Re: [Amc-list] Water Powered Engine now slightly OT

[adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Sandwich Maker)]

" From: Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>
" 
" Joe Fulton wrote:
" 
" > Well, it's not the nuclear reactors that make people
" > nervous really, it's the nuclear waste created,
" > transported and stored.  
" 
" Yup; what I fear about them is 99% due to cheapskate cost-cutters 
" running them, taking chances, lowest-cost, no future vision. Blasphemy: 
" they should be nationalized (France...) and have a 100 or 250 year plan. 
" No business could ever have that sort of vision.

no politician ever could either, and i wouldn't trust a bureaucracy of
pointy-headed civil servants to safely operate the sort of nuke plants
we have now.

hanford had just completed work on an inherently failsafe plant -
which relied on basic physics and not a control system - when they
were shut down by pres. clinton for cost saving reasons.  give him
credit - he almost had the budget balanced when the oilmen took over.

" > Passive solar is gaining/will gain popularity rapidly
" > [...] Those economics make sense right now,
" > at PRESENT utility rates.  No inflation of utility
" > rates was invorporated into the proposal.
" 
" (But inflation will probably be present in reality :-)

here's another idea: solar power satellites.  they were shown to be
cost effective when first researched/proposed, about 3 decades ago.
the good news: i hear the pentagon is very interested in sps tech, so
we may see practical development despite wishy-washy politics and
contrary business interests.

" From: Wrambler242@xxxxxxxxxxx
" 
" 
" As for waste, I read recently that is another one of our gov'ments F'ups
" They decided that waste could not be re-refined to capture the leftover
" uranium and other goodies as that could be used to make bombs. So they
" banned it, I believe this is some international pact.
" >From what I read recently a large amount of the "waste" can be recycled,
" greatly reducing the quantity of waste, but we aren't allowed. To top it
" off, if we refined it we could draw in the leftover wast from other
" countries that are re-refining it to make bomb grade goodies.
" Seems silly, not allowed to refine radioctive waste because it can make
" bombs or whatever.
" gee it could be used for that purpose the first time around too,
" couldn't it?

the nub of the problem is that we're regulatorily stuck with first-gen
nuke tech, the equivalent of curved-dash oldsmobiles - or at least,
what curved-dash oldses would look like after nhtsa got through with
them.

american nuke plants can only burn 1-3% of the fissionable material in
their fuel.  this is comparable to filling up your car's tank, driving
two miles, then dumping it [and paying for hazardous waste disposal]
and filling up again.  and again, two miles later.  and again, two
miles after that...

reprocessing would be an economic start, but it's a dangerous process
and involves transportation of extremely hazardous materials...  but
there's more than one way to eliminate nuclear waste.

there are paper designs for plants [so-called 'slow breeders'] that
would emit no high-level waste, only lead, the ultimate fission
product.  some of them can even run on thorium, which with its longer
half-life is many [10-1000?] times more plentiful than uranium.
india, sitting on 1/3 of the world's known thorium, is working on
some.  the lead is radioactive [it's just been in a reactor!] but at a
low level and it 'cools off' relatively quickly too.

if we had such plants, some estimates suggest we could power our
entire grid for the next 5 centuries on uranium [and 'waste'] we've
already mined and stockpiled.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       and think what none thought
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