Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the only long term solution to the US, and world, energy crisis.
The US needs many thousands of gigawatts of inexpensive energy to power our industries, homes, and vehicles.
Solar,wind,wave, and geothermal sources are too dilute and undependable for this.
Ethanol creates more problems than it solves. The hyped up hydrogen cycle is D.O A (dead on arrival) and will remain D.O.A. Once again, too many basic physical problems.Oil, gas, and coal spew out vast amounts of CO2, and will run out.
Nuclear power is the only source which is concentrated enough to provide the huge amount of inexpensive, inexhaustible power that we need.
We need fast breeder power reactors which can produce more fuel than they burn. In addition, they can burn the spent fuel from our thermal nuclear power reactors. This would eliminate our nuclear waste problem and the need to bury vast amounts of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca mountain.
Oil is used for production of plastics and chemicals, and is far too valuable to burned for energy. When either oil or coal is burned,we exhaust CO2 into the atmospher.
So it doesn't make sense to burn it no matter how cheap it is.
Uranium has no legitimate use whatever, except as fuel for nuclear reactors. No CO2 is produced. We should take the clue, as many other countries already have, and make nuclear power a national priority.
The US is behind both France and Russia in the development of fast breeder reactors. This is unacceptable, and has to change.
In the meantime we can build as many thermal nuclear reactors as we want, at 1000 megawatts each (electrical) Then this power can be used to power electric cars, trains, and other vehicles..
As T. Boone Pickens said today, natural gas is only an interim solution while we develop a perminent one. Here is the permanent one.
The US needs many thousands of gigawatts of inexpensive energy to power our industries, homes, and vehicles.
Solar,wind,wave, and geothermal sources are too dilute and undependable for this.
Ethanol creates more problems than it solves. The hyped up hydrogen cycle is D.O A (dead on arrival) and will remain D.O.A. Once again, too many basic physical problems.Oil, gas, and coal spew out vast amounts of CO2, and will run out.
Nuclear power is the only source which is concentrated enough to provide the huge amount of inexpensive, inexhaustible power that we need.
We need fast breeder power reactors which can produce more fuel than they burn. In addition, they can burn the spent fuel from our thermal nuclear power reactors. This would eliminate our nuclear waste problem and the need to bury vast amounts of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca mountain.
Oil is used for production of plastics and chemicals, and is far too valuable to burned for energy. When either oil or coal is burned,we exhaust CO2 into the atmospher.
So it doesn't make sense to burn it no matter how cheap it is.
Uranium has no legitimate use whatever, except as fuel for nuclear reactors. No CO2 is produced. We should take the clue, as many other countries already have, and make nuclear power a national priority.
The US is behind both France and Russia in the development of fast breeder reactors. This is unacceptable, and has to change.
In the meantime we can build as many thermal nuclear reactors as we want, at 1000 megawatts each (electrical) Then this power can be used to power electric cars, trains, and other vehicles..
As T. Boone Pickens said today, natural gas is only an interim solution while we develop a perminent one. Here is the permanent one.
Views: 1
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Richard on -
Fast breeder reactors require thorium to transmute into fuel after the initial reaction is started with uranium or plutonium... the availability of thorium becomes a problem. Currently the largest reserves are in India. It's true however, that the waste is not very dangerous. After 50 years, thorium waste has about the same radioactivity as coal ash (i.e. only dangerous if ingested)
As for uranium, if we get it from sea water, there's enough there to supply our energy needs for oh, about a million years.
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Permalink Reply by robert hixenbaugh on -
I am not the most educated person, but I do agree with you. We already have the technology for it just sitting there why are we not using it. Also would we be able to build enough reactors to completely take us off of foreign oil for power use until we can come up with something more viable. The question though is how easily would we be able to dispose of the waste or reuse the waste for another type of power source?
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Permalink Reply by Shannon Simmons on -
Uranium is still a finite resource, even if some spent parts can be recycled it's still finite...
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Permalink Reply by frank methmann on -
Right on!I heard on Hannity's radio show that the French recycle 90 % of their spent fuel.It was also stated that our government regulations keep our plants from doing that.Sounds like it is the government that is making most of the problems here.
Frank
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Permalink Reply by James Monken on -
You are correct. The government in this country is the main problem with our energy mess!
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on -
Not many people know that our nuclear waste problem is one that was made in America.
The Carter administration outlawed commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing in the 1970's, because they wanted to stop the proliferation of plutonium. President Carter hoped that the rest of the world would follow.
Well they did not. France built two, and Britain build three, so they can recycle the plutonium in their spent fuel into new fuel, thereby avoiding the need for expensive enriched uranium 235. They also reduce their nuclear waste, which is a very small proportion of the spent fuel, by separating it.
Because of our own action of outlawing nuclear fuel reprocessing, Americans have condement themselves to having to bury the whole bulk of their spent fuel and throwing away the useful parts as well as the waste.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Carter on -
One thing to keep in mind is that fast-neutron reactors can burn U-238, which is the isotope making up about 99% of the world's uranium reserves. Current reactors burn only U-235, which is only 0.7% of the total uranium. By building fast-neutron (breeder) reactors, we can create a 100-fold increase in the amount of usable uranium. That is enough to last thousands of years.
Another excellent aspect of fast-neutron reactors is that reprocessing is not required for the spent fuel. These reactors can burn the uranium fuel and its radioactive byproducts, without having to separate plutonium at any point. As Gerry pointed out, they are also capable of burning the waste left over from conventional slow-neutron reactors.
An additional benefit is that by removing the reprocessing step, no bomb-making materials are separated from the waste. Elements like plutonium will not be diverted to build bombs, because it is burned inside the reactor. Slow-neutron reactors create plutonium and other transuranic elements from the U-238, but fast-neutron reactors burn those elements for energy. Instead of getting useful energy from less than 1% of uranium, we could be getting nearly 99%. We could also allow countries to operate this type of reactor without fear that they could create nuclear weapons.
All we have to do is design and build fast-neutron reactors - so tell your senator or congressman!
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Permalink Reply by matt on -
We need to take this one step further and dump more money into R&D for fusion reactors. Fusion reactors are much more efficient than fission reactors. They also do not require the use of uranium.(there’s not much uranium on earth) they are able to generate their power from hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe.
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Permalink Reply by Richard on
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Matt,
The largest current Fusion Reactor experiment is the Joint European Torus [JET]. In 1997, JET produced a peak of 16.1 MW of fusion power (65% of input power), with fusion power of over 10 MW sustained for over 0.5 sec.
In the fusion energy field; more than fifty years have already passed without any commercial fusion energy production plant coming into operation. While fusion power is still in early stages of development, vast sums have been and continue to be invested in research. In the EU almost € 10 billion was spent on fusion research up to the end of the 1990s, and the new ITER reactor alone is budgeted at € 10 billion. It is estimated that up to the point of possible implementation of electricity generation by nuclear fusion, R&D will need further promotion totalling around € 60-80 billion over a period of 50 years or so (of which € 20-30 billion within the EU). Nuclear fusion research receives € 750 million (excluding ITER funding), compared with € 810 million for all non-nuclear energy research combined, putting research into fusion power well ahead of that of any single rivaling technology.
I agree that fusion is a future possibility, but even with increased R&D funding, it is still quite a ways off. It takes far more energy to get a fusion reaction going than what you get out of it at this time. And even when you get it going the reaction isn't stable for very long.
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Permalink Reply by William M. (Butch) Green, P.E. on -
Regarding a comment that was made that Japan and China are building in 3-5 years, you would be lucky, and I mean real lucky, to get one designed in 3 years much less built. I practice structural engineering for a living and I can tell you right now that by the time you got all the permits in place, design in place, and completed the construction, you are looking at 10 years and maybe longer depending on the site and the conditions.
I am more concerned about decomissioning old reactors than about waste. I know folks from that state hate the idea of the repository, but it is coming so waste would probibly not be an issue. How do you make a decomissioned reactor safe though. That is an area of nuclear that we will have to address.
Nuclear is not part of this plan at the moment though. It will be part of a future one though.
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Permalink Reply by Sandy on -
there are 14 being decomissioned now. The last one we worked on was in PA and the waste was sent to SC for burial in reinforced cement.
Hopefully, that will put an end to your fears.
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Permalink Reply by William A. Stuart on -
Don't you think we could fast track the paper work, use emminent domain where necesssary and just clone the best FBR out there? I say let's get going. We have to do this just so we can burn up the old weapons-grade plutonium left over from decommissioning all those missles the last few years---plus a surprizing amount of medical and industrial nuclear waste has accumulated that needs burning. We need to build new technology nuclear plants out of self defense not to mention baseload power.
Let's spend the money here on nuclear and wind and solar and transmission lines.
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