this view.
And if you're only info to the contrary is that 'Greenpeace is against it'...let me tell you something: Greenpeace does some good stuff. But only because they're lucky once in a while (remember Brent-Spar?). Fact of the matter is that Greenpeace is a PR-firm. They do not employ scientists as a matter of course. In the Netherlands, they only have 5 acedemics working for them. Only one of those has a degree in the sciences...and that one is in Aerospace. At the time they came 'round to my university and told us, a class of freshman Applied Physics students, that Greenpeace didn't have a place for us unless it was as activist. GreenPeace only has one laboratory in the entire world...and they rent that one, including the labbies (not even scientists, 'just' the guys who do a soil sample analysis using the checklist) to do their work. They do not do their own research, they do not employ people who know anything about what they're protesting against: GreenPeace is a reactionary PR-firm, which just happens to do some stuff which is worthwhile.
So my point is listen to the scientists: the physicists, the environmental scientists and the material scientists. They'll give you the correct data, including error-margins and safety estimations.
Where France Gets It Right (Score:5, Interesting)
Even though I'm a Bush-voting Republican (and proud of it!) and think the French are mainly cheese-eating surrender monkeys, I'll give France one thing: they have the best nuclear power program in the world.
Unlike the US which went with several designs for nuclear reactors, none of which was quite like the other, the French bought the design for Pressurized Water Reactors from Westinghouse in the US and built 56 reactors, all of the same design and all using interchangable parts and systems. That way problems in one reactor can be fixed systemwide using the same techniques.
France gets over 75% of their power from cheap nuclear energy [uic.com.au]. Electric power in France from nuclear sources is about 3 Euro cents/kWh, which is very competitive and less than half of the US average cost for electricity.
France reprocesses used nuclear fuel to create new fuel and maximize efficiency. That produces less waste and increases overall efficiency. The French also found that it's psychologically better to say that waste is being "stocked" rather than disposed of [pbs.org].
I don't give France credit for much, but the way in which the French have run their nuclear program is a model for the rest of the world. France is far less dependent on foreign energy for power than most countries, and their costs are lower - and there has not been a major nuclear accident in France since the program began.
If we did something similar with more efficient breeder reactors, we could reduce pollution, reduce energy costs, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Besides, we can't let the French beat us, can we?
Re:Very 20th Century (Score:3, Interesting)
-
That's not even considering that there's supposed to be a War on Terror taking place, and a nuclear power station must be one heck of a terrorism target. Why import a dirty bomb when the government just built 20 for you. And we're not just talking about the plants themselves, consider the ships and trains carrying new and spent fuel every four weeks, perhaps within a mile of your doorstep.
We already have all those concerns for existing plants, many of which weren't designed/built with security against terrorism as a concern. (Or at least not as much as it is now.) While we seem to be handling the potential problem fairly well with existing plants/infrastructure, it would be much easier to make a new plant safer since the possibility of terrorists attacks could be taken into consideration from the beginning.Besides most people don't suggest switching to nuclear fission as a long-term solution, but as a way to wean ourselves from foriegn oil while we work on better, cleaner solutions.
Re:What about our cars? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yhe batteries wouldn't need to be owned by you but could be the property of the refil station. Either way you could drive your car almost the same as a car using gazoline except it wouldn't pollute and make less noise.
Re:Forgot: (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel [wikipedia.org]
specifically: (note the Algae number)
Different plants produce usable oil at different rates. Some studies have shown the following annual production:
* Soybean: 40 to 50 US gal/acre (40 to 50 m/km)
* Mustard: 140 US gal/acre (130 m/km)
* Rapeseed: 110 to 145 US gal/acre (100 to 140 m/km)
* Palm oil: 650 US gal/acre (610 m/km) [2] (http://www.journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.
* Algae: 10,000 to 20,000 US gal/acre (10,000 to 20,000 m/km)
this guy computes you could cover US oil needs with 10,000 square miles of alage producing biodiesel:
http://www.green-trust.org/biodiesel.htm [green-trust.org]
Re:The Bush Factor (Score:5, Interesting)
In particular you have zero chance of federalizing energy production, nuclear or otherwise. The Republicans use the term socialism for this and that is a dirty word in their dictionary.
If you were going to pursue this in the current political climate you would have to do it by giving giant interest free loans, tax breaks etc. to giant energy corporations like GE/Westinghouse to do it for you. Basically what this means is our tax dollars are used to capitalize it and absorb most of the risk, the corporations rake in all the profits, assuming you could profitably build a nuclear power plant today. If you are lucky they might eventually pay back the loans unless Bush/Cheney give them a wink and a nudge and just lets them keep it.
Assuming you are willing to go for tax payers giving huge subsidies to giant corporations to do this then you would have to delve in to the Machiavellian maneuvering that would happen between various forces in the Bush administration, big coal, big oil and big nuke corporations. If you were to try it its certainly possible big coal and big oil would win since it would completely threaten their cash flow. Its anybody's guess if big nuke companies could win this fight or if you could convince big coal and oil companies to jump in nukes by giving them giant buckets of free tax dollars. You just have to follow TV ads to see the coal lobby is engaged in a massive campaign to convince everyone coal can be made clean and power America forever. It can be made cleaner with work and money but last I heard there was no way to get read of the massive carbon dioxide output and that translates straight in to Greenhouse effect.
I haven't hear much about it lately but the Bush administration did have a big initiative to develop Hydrogen powered cars in a state of the union a year or two ago. It would be interesting if it actually went anywhere or it was a sham and didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of threatening big oils monopoly on transportation fuel.
A hurdle is old reactor designs have become prohibitively expensive thanks to the environmental and safety hurdles. Most places don't want them in their back yard since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
You can argue that there are safer, newer more economical designs now, at least the people advocating them say they are, but that remains to be proven.
Someone will start screaming pebble bed reactors at this point. Well maybe pebble bed reactors are safer but its not a certainty. Their key risk is they have large quantities of graphite in them. If you recall Chernobyl was the disaster it was partially thanks to graphite because in the event of an accident and enough heat graphite burns furiously. The pebbles have ceramic shielding to prevent the graphite from burning but there is a suspicion that manufacturing defects or mishandling might compromise the shielding and open up the chance a pebble would burn and explode. If it did it could damage the pebbles around it and start a non nuclear chain reaction.
Of course, you would also have to actually bring on line a viable place to dump all the waste. Maybe Yucca mountain is it, maybe it isn't. Last time we debated this on
And of course in the age or perpetual terrorism, nuclear power plants and high level waste are tempting targets.
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Interesting)
UK Green Gurus recently advocated nuclear power (Score:2, Interesting)
James Lovelock, a leading British environmentalist, recently wrote a scientific paper extoling the virtues of nuclear power as one of the only curbs to rampant fossil fuel usage.
This was further backed up by Hugh Montefiore quitting (or rather pushed from!) the board of FoE after coming out in favour of nuclear power.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1325Re:Get rid of Waste with Antimatter? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anti-U235 is way, way, way beyond anything we can generate right now, and for the next bazillion years, unless we get a LOT better at it, real fast.
Re:(D) One problem (Score:3, Interesting)
As if storing CO2 is sooo much better than storing nuclear waste. Perhaps we could put it in balloons. The complaint isn't CO2 anyway, it's the pollutants. Prove global warming before you attack CO2 emissions.
do you *really* trust government or corporations to do it properly and not cut corners?
Yes. Yes I do. Or perhaps we should put you or another individual in charge? Maybe some nonprofit organization? Laughable.
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:5, Interesting)
1. That's "thermodynamics".
2. There's nothing in thermodynamics that precludes a 100% conversion into energetic particles. For example, antimatter achieves this without violating any physical laws.
3. The amount of waste would be a small percentage of the starting amount. So for every *ton* of fuel (that's one HELL of a lot of energy!), you'd end up with a few dozen kilograms of stuff left. Of the remaining "waste", a large portion of it would be stable materials.
100years a long time but it's still finite. If it took 30 years to do a transiton you would only have 30 years before you would need to do the next one.
1. You're making an assumption based on time, not quantity. I said that we'd have 100 years if ALL power was switched over today. If it takes a transition (which it will), you'll have an extended life time.
2, You ignored my point about reprocessing and other fission methods. Reprocessing fuel leads to MORE energy than was originally extracted from the Uranium, and fission plants can be built from materials such as Thorium and Radium.
3. Nuclear materials can be replenished from elsewhere in the solar system. It is the only fuel we currently use of which this is true.
Islamofascism? (Score:2, Interesting)
As much as some people hate to hear it, we're not fighting in the Middle East because of oil. We're there because we're fighting Islamofascism.
What a crock of shit!
First the term Islamofascim is wrong. You have not defined what it is, nor who qualifies for it. It also denigrates 1.2 billion people by maligning their faith and associating it with Fascism.
Second, can you tell me what did Saddam had to do with Islam at all? He was even a tool for the USA to fight Iran, who was run by Islamic extremists after the 1979 revolution.
As for oil, it is one of the main reasons the USA is there, but not the only one. I don't see the USA invading North Korea or Cuba? Your Dubya is from Texas, and heavily invested in oil. Haliburton is also invested in oil. Oil companies are back in Libya too!
Did you vote for Bush too? Figures ... only dumb people would. Sad to see half of the USA doing that.
Re:What about our cars? (Score:2, Interesting)
Rotting biomass can be synthesized into gasoline using the Mobil zeolite process. A large plant was built in Motunui, New Zealand, that supplies a significant fraction of that country's fuel demands. I see no obstacle to powering such a plant with nuclear power instead of using the reactor to drive an electricity-producing turbine. But I am neither a nuclear engineer nor a chemical engineer.
Re:(D) One problem (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:3, Interesting)
2) Do we have enough fissionable fuel to accomplish this?
I know #1 is a problem, I honestly don't know the answer to #2. Either way, these need to be addressed *before* we build more reactors.
Already been addressed: breeder reactors [argee.net] essentially reprocess waste into more fuel. The initial load of a breeder reactor is U-238, which is 140 times more plentiful than U-235 (our current fission fuel). The fuel supply is effectively unlimited. Too bad President Carter decided to ban breeder reactors in 1977.
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:2, Interesting)
Given that you take the former occupations of presidents (and vice presidents) as proof of future action;
I hope you weren't looking forward to tort legislation (Vice presidential canidate John Edwards was a , for goodness's sake! Plus, he's so tight with the Barr Association, it's ridiculous. No, we'll have to stick with more instability in the and US Ditto all above for next election when Hilary runs with Bill at her side... again...) Just because a person has personal/financial interests does not mean that he has vested interest in those stocks doing well, both Bush and Cheney sold thier interests in oil and Halliburton in exchange for solid fixed payments before entering office. What could either of them gain from supporting oil sales through war in Iraq (which in it's very nature was doomed to destroy fixed corporate oil assets).
And that statement is one of just a few examples of the faulty logic used in your post.
Their however a truth in your post. There is no chance for increased nuclear power in this administration... You have to add however a disclaimer at the end. or any other administration in the next 20 years. Because that is how long it would take the US government to design, produce funding for, circumvent current regulation, and build a new nuclear power infastructure.
Enjoy,
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, it's not the same process, just a similar process. A fuel-reprocessing reactor will produce a mixture of Pu239, Pu240, Pu241, and Pu242. Weapons-grade plutonium is pure Pu239. If you don't have pure Pu239, your bomb won't work. No one has ever successfully separated Pu239 from a mix with Pu240-242. This is what makes president Carter's ban on breeder reactors in 1977 so baffling. Here's a man who's a nuclear engineer who bans breeder reactors because terrorists might get ahold of the plutonium and make a bomb, even though he should know that refining the Pu239 from the mix is impossible.
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:4, Interesting)
By that argument, any energy source in finite
Not solar energy! Oh wait [enchantedlearning.com]... n/m.
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:2, Interesting)
You mean just like the billions of tons of HazMat that travels over our highways every year?
The highways were built for this sort of purpose. We had nuclear missiles hidden in trucks rolling all over the country on our highways for most of the Cold War.
The highways are definately a safer place for nuclear waste than sitting on Prairie Island, slowly contaminating our water, which is the alternative. All the scare-mongering about trucks full of waste on the highways was being done for the sole purpose of eventually forcing the plant to shut down due to lack of available waste storage. If you have been following Minnesota politics at all, you actually already know this and are being very disingenuous.
Ignorance About Nuclear Power is Killing Us (Score:4, Interesting)
Bernard L. Cohen is Professor-Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy and of Environmental and Occupational Health at University of Pittsburgh. He has authored 6 books, over 300 papers in scientific journals, and about 75 articles in non-technical journals. He has presented invited lectures in 47 U.S. States, 6 Canadian provinces, 7 Japanese prefectures, 6 Australian states and territories, and 24 other countries in Europe, Asia and South America. His awards include the American Physical Society Bonner Prize and the Health Physics Society Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award. He has been elected Chairman of the Division of Nuclear Physics of the American Physical Society, and Chairman of the Division of Environmental Sciences of the American Nuclear Society.
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:2, Interesting)
Once one truly understands this, one finds that it is an extremely sobering revelation. You see, to achieve high-speed interstellar travel, we need energy stores equivalent to the Sun's output. If we started building these ships, we'll notice a few results:
1. We'd begin to make a noticeable dent in the amount of usable energy in the Universe, thus decreasing the time until there are no more fuels or other usable energy in the Universe.
2. After a "short trip" to another galaxy (say a few years there, a few years back), you'd return to find our Sun and Earth both long gone. (Isn't relativity a bitch?
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:2, Interesting)
One Problem with That Solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Lesser of evils (Score:2, Interesting)
the left is not completely anti-nuclear (Score:4, Interesting)
Given the track record of energy companies, and the fact that they know that it's cheaper to deny contamination, tie it up in court, and wait for a friendly administration, than to actually clean it, the risks are massive. Several European countries use nuclear energy, and people live within several miles, and nearby radiation levels are normal.
Nuclear energy powers a significant portion of the midwest's power, and that's part of the reason that energy prices were stable there compared to California's crisis.
What is so confounding is how rural communities fight tooth and nail to keep wind farms from sprouting up. If you try to open a chicken farm, stinking a mile in every direction, that's fine, but god forbid a row of windmills pop up on the horizon.
(d) Oh Yes We Do (Score:5, Interesting)
Dealing with radwaste is simple. Just take a big hole in the ground [stanford.edu], cover and seal it thoroughly, and start filling it with radwaste. THEN add a low-temperature-difference power generation system, like OTEC [nrel.gov]. Remember all those thousands of years they claim you have to keep radwaste sequestered? It's actually lots less; after about 600 years, the radiation diminishes to the normal background level. Anyway, such a waste pile would give us MORE POWER for all those years, AND because people will need to maintain the power plant, people will always be there to warn others of the danger.
economics (Score:3, Interesting)
But you are right, the bush administration is in bed with the oil industry, and they would never disturb the oil industry by seriously looking into replacement power systems.
Any reactor design that can reasonably use plutonium would have a serious advantage over our current designs. Pebble bed, HTGR, all the ones using graphite, require highly enriched uranium. I'm not concerned about the fire potential, since our plants use containment vessels designed (3-5 feet thick walls of reinforced concrete) to take direct hits by passenger jets; Chernobyl, like all Soviet designs, did not have any containment vessel.
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:2, Interesting)
Hold on there professor. m^2 is METERs squared, not MILES squared. Miles are "mi". If I did my math right, there are about 2,589,988 square meters in a square mile. You're off by a factor of 2.6 million.
And 400 daylight hours per year? I guess we have to make due with 1 hour 5 minutes of light per day? Hardly. I'm pretty sure that 1kW/m^2 is a daily average.
When I correct your math, I come to: 295 billion kW for Arizona. (I use the definition "billion = 10^9".)
Now, assuming that 1kW/m^2 is an average number over an entire day, that means blanketing Arizona with collectors would give you about 2.6 million billion kWh per year. (s/million billion/quadrillion/ or s/million billion/10^15/ if you prefer.) There are about 8766 hours in a year.
Even if you say "oh, you only get on average 8 good sunlight hours, even that far south," fine. That's still around 1 x 10^15 kWh per year.
How does that stack up against our other energy sources again?
--JoeRe:Actually,.... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're paranoid, you can glassify it, cover the glass with parafin, and then surround the parafin with a cement shell. That mess will leak when someone wants it to leak, and not sooner.
OTOH, I don't think that earthquakes are much of a problem, either. Not if you prepare the chunks properly. I do, however, think that they should be kept somewhere easily accessible for when we invent some useful way of using the stuff.
(Currently separating the isotopes is the problem that keeps reusing it from being practical.)
Re:Have you studied chemistry? (Score:1, Interesting)
If you can perfect a fission device, however, I think the physics are simple enough (and published) to then use one of these to help make a D-T or D-D fusion device...
Again, the nastier trick on halloween would seem to be to rain a couple of kilograms of Cobalt-60 over an urban area, possibly by use of a couple of well-placed car or truck bombs.
Of course, you mention "private industry". All it means is that they hold onto it as long as they can, and eventually the Federal Government takes it off of their hands.
Re:As a card-carrying member of the "left" (Score:3, Interesting)
As a card-carrying member of the "left" I can tell you that I do not oppose nuclear energy, nor do a number of my "leftist" friends.
Certainly not everyone on the left is opponent of nuclear power, but nearly all the vocal opponents of nuclear power are on the left of the political spectrum. The antinuclear movement is largely a conglomoration of radical environmentalists, feminist groups, and labor unions in industries such as coal mining that would be adversely affected by new power sources.
Re:Why don't you answer the original questions fir (Score:3, Interesting)
Would piping hydrogen through existing Natural Gas pipelines be feasible? Would it really be more dangerous? Natural Gas is pretty flammable as well, and heavier than air, hydrogen might be safer if it disappated faster during/after a leak.
What about mixing in a certain percent of hydrogen to spike the gas, like adding ethanol to gasoline?
Re:Waste? Pfft. (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, I suppose we could come up with worse coolants. Hydrofluoric acid, perhaps?
Re:Its funny how the left is against Nuclear Power (Score:3, Interesting)
There's no reasoned argument in your response, just a made up and odd example about tigers jumping through hoops on TV (I'm not sure why you chose such an odd example) and some basic finger pointing, about how those Europeans have even more "wack-jobs" than we do without any relevant information to back up your claim.
The last time I was in Germany (part or Europe) I had a whopper in Berlin. It wasn't a veggie whopper, it was made with beef.
It would be strange if a government allowed people to eat cows but was vehemently against tigers jumping through hoops in commercials. Of course, the German government isn't against tigers jumping through hoops in commercials anymore than they're against beef consumption. This is less surprising considering that "tigers jumping through hoops" is just something you made up.
I am not trying to judge my fellow United States citizens or say that the election of President Bush was wrong. I am pointing out that it seems to me that the discourse over political and social issues seems to be falling out of the realm of reason. With reason being replaced by various forms of fundamentalism . I personally find this a disturbing trend that will lead to more rancor, more attacks against people and institutions, and less of our nations problems being solved because the energy and thought that could have been applied to solutions will instead be wasted on figuring out better ways to get those bible-thumpers/gays/tree-huggers etc..
Re:Its funny how the left is against Nuclear Power (Score:3, Interesting)
I tried to make it clear that I though the problem was endemic and not limited to any particular group by mentioning groups from the "left" (environmentalists/animal rights activists) and the "right" (christian conservatives).
I'm not concerned with any one group winning their agenda. I'm concerned about the bitterness and combativeness reaching such high-pitched levels that no problems get solved in a reasoned manner. That no compromises are ever made.
What I am concerned about is fundamentalism in any form. No extreme "only my way is right" viewpoint ever benefits a country or its citizenry in the long run. Instead, it's usually the hallmark of a societies' decline.
I happen to think this is relevant to an issue like nuclear power, where the risks and rewards are complicated, the technology is hard to understand, and there seem to be a "fundamentalist" no-nukes contingent in our society. So if I'm advocating anything, it's not nuclear power, it's a reasoned discussion of nuclear power as an energy source for our county.
Now Portable "Fusion" That would be bold! (Score:1, Interesting)
Know the differences!!!
Fusion = No long term radio active waste
Fission = Radioactive waste & possible creation of materials for Atom weapons
or just remember
Fusion "Good
Fission "Bad"
Thermonuclear fusion really needs a new name, anytime any bumkin hears "nuclear" whatever they immeadiately think "Three Mile Island" and cancerous mutation and painful death. Can we start calling fusion "Solar Combustion" or something without nuclear related to it?
Work has been started in the 1950's and is continueing today http://www.pppl.gov/projects/pages/nstx.html [pppl.gov] Selling contained Fusion reactors which generate large amounts energy would be good for the US economy (or any country's economy bold enough to make portable fusion reactors). Not to mention I'd like one in my neighborhood or basement too.
What's it going to take?
High cost of oil (We are getting there) well... possibly just getting really pissed off with idiots who control the oil supply (I think we are there too) a little psychology (informing Joe 6-pack that fusion will not create a 3 mile island event) funding (oh maybe one tenth of what we spend on oil in a year) and significant brainpower to unlock the mystery of our Sun's energy process.
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally think that we need to begin to rely of more natural technologies. The entire biomass(with some exceptions, i know) of our planet gets its "power" from the sun, I don't see why we don't take advantage of that more than we do.
In many of the tropical and sub-tropical regions there is more than enough sunlight to power the population.
In the areas closer to the poles wind seems to come in abundance.
I'd also like to see an increase in conservation. As new electricity consuming products are conceived we should be working on ways to reduce their consumption while maintaining their functionality.
Re:Jimmy Carter (Score:3, Interesting)
The former Soviet Union seems to hold a lot of weapons-grade plutonium in a usable form.
Mostly from running power plants on the same dangerous design as Chernobyl. (The reason for that design, which just seems idiotic by most standards, was that the side-effect of producing weapons-grade plutonium happens quicker than with other designs.)
The key to nuclear power economics (Score:2, Interesting)
Suppose there was no such limit, as would be the case in a free market? Who would insure a nuclear generating plant for liability, and what does that add to the costs?
I have no answers.
You're asking the wrong damn question (Score:3, Interesting)
Oil produces a tiny and shrinking fraction of electric power in the US. Oil is used in gas tanks.
Nuclear power makes electricity. The majority of electricty in the United States comes from coal, of which we have a 100+ year ready domestic supply, and new clean coal technologies that will allow us to burn the coal with as few pollutants as produced from burning natural gas. Doubt it if you like, but the new plants are more than 100x cleaner than the old plants. The problem with coal is that the "Clear Skies" initiative, along with exemptions to the Clean Air Act, has allowed aging, incredibly dirty plants to keep chugging for years. Replace those plants, and you'll drastically cut pollution from coal.
In any case, make all the nuclear plants you want, and it won't affect our need for oil one bit. The only thing that can affect our need for oil is a better energy storage system for use in vehicles.
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:3, Interesting)