Anybody want some plutonium? (Economist, UK)

[jpak]

http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11559889

THE half-life of official opposition to nuclear power in Britain has been very short. In its first energy white paper in 2003, the government was disdainful, devoting most of its time to wind and solar power. By 2006, the talk had shifted to replacing Britain’s existing capacity. In January 2008, John Hutton, the business secretary, upped the ante again, calling for a big expansion of nuclear power.

Not everyone is so bullish. Just like in most other countries that generate nuclear power, financiers worry about the economics, while securocrats fret about the possibility of terrorist attacks. But the concern that resonates most with the general public has been environmental—what to do with the radioactive waste, a question that has been asked many times but never convincingly answered in Britain or elsewhere.

On Thursday June 12th Hilary Benn, the environment minister, announced that, rather than try to foist Britain’s existing stockpile of intermediate and high-level waste on unwilling citizens, his government would instead invite local authorities to bid for it, in return for a generous cash infusion from Whitehall. It is a scheme that other governments around the world with unloved piles of nuclear waste will watch with interest.

Not everyone will be eligible. Any repository must last for many thousands of years, which limits the choice of sites to geologically stable parts of the country. Bribing voters to accept unpleasant pieces of infrastructure may carry the whiff of political expediency, but the government has little choice. Its own Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CORWM), which it set up in 2003 to study the problem of nuclear waste, noted that the chief problem in disposing of nuclear waste is not scientific or technical—virtually every expert agrees that burying it deep underground is the only real option—but social.

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[tinrobot]

1. The half-life of plutonium is 24,000 years.

Would that cash infusion pay for all 24,000 years or just the first decade?

[NNadir]

3. The half life of mercury is infinite.

Do you have a plan to confine this ONE form of waste from dangerous fossil fuel waste for an infinite period?

How about a plan to contain carbon dioxide, all 30 billion tons of it each year, for say two months?

You couldn't care less?

Why am I not surprised?

In fact, many nations, most notably France have long term plutonium inventory management programs. It happens that plutonium is an extremely valuable material, and will probably become the most important energy commodity for any survivors of your indifference to dangerous fossil fuel waste, its longevity and its toxicity.

I'd tell you about plutonium management, but it would be over your head.

Nuclear power doesn't need to be perfect to be better than everything else. It merely needs to be better than everything else, which, happily, it is.

[jpak]

5. Coal-fired power plants power US uranium enrichment plants.

The reason that they were built in TN, OH and KY was the availability of *large* amounts of coal to produce the *large* amounts electricity required to run them.

You couldn't care less?

Why am I not surprised?

[NNadir]

6. When in your fervid little imagination were the enrichment plants built?

Let's seem, um, well, let's try 1944.

The number of nuclear plants producing electricity in 1944 in the US in 1944 was zero.

In fact, the number of nuclear plants producing electricity anywhere on earth was zero.

At the time, of course, huge amounts of dangerous fossil fuels were being diverted to produce dangerous fossil fuel weapons - just as is happening today - and then, as now, supporters of dangerous fossil fuels (which didn't include the anti-nuclear community like it does today) couldn't have cared less.

Basically, it's vast scientific illiteracy notwithstanding, the historical literacy of the anti-nuke cult is zero.

To be an anti-nuke, one must not only confuse and/or distort science, but the less rigid displines or history, economics, ethics and political "science" as well.

I can't wait for the illiterate response to this post which will almost certainly consist of remarks of the type that 4084 > 4258.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/ELECTRICITY_GEN_1983-2006.XLS

[jpak]

8. The same U enrichment plants built for the Manhattan Project to produce HEU for the Little Boy bomb

were/are the same uranium enrichment plants used to produce enriched uranium for US civilian nuclear power plants.

They consume(d) enormous quantities of coal-fired electricity - and were/are some of the dirtiest coal-fired plants in the country.

Nuclear power's dirtiest secrets.

Boo-fucking-hoo...

:rofl:

[kristopher]

13. hmmm

Achieving greater energy efficiency, however, also requires ending the lopsided system of taxpayer nuclear subsidies that encourage the myth of inexpensive electricity from atomic power. Since 1949, the U.S. government has provided about $165 billion in subsidies to nuclear energy, about $5 billion to solar and wind together, and even less to energy-efficiency programs. All government efficiency programs—to encourage use of fuel-efficient cars, for example, or to provide financial assistance so that low-income citizens can insulate their homes—currently receive only a small percentage of federal energy monies.

http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10884

[tinrobot]

7. Fossil fuels?

Do you have a plan to confine this ONE form of waste from dangerous fossil fuel waste for an infinite period?

I think just about everyone on this forum would like to see the end of fossil fuel use, so please stop setting up that straw man.

How we get rid of fossil fuels is up for debate.

[NNadir]

12. Bullshit.

There are ZERO "renewables will save us" advocates in this forum who can count exajoules.

Every single "renewables will save us" advocate on this website acts like there is infinite time to address their stupid little fantasies. There isn't. Climate Change is not going to a problem in 2050 when the little cretins at Greenpeace think that 30% of the world's electricity will come from wind.

Climate change is a SERIOUS problem NOW.

Now.

Got it?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

The world is using 500 exajoules of energy. The world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free energy is nuclear energy at 30 exajoules. You're against it. All your yuppie toys combined don't produce 5.

YOU. CAN'T. COUNT.

[tinrobot]

15. Please stop with the hyperbole and insults.

YOU. CAN'T. COUNT.

If you must know, I have a degree in physics.

I'm up for a healthy debate, but I think from now on I'm only debating healthy people.

[kgrandia]

10. Huh?

Nuclear is "happily" better than everything else? I don't get it. I have not decided whether I think nuclear should be part of the future energy mix... and to say it so definitively as you have, it would be great to hear your argument.

[Zachstar]

20. Fission is not going to be part of the future mix because of cost.

But that is it. Everything else is mere fantasy after the many years of hard work put into making these things safe.

When fusion under Pb11 comes online Fission will be utterly cost ineffective because at that point DT reactors will have dropped the price of energy by a big deal.

That's perfectly fine tho. They gave us decades of climate change free energy while the idiots did everything they could to stop it.

[losthills]

2. There is no safe way or safe place to "store" it.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Plutonium? Burn it off. Thorium is probably the best material for fission.

Technically, Thorium is fertile as opposed to fissile. It absorbs neutrons and produces U-233. U-233 is preferable to (fissile) U-235 or (fertile) U-238 in many ways.

It's almost three times as abundant as Uranium, it's less radioactive, it's nearly impossible to provoke into a melt-down, it's certain to be cheaper to build reactors for it, it produces a smaller amount of trans-Uranic material like Plutonium, and it's much more difficult to turn it into a weapon. Thorium reactors can also be used to productively exhaust Plutonium, too, more efficiently than the recycling technologies being used now.

And this isn't theory. There have been thorium reactors built, and at least two have been built for large-scale power generation. (The Kakrapar reactors in India.) Here is a http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html">backgrounder on thorium fission. Between thorium and CANDU technology, existing nuclear energy risks can be further reduced from their current levels.

Plutonium is best left, IMO, mixed in its natural ore matrix. What we have, from nuclear weapons, we should use as reactor fuel until it's gone.

Coal combustion is the real radiological threat.

--p!

[losthills]

9. Right, you are the expert!

You are the only person in the world that knows how to "quickly render radioactive waste non-radioactive."

We mortals can merely grovel at your feet, for you have saved humanity from doom!

DOOM!!!

[Dogmudgeon]

11. And you're a "peace activist", right?

I posted about this a couple times. You might want to learn to read before you flap your hypocritical hole.

If you can't read, and if you can't get anyone to read it to you, that's your problem.

As I recall, I was even nice about it. Understanding. Compromising.

You haven't written a single word here that isn't sullen and resentful. I had no right to expect any better.

Peace.

--p!

[losthills]

14. Taken as a whole, your posts about nuclear energy,

which is the ONLY subject you post on, are so far beyond the lunatic fringe that there is no name for the territory you inhabit. Really, it's beyond ridiculous. I'm doing you a favor to point that out to you, and I think you should thank me.

[Dogmudgeon]

16. You are talking about me -- "Pigwidgeon" -- right?

I've been posting at DU for 6 years on a large variety of subjects. Nuclear energy issues have been a small part overall.

Are you sure you're referring to my posts?

Have you even read any of them?

:wtf:

--p!

[Zachstar]

19. He is THE losthills the same one that read a TON of papers in under 10 mins!

Its stunning! The same kind of stunning you see when Bush says there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

[Dogmudgeon]

21. No biggie

At the very least, he's got good taste in music.

Here's http://losthillsroad.blogspot.com/">Lost Hills Road. (Unfortunately, his blog's music streaming service crashes Firefox 3, so I can't really comment on his oeuvre yet.)

And he is still a long sight better than Bush. Bush, for example, only plays guitar when a city is drowning.

--p!

[Zachstar]

17. Only in your fantasy land would we thank YOU for anything losthills.

Just about ever post I read from you is useless and just wastes my time. You arent helping anyone and you sure as hell arent helping the poor bunnies that have have been irradiated in fantasy land.

[Zachstar]

18. losthills if you are only going to post stupidity please don't waste the database bandwidth

It is obvious to more than just me that you do not have the education to question him on his statements. You don't have to be a nuc expert however to be sane about fission energy. Being a fundie at just the word nuclear is about as stupid as it gets when it comes to myths and urban legends.


So you obviously have no clue about the multiple ways waste can be removed by active means. Or more likely in my view you don't want to know because that is what gives you the fantasy argument to go after fission power.

Give it up losthills the fantasy game is up. We know how fundies gloss over radioactive waste coming from coal plants. We know about the lack of education going into more than half the arguments when attacking existing fission power.