We demonstrated it on an engineering scale sixty years ago.
We demonstrated it on a global industrial scale fifty years ago.
We stopped doing it forty years ago.
We worked out how to do it safely and to destroy the waste from earlier generations of the technology thirty years ago.
We demonstrated that technology on an engineering scale twenty years ago.
Thirteen years ago we killed that project.
What is it? Nuclear power. From drawing board to demolition, a nuclear power plant produces 3-6 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity. This is less than hydro, solar or wind. Coal produces 230 grams per kilowatt hour. Hysterical about Three Mile Island? Nobody was injured, and insurers paid out $70 million. Hysterical about Chernobyl? It was a disaster waiting to happen and the operators literally blew it up intentionally; nobody plans to build another 3 GW power reactor out of charcoal and enclose it in a tin foil containment shed.
Safety? The new generation of nuclear power generator designs, called Integrated Fast Reactor, or IFR, is inherently safe because it has a negative temperature coefficient, that is, the hotter it gets the slower the fission reaction. It cannot melt down or blow up.
Waste? IFR uses 99% of the energy in the uranium instead of the 1% used by the current generation, and it can consume the waste, that is, DESTROY IT, from the previous generation. No more Yucca Mountain or WIPP controversy. The waste ultimately produced is "dangerous" for 300 years instead of 3000 centuries. Even the current generation of nuclear power reactors produce only 2000 tons of waste per year -- about 40 cement-mixer trucks full. All of it produced so far, if put on a football field, would be a pile 20 feet tall. If all the current generation of nuclear reactors were replaced by the new generation they would produce 20 tons per year. If we satisfied all of our current electric demand with the new generation there would be 100 tons per year. That's ten cement-mixer trucks full, or about one windmill footing. And a lot of that has industrial uses.
Proliferation? IFR does what's called "high burn up." That means the used fuel that's taken out of the reactor contains a lot of Plutonium 240, making it useless for weapons. Would-be weaponeers face the same problem as with Uranium: Isotope separation. But... it's perfectly good fuel, so after removing fission products, which poison the reaction, it goes back into the reactor.
Transportation of dangerous materials? Reprocessing would be done on-site using a much simpler method than for existing reactors, which can be deployed in modular units instead of the massive steel-mill-size factories necessary for the current generation. So the only material transported to the reactor is Uranium, and the only material transported away is fission products, which are 0.1% as dangerous and 1% as voluminous as the waste from current reactors.
American coal-fired power plants produce 100 million tons of toxic solid waste per year, and emit far more radioactive pollution into the atmosphere than the solid radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactors, simply because of the enormous volumes of coal needed. Then there's the mercury....
Wind? The world's leading expert on wind says wind can never provide more than 15% of current worldwide energy demand, and maybe 20% in the US, which is blessed with better sources.
Solar? Until very recently, solar cells produced less electric eneregy before they wore out than the energy necessary to produce and deploy them. Even now, the energy payback period is four years. That means that as long as we deploy solar cells at 25% annual growth, they add nothing to the nation's energy budget. If we did this for ten years, the generating capacity of solar would increase from 0.7% of current consumption to 6.5%, without adding one joule to the national national energy budget. After 25 years we would be up to 100% (requiring about 40000 square kilometers of stuff) without adding one joule to the national energy budget.
Regarding Tom Brokaws report, he has it all wrong. The problem is not finding other resources that are cleaner, the problem is the over population of this planet. We are like locusts sucking up everything in our path without regard to the damage it is doing, while continuing to propagate. Something needs to be done about over population. Fewer people results in less pollution, less endangerment of species, less reduction of resources, etc. That is the problem, there are too many of us and something needs to be done about it or it won't matter how many ingenious ideas are developed to correct the problems he identified in his report. Wake up.
YES!! MORE NUCLEAR POWER NOW!! People need to get over the sloppy russian mistake of Chernoblyl and understand that 3 mile island was actually proof that safeguards work. Also consider how far technology has come since then!
Not to mention that our NAVY is an awesome example of how safe Nuclear power is...what kind of power do you think they've been using to power their "floating cities" with for the last 50 years...with no notable accidents.
Even the most rosy estimates on the potential of Solar and Wind power is not very promising.
Penn and Teller's BS has a great episode about this subject.
This is one area where we should follow the French example, Nuclear power accounts for something like 80% of their power.
Posts: 3 | Location: California | Registered: 03-30-09
[quote]Nuclear power. From drawing board to demolition, a nuclear power plant produces 3-6 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity[quote]
All turbines today whether in coal fired plants or oil fired plants,gas fired plants, or nuclear powerd plants are steam turbines
Nuclear rods heat the water that boils and the steam turn the turbines with the waste being the radiation that possibly could transfer into the water
But construction wise the setters for cement is made from oil, as is the composite materials the rods are made of and you can't just dig up the rods ready made...they need to mined with desiel machines, refined in likekly coal or gas powered factories, then handled safely with radiation suits made from oil products and equipment forged and made in likely coal or gas powered plants and factories
[quote]American coal-fired power plants produce 100 million tons of toxic solid waste per year, and emit far more radioactive pollution into the atmosphere than the solid radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactors, simply because of the enormous volumes of coal needed. Then there's the mercury....[/qujote]
Nedd to
1) Read up on a mysterious organization that most Enviromental extremenist have apparently never heard of called the EPA
2) Need to actally tour a ModernCoal fired plant in the US that uses a) COke or refined coal which takes out radioactive impurities 2) Burns coal at higher rate to totally disitegrate it 3)Uses a filter system to catch solids followed by a water filtration system to catch finer sollid = only steam coming out the the stack of the average Coal burning plant in the USA post the "Black Smoke Protests" (that I participated in) cause factories and Coal plants used to rain black smoke and soot all over the communities resulting in EPA crackdowns
those that couldn't adapt to "clean technology" and couldn't meet strict EPA standards or even stricter State board of health standards were simply shut down
Why do you think Obama supports "Clean Coal"?
Answer: Because it already exists an he don't have to do anything but go "Oh, here is our solution,clean coal"...lol
[quote] Wind? Solar? [/quote}
The wind doesnt' always blow and I live in an area that gets maybye 35 days of sunshine and is cloudy or rainy the rest of the time
Not to mention those huge Windmills are made from Carbon fiber,Synthetic rubber,plastic,and needs lube...all products of Oil and in the case of the BP pickens plan all built by Chvron,Shell,and BP
Likewise Solar panels contain "Oil Tech" and you can't melt glass without Natural gas or "Coke" (refined coal" or petro coke (from oil) and same is true for smelting Metal with gas,coke or petro coke
I mean you might be able to run a 500,000 volt electric Arc Furnace top melt glass and Metal on a Windmill or Solar pannel via a lot of them and a step up transformer but for now Electric arc Furnaces are powered by coal or oil generators
***Geothermal**
This is my pet preference
The wind may not always blow, the Sun may not always shine, and going full blast Nuclear can only power the world for maybe 10 years (50 if we can recycle the rods) the earth is alway hot a few miles below
Drawbacks: Still need to make the machines to harnest the heat and to turn the turbine then a mens to transfer that power....all which will be based on "oil tech" at least in the beggining
**wave motion**
Water mills in the Oceans can turn tubines based on curret flow and he bobbing up and down of the parts of the mill or tide rise and tide fall
problems: Besides building the things from Carbon fiber and other Oil based materials there is always the Enviromental Activist concern
Just as they don't like Oil and coal cause "it is dirty and makes Co2" which is causing global warming (formelly global cooling, formally Demonic ungoldly technology leading to damnation), Windmills cause it may kill migrating birds (shut up) they don't like Solar panels in the Desert cause they might displace a squierl or other desert life (shut up) Don't like Nuclear power cause it can turn us into teenage mutant Ninja turtles (shut up), and don't like Geothermal because it might upset Gia and she might relaese Lava all ove us (shut up) Wave motion might kill Migrating Whales and Seals (And Baby Polar bears if they are too far north? !!!)
To bad there isn't a way for us to make electricity or power our vehicles with Enviromentalist extremnist moaning....we'd have a whole lot of surpluss power
This message has been edited. Last edited by: mod_ivy,
So.....Let's do nothing..... Everythings okay....Don't look behind this curtain.... As long as everything is around for me, who cares about the next generation, or the one after that ! I'm okay so you be okay ! We don't need to change, heck, I don't see anything changing around me.... Yep, that about sums it up ! Rush Limpjaw can now lean back on his chair and smoke his cigar.
If we don't all do are part now at this moment and start recycling and thinking of ingenious ways to go on with our daily lives more efficiently, the whole world will have to prepare for a big change whether we like it or not. If we can advance our knowledge in 1 century 2000 times more than in the last millennium, we should be able to figure out ways to conquer our bad habits and save the planet.
