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Originally Posted by glatt
Maybe this should go in the opinions thread, but in my opinion, nuclear power is the answer for our long term energy needs.
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Now let's start applying numbers. The current desire is to increase 450 nuclear power plants to about 1000. Ok. That means we need nine more Yucca Mountain storage facilities. How long has the first one been under construction? 30 years?
Currently large pools are at every American reactor storing 'spent' nuclear material that remains as enriched as a bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Yes, that is bomb grade material which they hope you don't learn. Just not enriched to standards we currently use for bombs. The spent nuclear material only uses about 1% or 2% of its energy content. We have a problem. We are grossly wasteful when we use our limited nuclear material in current reactor systems.
Technologies have been proposed to make nuclear reactors safe. That includes a different technology that uses lowly enriched uranium. Most reactors - the highest number being in Russia - still use highly enriched uranium.
Second is a process whereby spent nuclear fuel can be recycled so that its energy content can be utilitized - making Yucca Mountain unnecessary.
But that second solution requires much more work in sub-atomic physics. We cannot even build a super collider in Texas for $8 billion. But we can launch and maintain a useless ISS for $80+ billion. We can 'Pearl Harbor' a nation that is not a threat for $400 billion. We are spending more on a 'no purpose' F-22 fighter plane. Did you first look at the bigger picture - or just proclaim 'I want... I want' nuclear power.
The above nuclear future is cute - and naive. Too many posts did not first learn numbers and technology. Nuclear power can and will be a good future energy source. But it is still so expensive that special tax provisions and other government 'welfare' must be applied to make it possible. Significant reasearch is necessary. What do industry leaders from business and law school do with reasearch? They consider it an expense.
If you think nuclear power is a good thing, then ask yourself some embarrassing questions. Did you immediately criticize the mental midget president for his 'man to Mars' program? Did you immediately realize why the termination of a super collider was so myopic? Did you understand why quantum physics is so necessary to your future? Do you really know how much dangerous (spent) nuclear fuel remains stored in pools at every nuclear reactor because we don't have anyplace to put it nor any technology to reprocess it?
And finally, how long would the world supply of nuclear fuel last if most energy was from nuclear plants. Maybe 20 years. Yes there is limited amount of nuclear fuel. It is just another reason why we need to do more with every less gallon of fossil fuel. We need to innovate rather than resort to science fiction solutions. This also because we only have technology to use 1 or 2% of the energy in that nuclear fuel. You better have known these things before having an opinion.