The Lesser Evil: Nuclear or Coal?(seedmagazine.com)
seedmagazine.com
The Lesser Evil: Nuclear or Coal?
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_lesser_evil_nuclear_or_coal/
7 comments
I don't understand treating nuclear waste as such. If it's radioactive, it means it can still be fuel. Am I missing something? As far as I remember, the plants in France reuse their waste until it's almost completely non-radioactive and then purpose it to industry.
Lots and lots of waste is contaminated stuff, not spent fuel. For example the regulations may (and probably do) require that used protection suits be treated as radioactive waste.
This way you end up with huge quantities of waste that may indeed be slightly harmful, but are in no way radioactive enough to be reused as fuel. This is mostly where the "tons" of waste come from.
This way you end up with huge quantities of waste that may indeed be slightly harmful, but are in no way radioactive enough to be reused as fuel. This is mostly where the "tons" of waste come from.
The low level waste you describe is not strongly radioactive.
Although obviously a political impossibility, a safe way to deal with it would be to pulverize it and spread it evenly throughout our national parks. This would not even measurably increase the radiation level above the background level.
Although obviously a political impossibility, a safe way to deal with it would be to pulverize it and spread it evenly throughout our national parks. This would not even measurably increase the radiation level above the background level.
Or build schools with it :) I know the statistics.
Steven Chu sounds like an interesting guy. We'll see what happens.
Steven Chu sounds like an interesting guy. We'll see what happens.
Good luck introducing that bill to the voting public..
I saw an interesting article a while back that proposed using the tactical nuclear weapons we have to dispose of the radioactive waste. The fallout from good thermonukes is apparently very small, and if you bury the bomb and set it off around a bunch of radioactive waste, the blast will destroy the waste with a relatively small amount of fallout.
Also, lots of things are radioactive, but they may not be pure enough to be useful unless enriched further. You could probably enrich it, but at this juncture it is probably cheaper to simply get new fuel than to reprocess waste.
Just my two cents.
Also, lots of things are radioactive, but they may not be pure enough to be useful unless enriched further. You could probably enrich it, but at this juncture it is probably cheaper to simply get new fuel than to reprocess waste.
Just my two cents.
The US and UK used to reprocess. I read recently (I can't remember where unfortunately) than the US has given up on the idea of processing, and wants to look at long term storage (Yucca mountain etc.) and the UK's reprocessing facility (Sellafield) is going offline soon.
There is no need to build a large number of Nuclear or Coal plants any time soon so the question is almost irelevent.
As a side note: Why do they feel it's nessisary or even reasonable to find people with strong vested intrests when looking at these topics?
As a side note: Why do they feel it's nessisary or even reasonable to find people with strong vested intrests when looking at these topics?
researches capture and storage of flue gas CO2 and other fugitive gases
studies clean coal at the University of Queensland.
is a novelist, writer, and former fiction editor at The New Yorker.I haven't read the article, but I learned everything I need to know from John McCarthy (Creator of Lisp).
He's got a great FAQ on Nuclear Power, and it's incredibly convincing:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html
He's got a great FAQ on Nuclear Power, and it's incredibly convincing:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html
wind, solar, tides etc!
The article shoves these aside with an 'we currently can not make the required quantities using these technologies so we have to choose between coal and nuclear'.
The problem is not to switch to coal or nuclear today though. So let's keep those windfarms coming, better and lower priced solar cells and let's see what other truely renewable energy sources we can find.
Then let's solve the remainder as much as we can by burning waste rather than nuclear power or coal.
The article shoves these aside with an 'we currently can not make the required quantities using these technologies so we have to choose between coal and nuclear'.
The problem is not to switch to coal or nuclear today though. So let's keep those windfarms coming, better and lower priced solar cells and let's see what other truely renewable energy sources we can find.
Then let's solve the remainder as much as we can by burning waste rather than nuclear power or coal.
the solar technology is here. households could have good efficient solar systems to provide a good portion of the electricity they need. There could also be policy that every new house has to have solar panels (less cost if they are built in in large numbers)
However just like when the oil companies researched, patented and never sold oil additives that would have made petrol (gas) go further (not a conspiracy :) my Aunt was a research chemist for one company) purely to secure their market they are doing similar things with solar tech; lobbying and hiding it :) we worked on a small project at the end of my degree for an energy company I shall not name - they were actively patenting advances in solar tech "for a rainy day" :)
Fair play - no one else bothered to beat them too it. But it does suck.
However just like when the oil companies researched, patented and never sold oil additives that would have made petrol (gas) go further (not a conspiracy :) my Aunt was a research chemist for one company) purely to secure their market they are doing similar things with solar tech; lobbying and hiding it :) we worked on a small project at the end of my degree for an energy company I shall not name - they were actively patenting advances in solar tech "for a rainy day" :)
Fair play - no one else bothered to beat them too it. But it does suck.
IP laws are not fair play. Most especially in cases that obvious where the patent filer has no intention of doing anything with the patent/.
It's a shame that's such a great discussion of experts only has 3 points in 2 hours.
They don't seem like experts in this particular field... and it's not really a discussion. More like a very good indicator of what people with both brains and influence think - but even so it is deeply flawed by the selection.
See another interesting article about the general topic (Wind or Nuclear?) http://mises.org/story/3536
I knew nuclear had a higher density, but wow, that's a pretty striking way to put that information into perspective. I understand all the fears of accidents, terrorist attacks, etc... but if your goal is to curb CO2, it certainly looks like an option worth considering.
Increasing nuclear plant safety seems like a more tractable engineering problem than figuring out how to keep CO2 out of the environment after you've liberated it from tons and tons of coal.