Posted on 12/20/2004 10:56:31 AM PST by MistrX
Pick a standardized nuclear plant design. Build a bunch of them. Put them in deep holes out in the desert.
I can only assume this is breaking news?
The institutional problem we have is that the NIMBY groups can say that "conservation" if implemented by somebody else would prevent the need for this project and that the conservation would have a lesser environmental impact and so do that instead. Up until the argument is made that people are not willing to do the kinds of conservation proposed, that it isn't cost effective without draconian changes in police powers of utilities or without draconian changes in electric rates, the NIMY folks will keep a rational and reliable electric power system from happening.
---yep--check out the objectors and objections to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, for instance---the thing should have been in operation years ago--
Regional plants, not in anyone's backyard. Also breeder reactors to reprocess the nuclear waste. Jimmy Carter was against them so they must be good. Patriot missile batteries to defend them. Transmission lines protected by barbed wire and land mines, prefereably below ground.
Republicans have enough sense to ask : who PAYS for it? Where is the monetary incentive to do it? The very real possibility of terrorists getting their hands on radioactive materials is already a BIG national concern, more nuc-facilities spread all over the desert only means more mission burdens to homeland security forces. Actually the energy shortages, and fresh water needs, of the world; yearning to be free of hydrocarbon-burning sources, will be met by developments in the new energy field that you are probably not even vaguely aware of. We already know of several non-polluting, non-radioactive, non-hydrocarbon sources; held back from you only by vested interests and just plain greedy, selfish people...
Who pays for it? The consumers, of course.
As to the vulnerability of the facility, that is what guards are for.
Is this energy source of the future you spoke of locked-up with the mystery carburetor that allows cars to run on water?
Heavy-Metal Nuclear Power
American Scientist (abstract) ^ | November-December 2004 | Eric P. Loewen
Posted on 11/25/2004 5:05:53 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1288533/posts
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.