04-24-2008, 08:51 PM
Quote:I was under the impression that outside the US there has been vast growth of light water reactors, especially in Asia. And, I was under the impression that the UK, Russia, France, and others are now reprocessing spent fuel reclaiming 90% of it's original energy, reducing and recycling the waste and are nearly break even on the expense and risks of additional mining and processing. I think only the US, is lagging through legal hurdles of doing anything with their waste other than building more containment pools.
Consider the turn around of my former adversaries like Patrick Moore.
For me it is a combination of factors that still make me oppose nuclear reactors.
Danger; I know reactors are super safe but an accident happening in western Europe might just kill of the total economy of a country. The costs of 1 accident (apart from lives and environment) would be so huge that you can't talk about cheap anymore. So small risk, big impact once it goes wrong. And until we can commercialize superconducting electrical cables we need to put power stations close to were the consumers are....we can't put them all in the Sahara for example.
Stock: 85 years says wikipedia. I would guess a lot less if we start 10 folding the amount of reactors (increasing the price again by the way getting closer and closer to wind and solar). So we anyway have a temporary solution here (unlike fossil fuels uranium does not get formed not even after 50 million years).
As for oil a lot of uranium is coming from instable countries (ate least the two biggest producers Canada and Australia seem safe allies).
This, together with the waste problem that also in Europe still exists gives me a 'let's try something better' feeling.
Still which ever way we go research is the tool and it needs to be funded...a lot.....and luckily I am in the natural sciences so plenty of work for me until I retire.:)
Solar cells: a higher chance of success than fusion to get commercially attractive energy and so many options.
storage: when going for wind or solar we need to be able to store energy for days without sun and wind
hydrogen economy: because planes don't fly on electricity
etc.
energy conservation: whatever we do, we need to use less energy, period.
Personally I would wait a little more before we start investing in new uranium reactor.