Posted on 07/24/2023 5:52:58 AM PDT by Twotone
Even environmentalists concede that nuclear power is a clean source of abundant, reliable energy. But they stop short of supporting it. Why? Because of the “waste problem.” But how real are their concerns? James Meigs, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, answers this question.
Thorium pebble bed reactors will be key in getting more nuclear plants built. Yes, there is waste but nowhere near as problematic as uranium fueled reactors.
Weren’t fast breeder reactors almost waste free?
Deep State is of far more immediate danger to us.
On a daily basis.
That's right! How dare you talk about anything besides what mewzilla wants to talk about. He knows that all we have to do is pay more attention to the news he wants us to monitor, then, poof, the Deep State disappears.
Sure, radioactive waste used improperly can be dangerous. Electricity is dangerous; always has been, but if used properly is a great boon to mankind. The really BAD ideas in the field of energy seem to be part & parcel of the Obama & Biden administrations. This part of the American political scene needs to be permanently erased as we can do better.
Is the waste actually nuclear or merely called nuclear?
I agree. We should be the world leaders in this by now. We should have pebble bed reactors at municipal level already. The technology doesn’t seem insurmountable to me.
The big issue is the used fuel rods. Ideally, they should by recycled into new fuel rods, burning up the radioactive isotopes in the reactor.
Jimmy Carter issued an Executive Order in 1977 prohibiting the recycling of spent fuel rods, thus creating the problem of what to do with old fuel rods.
The late David Brenner had the best idea for disposing of nuclear waste: Gift wrap it, and leave it sitting in the back seat of a car parked in the parking lot at Newark Airport.
Store the nuclear waste on the same site it’s generated at. There’s a company that specializes in doing that. It’s earthquake-proof and wouldn’t require HAZMAT transport away.
“Weren’t fast breeder reactors almost waste free?”
No, using U238 in a reactor produces Pu239 which can be used in a reactor or a bomb. The decay of Pu239 is not waste free.
I’ve read that all of the nuclear waste generated in the US can fit inside of a football field.
“No, using U238 in a reactor produces Pu239 which can be used in a reactor or a bomb. The decay of Pu239 is not waste free.”
So, use it in reactors...it’s called “fuel”. Thorium molten salt reactors handle it quite nicely, reducing “waste” storage time to 300 years or so. I prefer molten salt to pebble bed reactors for many reasons.
A company in Copenhagen (Denmark) is gearing up to do small modular thorium molten salt reactors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27IntvWo4mo&t=608s
Yucca mountain was the answer. Too many existing waste sites out there. Consolidate them.
Plus, some of those non-pebble bed Thorium designs can ‘burn’ some of the U waste.
Agreed. The “problems” of Yucca Mt. are political, not technical.
Yucca Mountain was a jobs program. There was no way they were ever going to store waste at that site. Classic Dem bait and switch. Dingy Harry supported it right up to the time it was ready and pulled the pin when his ECO supporters said it was time.
Or under the totally funded and completely empty vast Yucca Flats deep undermountain 100 year storage/burial facility. All prevented from use by... Harry ‘blackeye sports boy’ Reid. Late Senator .
In the middle of absolute nowhere desolate mtn. desert. Does require transport— with that risk.
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No civilization ever deprived itself into prosperity. If you can't conquer your way to riches (conquest ethos having fallen out of fashion) then the next-best way is to innovate your way to wealth.
In a Free-Market Economy (not to be confused with 'capitalist'), the quickest, cheapest way to a solution is to monetize it. There aren't many problems that can't be solved by liberal application of the profit motive.
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