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specfiction
203 Posts |
 Posted - 04/17/2007 : 09:21:32
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We've known for a long time how to make safe nuclear plants with passive safety systems--that's not the problem. People seem to have a hard time with this idea. The kind of nuclear power we have today is a non-starter. Nobody in their right mind should be building fission plants. Nobody knows what to do with the wastes--poisons that take centuries to become less toxic. In fact there is no solution. These wastes are piling up today and nobody knows what to do about it. The European (French) glass program has been shown to be flawed, Yucca Mountain is a total catastrophe--this problem is not solvable.
There is another kind of fission reactor, The Liquid Metal Fast Neutron Reactor, that might act as a bridge in eating some of these wastes and producing power for a time (a description is given in this forum under "Another Kind of Nuclear Power"), but this too has problems. The only kind of nuclear power that has even a slim chance of working into the indefinite future is Fusion. The Europeans and Japanese are working hard on it. ITER, the first experimental break-even large-scale reactor is almost ready--we'll see how that goes. The US, of course, is asleep at the switch (a minor player) as usual, with energy company propaganda for the current, unworkable nuclear power all over the internet. This reminds me of the US car companies insisting on building polluting, gas-guzzling muscle cars, and now having very little market share as a result—exactly what they deserve. Too bad the employees had to pay for bad management and government lobbying—if they’d spent as much money and time creating good products maybe they’d be thriving. If we did innovation the way we do propaganda, maybe we'd have products we could sell.
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Specfiction |
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specfiction
203 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 09:23:58
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quote:
Originally posted by specfiction
We've known for a long time how to make safe nuclear plants with passive safety systems--that's not the problem. People seem to have a hard time with this idea. The kind of nuclear power we have today is a non-starter. Nobody in their right mind should be building fission plants. Nobody knows what to do with the wastes--poisons that take centuries to become less toxic. In fact there is no solution. These wastes are piling up today and nobody knows what to do about it. The European glass program has been shown to be flawed, Yucca Mountain is a total catastrophe--this problem is not solvable.
The only kind of nuclear power that has even a slim chance of working is Fusion. The Europeans and Japanese are working hard on it. ITER, the first experimental break-even large-scale reactor is almost ready--we'll see how that goes. The US, of course, is asleep at the switch (a minor player) as usual, with energy company propaganda for the current, unworkable nuclear power all over the internet. This reminds me of the US car companies insisting on building polluting, gas-guzzling muscle cars, and now having very little market share as a result—exactly what they deserve. Too bad the employees had to pay for bad management and government lobbying—if they’d spent as much creating good products maybe they’d be thriving. If we did innovation the way we do propaganda, maybe we'd have products we could sell.
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Specfiction
Here's an example of why fission (nuclear) power is a non-starter. This is a story of how French are trying to sweep the nuclear (waste) poisons under the rug:Nuclear Waste
The problem is that the French are not alone. Every country using nuclear power today has the same problem--a problem for which there is no solution. It is always fascinating to watch when people en-masse engage in activities that will obviously end badly, but continue to do so because it is profitable and convenient at the moment. We all know we're saddling future generations with senseless problems that we could have found other (better) solutions for. It reminds me of that scene where you have two old men sitting on a bench being asked questions about something that we're all doing that will ultimately end badly. Their response:
"Who gives a sh**, I'll be dead by that time anyway."
But their kids won't.
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Nuclear Power
