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Personally I find all of the money we have put into Uranium fission and Fusion as a tremendous waste of money. It appears we have no way of decommissioning the

Personally I find all of the money we have put into Uranium fission and Fusion as a tremendous waste of money. It appears we have no way of decommissioning the plants, or disposing of the waste, of course there is the risk of further accidents. If we have to use nuclear decay, at least go with Thorium. Solar panels, solar towers, wind, and tidal have a much lower cost and lower environmental impact. But they do lack the "cool" factor, and the military applications. Fusion has been 20-30 years out for the last 50 years.

prestadige 12y ago
>Fusion has been 20-30 years out for the last 50 years. Michael Labgerge's chart gives a more complete picture of progress in fusion research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m9kC1yRnLQ#t=4m40s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m9kC1yRnLQ#t=4m40s
bane 12y ago
They also lack the base load characteristics of nuke plants.
- stephen_g 12y ago
  What's a nuke plant? As far as I am aware, there is no such thing. Perhaps you mean a nuclear power station?
  - bane 12y ago
    I don't know why the downvotes. You must not be a native English Speaker. Let me help. "Nuke Plant" is a common idiomatic phrase for saying "Nuclear Power Plant". Let me break it down into parts for you: "Nuke" is the common short form for "Nuclear" in English. "Plant" is being used in the dictionary meaning "a place where an industrial or manufacturing process takes place" "Power" is redundant in the phrase and omitted. In terms of usage: "Nuclear Power Plant", "Nuclear Power Station", and "Nuke Plant" are all acceptable, but frequency of usage is different. "Nuke Station" is not normally used in this meaning, but people will understand it if you use it. "Nuclear Power Plant" is about 4 times more common in normal usage in English than "Nuclear Power Station". "Nuke Plant" and "Nuclear Power Station" are used with about the same frequency. "Nuke Station" is used very infrequently. You can find examples of it, but it's less than 1% of usage in current English. Here's a list of news articles that use "Nuke Plant" so you can see usage and become familiar with how the term is used. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=%22nuke+plant%22&oq=%22nuke+plant%22&gs_l=news-cc.3...0.0.0.478.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1ac https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0....
    - stephen_g 12y ago
      Interesting. I have only really seen the term 'nuke' as either referring to nuclear weapons or as a colloquial term for microwaving food.
WhoBeI 12y ago
Fusion does not have the same problems as fission does, they are very different. A fission plant produces radioactive waste that needs to be transported to a safe site and then stored for thousands of years. In the case of fusion only the reactor becomes radioactive and is harmless after about 50-100 years. It's also a lot safer if an accident should happen. For the fusion reaction to work you have to keep the plasma hot. So hot that if it touches the wall of your reactor fusion will stop due to cooling. One of the reasons people are looking to get fusion going is to replace fission, gas, coal and oil based power plants. So when promoting renewable energy sources we have to look at replacing all of those with solar, wind, tidal, etc. Today about 6-7% of the total energy need is covered by renewable sources so it would require a substantial investment to do that. The investment needed to research fusion isn't as large and promises a much better solution that has the added benefit of not requiring a certain kind of terrain or weather.
XorNot 12y ago
Somewhere out there, the oil and coal lobby's chuckle everytime they watch anti-nuclear protesters go after fission and fusion technology. In fact scratch that: they also outright bankroll it (the coal lobby in Australia, and various unions, are anti-nuclear for what should be fairly obvious reasons).

prestadige 12y ago

>Fusion has been 20-30 years out for the last 50 years. Michael Labgerge's chart gives a more complete picture of progress in fusion research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m9kC1yRnLQ#t=4m40s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m9kC1yRnLQ#t=4m40s

bane 12y ago

They also lack the base load characteristics of nuke plants.

stephen_g 12y ago
What's a nuke plant? As far as I am aware, there is no such thing. Perhaps you mean a nuclear power station?
- bane 12y ago
  I don't know why the downvotes. You must not be a native English Speaker. Let me help. "Nuke Plant" is a common idiomatic phrase for saying "Nuclear Power Plant". Let me break it down into parts for you: "Nuke" is the common short form for "Nuclear" in English. "Plant" is being used in the dictionary meaning "a place where an industrial or manufacturing process takes place" "Power" is redundant in the phrase and omitted. In terms of usage: "Nuclear Power Plant", "Nuclear Power Station", and "Nuke Plant" are all acceptable, but frequency of usage is different. "Nuke Station" is not normally used in this meaning, but people will understand it if you use it. "Nuclear Power Plant" is about 4 times more common in normal usage in English than "Nuclear Power Station". "Nuke Plant" and "Nuclear Power Station" are used with about the same frequency. "Nuke Station" is used very infrequently. You can find examples of it, but it's less than 1% of usage in current English. Here's a list of news articles that use "Nuke Plant" so you can see usage and become familiar with how the term is used. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=%22nuke+plant%22&oq=%22nuke+plant%22&gs_l=news-cc.3...0.0.0.478.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1ac https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0....
  - stephen_g 12y ago
    Interesting. I have only really seen the term 'nuke' as either referring to nuclear weapons or as a colloquial term for microwaving food.

WhoBeI 12y ago

Fusion does not have the same problems as fission does, they are very different. A fission plant produces radioactive waste that needs to be transported to a safe site and then stored for thousands of years. In the case of fusion only the reactor becomes radioactive and is harmless after about 50-100 years. It's also a lot safer if an accident should happen. For the fusion reaction to work you have to keep the plasma hot. So hot that if it touches the wall of your reactor fusion will stop due to cooling. One of the reasons people are looking to get fusion going is to replace fission, gas, coal and oil based power plants. So when promoting renewable energy sources we have to look at replacing all of those with solar, wind, tidal, etc. Today about 6-7% of the total energy need is covered by renewable sources so it would require a substantial investment to do that. The investment needed to research fusion isn't as large and promises a much better solution that has the added benefit of not requiring a certain kind of terrain or weather.

XorNot 12y ago

Somewhere out there, the oil and coal lobby's chuckle everytime they watch anti-nuclear protesters go after fission and fusion technology. In fact scratch that: they also outright bankroll it (the coal lobby in Australia, and various unions, are anti-nuclear for what should be fairly obvious reasons).