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This is crazy. No one is doing anything about the commercial waste, and this fellow wants to bring military-trained engineers in to create more waste? To this
by wingo 17y ago
This is crazy. No one is doing anything about the commercial waste, and this fellow wants to bring military-trained engineers in to create more waste?
To this date there are tanks full of liquid waste at military sites that people are concerned about touching in any way, because no one knows what's inside them, and there's the possibility that disturbing the contents might create a fissile mass.
I've got a better idea. Stick the corps on cleanup and have them report back when finished.
[edit: Just to be clear, I don't argue from an uninformed position. I do have a BS in nuclear engineering.]
- pwhelan 17y agoThat is because of the fuel types used. The Navy is using cheap fuel from the weapons program, which provides more than enough power and fuel for their needs. However the cities would likely use a Thorium reactor, which can easily be made to not produce weaponizeable (sp?) byproducts. I refuse to believe that France can handle itself with fission plants and we cannot. We must not allow irrational fears to drive policy and we must stop the use of fossil fuels to provide the majority of our power. I say gimmie a few hundred fission plants, a new electrical grid, and electric cars & trucks. Our greenhouse gas emissions will go way down and our geo-political strength will rise.
- pwhelan 17y agoOh, and it would provide a spark for nuclear studies in the US which could give us an edge in energy production. I would love if the wind would provide for all our power needs, but fission is a great transition method. Use it until we can get fusion or viable solar/wind/bio power.
- DaniFong 17y agoThere's a good argument out there that wind can be considerably less expensive than coal with good energy storage and good transmission. http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/energy.pdf http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/energy.pdf I haven't seen anything like that for nuclear.
- cgranade 17y agoI wholly agree that, where feasible, wind and other renewable energy sources can and should be employed in preference to non-renewable sources. That said, as far as I understand, there are cases where such renewable energy sources are not feasible solutions, and in those cases, I think that we should prefer nuclear power to coal, diesel or any other fossil fuel power.
- DaniFong 17y agoI can think of only four: naval craft, spacecraft, remote locations (e.g. antarctic) and when you need a neutron flux for some reason. What are the others? (This is intermittent renewables, wind+solar, with inexpensive and efficient energy storage. I agree if you don't have energy storage you're capacity limited.)
- pwhelan 17y agoWell, there are problems with only relying on renewable power sources. Weather patterns change. At a glance, it would make sense to build smart a nuclear grid, then integrate distributed renewable power and storage options as appropriate. That gives the grid excellent redundancy and starts working on the current problems immediately while providing breathing room for the renewables. The nuclear plants could then be used as backups and power government supercomputers when not needed (or something).
- cgranade 17y agoI was actually thinking of cases in which storage is limited, or in places where, for instance, that tend to get less wind. As for the energy storage issue, while storage technology has gotten much, much better, I don't think we're yet where we need to be to completely move over to pure renewable. I admit, though, that I am not an expert in energy storage, so I could be totally off on this. All else aside though, wherever there is a choice between technologies such as coal and technologies such as nuclear energy, I think that the latter needs to be very seriously considered.
- 17y ago
- wingo 17y agoMy point is that there's quite enough work already for such a corps. Weaponizeable (also sp?) or not, the idea of producing waste of such longevity and claiming that it is actually a solution is mind-bogglingly arrogant.
- tungstenfurnace 17y agoAnd, on the side, how about a Manhattan-style project to produce a commerical scale Thorium Reactor within five years?
- pwhelan 17y agoOak Ridge had a thorium reactor running for 5 years in the 1960's. I think it would be very feasible, especially since Canada is helping China with nuclear power plants. Thorium is also enormously more abundant and more evenly spread out over the world.