Sinfest

[nathan]

Obama is throwing some cash at new nuclear plants.

Good move? Would the money be better spent on wind/solar/etc? Should we have a plan to deal with the giant radioactive ants sure to run rampant? How long until the next Fallout game is released, anyway?

Weigh in, WHILE THERE'S STILL TIME!
_________________
All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last. - Marky Mark Proust

[Mizike]

Nuclear power gets a bad rap. It's actually quite clean and efficient.


Rule of thumb: if Isaac Asimov approved of it, then I got no beef with it.
_________________
Scire aliquid laus est, pudor est non discere velle
"It is laudable to know something, it is disgraceful to not want to learn"
~Seneca

[Yorick]

there are others methods of clean efficient power that would be less costly and have less waste when done, but they're not popular and don't have the potential for weapons later so they don't get built.
_________________
88 NPH

[andrew]

[Yorick]

there's a thing which I half-remember that was in wired a month or two ago, I'll see if I can find it

edit: article here


(honestly tho I was really just seeing if I could rile mizikie up)
_________________
88 NPH

[Mizike]

[andrew]

[Monkey Mcdermott]

Yeah but circling Un'Goro for hours mining Thorium is such a pain in the ass.
_________________

[Arc Tempest]

Bah, Winterspring's the only place to really farm Thorium.
_________________
The older I get, the more certain I become of one thing. True and abiding cynicism is simply a form of cowardice.

[Night Spade]

Nuclear Power Plants are perfectly safe to live next to, its the waste you have to worry about.

Pro Nuclear Ad
_________________
“I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator”
- Richard Branson -
----

[Thy Brilliance]

[Thy Brilliance]

[tinkeringIdiot]

Yes, of course...no progress has been made in handling nuclear waste over the last 50 years. *cough BULLSHIT cough*

The French reprocess the waste and send it back to the reactor, minimizing the final amount of waste.

The material that can't be recycled is processed into a stable glass, a process which was partly developed right here in the midwestern US. When the spent fuel is dissolved in glass, the radioactive atoms are dispersed and locked into the semi crystalline matrix. As we all know, glass doesn't dissolve in water. This means that the radioactive material will not leak out of its enclosure until the glass spontaneously decays. Extracting the material from the glass in a purposeful way is also very difficult, thereby minimizing the threat of proliferation.

Let's recap advances in the management of nuclear waste:

Problem: lots o' waste
Solution: recycling!

Problem: waste is difficult to contain and therefore will likely contaminate ground water while in storage for the next 100,000 years
Solution: glass!

Seems to me that combining these advancements with that fancy Thorium stuff leads to a rather workable solution.

On nuclear power in general: I would rather have to deal with the disposal and management of nuclear waste (which stays on the ground) than the management of atmospheric mercury produced by coal power.

[andrew]

[reasonablymad]

I'm all for new clear energy and the plants that make it, as long as they don't melt or go boom.
_________________
...