CO2, plant food, a pollutant; Dangerous greenhouse gas..
People are made mostly of H2O.
Even greater danger of a greenhouse gas, than CO2

Critical mass. Posiive water vapor feedback,
Triggered by the Nuclear Power water towers
Stick with the cheapest, burn Coal .

As a person who was employed by a large A/E firm in the area of start-up and testing of new nuclear power plants I am glad to see a renewed intrest in the construction of new plants. Before seeking employment in this field I did extensive reseach into the safety of these plants . I never worried about contamination or accidents while working in the field. The only concern I had is the one that has still not been solved, what to do with the waste from these plants. I do believe that this problem can be solved and that we need to start building new plants. They are safe and they do not contribute to the greenhouse gas problem and if we adopt the “standard plant” costs can be brought way down.
D.L (Hoot) Gibson

We need clean power. In the last few decades, the nuclear power industry has made great strides. Yes, it is high-tech, expensive, and just a stepping stone to even cleaner energy, but we need it. Like many industries, we have allowed ourselves to falter in, America must get back in to the lead on nuclear power.

Those of us who have ever worked in the Navy’s nuclear power program have known for decades that nuclear power is safe, and Asian and European countries have showed the rest of the world that nuclear power can be cheaper, and don’t nesessarily fueled with Uranium.

Another point: the statement about the U.S. not building reactor vessels any longer isn’t completely accurate; every reactor vessel on every nuclear powered submarine, aircraft carrier, and cruiser was built, and is being built right here in the United States.

Let’s get those new designs on the drawing board and get to building- coal, natural gas, and oil aren’t going to last forever, and there are plenty of fissile materials that can be mined and utilized to power the U.S. into a more green future.

Positive Water Vapor Feedback? As a Nuclear Operator with over 38 years of experience, I haven’t heard that before. More Coal Plants have Cooling Towers than Nuclear plants. The Plant I work at in CT doesn’t have Cooling Towers. What cost is worth Air Pollution? People are always shown pictures of cooling towers and associate it with Nuclear Power. They are used by many plants where supplies of cooling water are low. They just recycle the water as much as possible.

The development of nuclear power, compared to the abortion of fossile power, still, even with Chernobyl and TMI combined, has resulted in less death and environmental destruction worldwide, than the bastardization of death and destruction reeked upon only one country by oil production. Now keep in mind, that’s comparing the ENTIRE nuclear world POWER history to merely the OIL PRODUCTION! The choice is obvious to even the most casual observer as to which is safer: nuclear is safer. Which is cleaner…even without long term (hundreds of years) storage completed, nuclear utilities have identified more than adequate nuke waste storage capabilities; which lead to even cleaner environmental results than ever. I am looking out of my window today comparing the six smokestacks of “dirtburners” (fossile fuel power plants) and at the containment buildings of two of the oldest nuclear power plants in the United States. Guess which is producing less emissions than that automobile of yours? The nuclear plant is emitting ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except over 1400 Megawatts of pure clean electricity. One refueling every 18 months, on the average, versus the massive tanks of fuel being sucked down by the fossile burners.

It is irresponsible and immorale to not push nuclear power in the United States.

Coal burning produces CO, CO2, black particulates, and wasted heat. Coal mining has killed more people due to mine collapse than the entire nuclear power industry ever has.

Nuclear saves lives, the environment, and therefore money.

With regards to unwanted people getting their hands on waste for nuclear weapons: If we reprocess our own spent fuel isn’t it unlikely that anything usable can be obtained by the final waste?

With regards to coal: The mining process is very disruptive to the local environment. In addition what can be said about the refining process or the afore mentioned mining processes of coal? What kind of waste and disruption to the environment do we see from this activity? Strip mining is not a pretty sight.

I think we should ernestly move forward with respects to increasing our use of nuclear power.
1.) cleaner emissions.
2.) less dependence on fossil fuels
3.) the increased use will spark newer technologies that will make the process more efficient and possibly lead to new technology all together
4.) building, running, and maintaining new plants will create lots of new jobs.
5.) while the up front cost to build the plant is significantly higher, the actual cost to produce the electricity is much, much less. While it will be unlikely that we will see lower costs for electricity up front, I believe nuclear power will keep utility costs down especially as fossil fuel sources dwindle. This may not be seen in our lifetime, or our childrens lifetime, but certainly in times to come.

The U.S. Navy has operated hundreds of nuclear reactors very safely for half a century. I live in Norfolk where nuclear powered Navy submarines and aircraft carriers come and go into and out port every day. There is no doubt nuclear power can be provided safely. The Navy has proven that.

Consider how many people are killed in coal mine accidents as well as the environmental impact of emissions from coal plants. Clearly coal is not the long term solution to growing energy demands. Solar and wind power seem very attractive due to no raw material cost and benign environmental impact, but those sources can not provide baseline energy needs. Natural gas has some advantages, but no more petro-chemical fuels are being made and extraction costs for remaining supplies of those fuels are going up.

The best long term solution is not nuclear energy by splitting atoms (fission), but orders of magnitude more energy by combining hydrogen, the most abundant element on the earth (fussion). We do not have the technology yet to make fussion a practical energy alternative, but we need to aggressively pursue that technology now. The future of our children deserve our best efforts, not short sighted crisis management of energy supplies.

Nuclear power is and always has been the best producer of electric power. There is no comparison when you look at the total volume of waste left after running a nuclear power plant for 30 years vs running the same sized coal plant for the same number of years. The pile of hazardous fly ash would be huge. We, as a country need to start reprocessing our spent nuclear fuel and embrace new technologies that take the spent fuel, reburn it in a different reaction, and turn it into something that will be safe in hundreds of years instead of thousands of years. No more burning dirt for power.

Solar panels on every business roof top and small wind turnbines on businesses and homes. This would supply a great deal of energy with little enviroment effect. Franko doesn’t take into account the great amount of energy produced by Nuclear compared to Coal. I believe we need to take every step we can to minimize our use of Coal and Nuclear. Why not build a new industry by putting money into solar and wind and we should see vast improvements in the technology as we did with computers. Instead of sending our money to Japan for nuclear reactors to be built, keep the money here and invest in solar and wind to lead the world in this technology.

Nuclear is the way to go as a priority. The technology is proven, and designs are ready. Electricity can be produced 24/7. Building and running reactors creates jobs that must be in the US, and could stimulate dying construction related industries. The next energy shortage after gas for vehicles will be electricity. If the US is to lead, it must be an electricity exporter as well as consumer.

All fossil fuels are in long-term limited abundance. New solar techniques are coming along, and will be important/useful in the Sunbelt. Biofuels have questionable returns (land for food vs biofuel) in the long run. Therefore, we need to increase the use of nuclear energy while moving forward on other technologies and improving resourcing of oil.

Please, look at the “new” technology (developed in the 1960’s) of Pebble Bed nuclear reactors and write a meaningful piece on nuclear technology as it is TODAY; cheap, clean, and safe. Compare that to the millions of tons of mercury, uranium, and *gasp*, carbon dioxide released each year by burning coal, and the superiority of PBNR energy should be evident.

Nuclear power generation is technologically flawed. The large scale (1 million) mega watt reactors produce neutron flux too great for for the stainless steel to withstand and hence consequently pipes leak. This is because the constituents of the steel absorb neutrons and become other elements and weaken the steel. The lower level reactors were upscaled without looking at the neutron flux problem and the nuclear processing of spent fuel.

The efficiency of the generation of electricity is much lower than traditional NON RADIOACTIVE instilling energy production. The costs are above traditional electricity generation when you calculate storage of radioactive used fuel elements, their processing which increases plutonium stores, the coast of retirement of old reactors and containment building, and the potential for a melt down increases with each increase in reactors.

Let us first increase efficiency of the non nuclear electrical generation,
increase CO2 entrapment and decrease burning of carbon based fuels before going to nuclear power electrical generation which is only good for 20-30 years for each plant.

Frederick W. Nelson M.S., M.A.
Nelson Counseling Suite 209
2366 Eastlake Avenue E.
Seattle, WA 98102
Phone: 206-729-0678
Fax: 206-729-0678
Email: fwnelson@verizon.net
fwnelson.com

Nuclear power is great, but we have to get back to reprocessing spent fuel rods like the French do. Jimmy Carter conceded this during the SALT talks almost 30 years ago. I think it’s time to revisit this. After reprocessing and reuse of the repocessed fuel you’re left with a low level radioactive residue with a half life of maybe 100 years. The French design is also safe and effecient.

Do more research before writing!

First off, Three Mile Island was an incident that needed addressing, but it was not a near meltdown by any means.

Secondly, the reason why no new nuclear power plants have been built recently was the governmental procedures required for doing so. These procedures have only recently been revamped. Before the change about two years ago, the power plant investors had to get the permits to build, build the power plant, and not until after it was built could they apply for a permit to operate the power plant. In other words, millions of dollars could be spent to design and build a power plant, but then there was a risk that it could not be used. Power plants that can’t be run are not very practical. These power plants take longer to plan and build than an adminstration is in office, so no one with half a brain was going to take that financial risk.

would that be ‘clean coal’?
Seriously, I agree we shouldn’t go that route….we really need to go with natural forces (wind power, solar)..with all the scientific knowledge out there I’m sure new things are being created to harvest from nature (wind sun) cost effectively. I know my state now has wind farms..though the sound, I’ve heard, is what agitates others..so that would be an issue to work on….

Franko, less drinking more thinking, OK!

I think that some of your arguments against nuclear hold little to no weight. The spent fuel that is being stored at all the stations around the US is not of the proper enrichment to be used as a weapon! It is simply very radioactive material. In addition like you say it is all being kept on the site of each station. Think about that! These plant have been operating for 30 to 40 years and all of their waist can be stored at each site. Hardly very much waist wouldn’t you say? I wonder how much space would be needed to contain all the dirty exhaust from coal fire plants for 30 years. Oh wait we do store it, right next to our O-Zone holes.

Listen, water is a natural shield for radiation. At each nuclear site you will find a deep pool about the size of your community pool. All the spent fuel is kept in this pool with about 35 ft of water between the surface and the tops of the rods. It is perfectly safe to go in and look down at the fuel as it rests there from its labor, not too mention is has a neat blue glow. So though Yucca Mnt would have been a good place to store it, it is all perfectly safe were it is.

Oh and we don’t really want to talk about mining do we? I won’t even go into the comparison between the little amount of Uranium Mining and the ridicules amounts of Coal Mining. Trust me, more have died going after the black stuff by far!

Barring any amazing new break through in power generation, I will place my support to Nuclear. Not to mention that it takes over 800 employees to operate a nuclear plant (JOBS JOBS JOBS) and around 30 for the alternative facilities, did I mention that Nuclear is cheaper per Kilo Watt!

Nukes are not the answer. Besides the normal rhetoric they use over 1 billion gallons of water each year which is also a growing problem in the U.S. The amount of money to build and operate these plants if put into our current energy infrastructure and Wind Turbines would be much less expensive and a whole lot quicker answer to the question.
With a high voltage D.C. backbone across the U.S. where as we can balance loads of electric based on peak demand time zones and wind generation load leveling would be much cheaper and quiicker.
Follow the money is a good addage in all of thiAsk for and receive real estimates of cost and timing from Nuclear advocates and non advocates and balance out . Jobs are a big issue coming up. The U.S. has no nuclear building industry so we have to go to France or japan for our plants as stated. Wind turbines and infrastructure can all be built here and the jobs will be here.

I think the environmental factors of both fission power and fossil fuel need to be compared side-by side. If the health hazards of one outweigh that of the other, then we should cautiously proceed with the better product. I’m guessing that’s going to be fission power. The radiation can be isolated, though there needs to be more regulation in uranium mining, waste storage and enforcement of new technology.

Also, the world is very close to producing fusion power, witch creates practically no radiation, creates water as the byproduct of the reaction and produces much more energy than that of a fission reactor. Projects like ITER and similar projects in the UK, US and China should be accelerated. Just think what the world would accomplish if it were able to form the same kinds of coalitions and contribute the same amount of funds for energy research and development as it does for war. The same thing can be said for all of our global problems.

Nuclear Power is a good but not great alternative to bridge the gap between the technology we have available today and what we need for a sustainable future. We all understand the many problems with fossil fuels from their retrieval to their perceived and actual impact on the environment and health. Those who really understand the full picture know that solar, wind and other renewable are good in situations, but even the most liberal politicians like Kennedy and Kerry are outspoken advocates of the “not in my backyard” approach where they promote the technology but then fight its application anywhere near their homes. Nuclear, including solutions for reprocessing and long term disposal needs to be teamed up with renewable to create a comprehensive bridge to the future.

Once we have that we need to put more concerted efforts behind newer technologies. The media can and should be part of this. Instead of focussing so much effort on telling us how bad each choice is, how about talking more about projects like ITER where scientists are working to create the worlds most advanced nuclear fusion reactor. Imagine a technology where you feed water in, get oxygen and helium out oh, and as a byproduct you get enough energy to power our ever growing appetites. The problem is that technologies like this are optimistically 30 years off so in the meantime what is more dangerous to the Earth and its people, burning coal or splitting atoms?

Get your facts straight. There was no near melt down at the Three Mile Island site. There was a very minor release of slightly radioactive gas from TMI. It was a safety incident so insignificant that it is hardly worth talking about.

Nuclear energy currently represents 70% of the carbon dioxide free electricity generation in this country and if we are serious about reducing carbon dioxide emissions then we must expand nuclear energy for baseload generation. The other currently existing sources can help supplement but they cannot provide baseload electricity due to their intermittent nature (i.e. wind does not blow all the time nor does the sun shine all the time).

I would have to say that I wouldn’t mind no more than 5 new Nuclear power plants but a stronger investment in Wind, Solar, Tidal, and Hydro energy should be done first and foremost.

The coastal lands of Washington, Oregon, and California would be prime for Wind power, inlets, like the Straight of Juan de Fuca‎ could be an excellent source for tidal power.

Until we can get near the Sim City age and build a Fusion power plant, these are really our only true alternatives. Off shore drilling will only help in the short term.

Another thing that would help dramatically - build an electrified network of rail corridors. Railroads and the trucking industry use the most fuel in the United States next to the Automobile.

I just don’t know if wind, solar can create enough to offset oil/coal…

Man… we burn a lot of fuel in this country…

And where do they propose to get fuel for all of these nuclear reactors? Uranium mines are showing lower outputs every year–hey, we’re running out of this stuff too. Just like oil.

At least at the current time, there is no such thing as completely clean power. Even wind and solar have ecological footprints that are not particularly well understood at the current time (lets recall that a lot of exotic materials are used in solar cells that might have unknown effects on people and the environment). At the very least, to replace our current energy demands, let alone meet our future energy demands will demand that very large portions of our country will have to be filled with Solar and wind farms.

Coal, while plentiful and cheap has serious long term implications. Yes, CO2 is plant food, and if there were enough plants to use it all, then we would be fine, but there are not. further, coal often has plenty of contaminents in it that make it far more damaging to the global environment than all the nuclear power used in the last 50 years (including the dropping of A-bombs). Certainly, if we omit the use of Nuclear weapons on cities, nuclear power has killed far fewer in the last 60 years than coal power has.

Now, I am not saying we should simply start building nuclear power, but to dismiss it without serious consideration would be a big mistake. Particularly since there are some types in development that would be virtually impossible to melt down, and produce shorter lived waste products (look up Thorium Energy Pumps).

–
Bill

As a life-long anti-nuke…. I think we should consider the benefits but only if we can resolve the problems first. 1) Disposal…. Until that is really solved, we have no business creating more waste. 2) Safety/Security: We need to locate Nuke plants as fas as possible AWAY from population areas. So far (and due to the cost of transmission) the nuke plants are mostly near major population centers. Someday a major accident will contaminate millions of people. Granted, it may not be in the US, but it’s bound to happen.

Note: Nukes are not low-cost generators. If you add the un-accounted for costs of waste and disaster potential, they are not even close to being cost-effective at this time.

Comeon people, get with the program. stop the kick back at Yucca Mountain and bring back teh steel industry. wait for Japan, yeah right, build it at home. anything we need to build these reactors we should build at home, including the labor force to do it. Nukes are cheap to operate and provide much more electricity than we could ever get from the sun or wind. I’d rather live next to a nuke plant than a bunch of windwills, and here in Central IL i live next to both. I go skiing on clionton lake, used to cool the plant and have to stare at flashing lights from those ugly windmills. i say we build 100 nukes by 2012, and hire as many blue collar red blooded americans as it takes to get the job done.

The problem is wind and even solar is not a fuel. We can’t get it whenever we want it, wherever we want it. Nuclear can be located near every population center regardless of available wind or sun. We’ve wasted valuable time over the last 30 years. If we were using 80% nuclear, then despite our increased oil use, we would have been net negative on carbon emissions in the U.S. Yucca Mountain is a fine storage proposal that is well researched by respected scientists. It’s not perfect, but far better than the other available solutions: local storage on site or reprocessing. We need to be rational humans and not be scared by complex processes — one coal mine has probabl killed more people directly and indirectly than all the nuclear reactors in the world

Build more nuclear plants. Solve nuclear “waste” problem without reprocessing by using deep burn technologies. Nuclear power is the greenest way to boost baseload capacity.

Interim solution:
Fuel rods from existing nuclear plants can be used again in Canadian-style CANDU reactors, without chemical or heat reprocessing. Ship them to Canada as fuel or build CANDU plants onsite at existing nuclear sites to burn the used fuel (DUPIC process).
http://www.niof.org/campaigns/dupic.htm

Long-term solution:
Develop and build molten salt thorium reactors (LFTRs). These reactors basically burn their own waste, leaving no long-lived nuclear byproducts. In addition, they generate industrial-grade process heat that can replace many uses of natural gas, and also can efficiently generate hydrogen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LFTR

First, thanks to CNN for posting a relatively balanced entry on nuclear.

I don’t think it’s political fever that’s making lawmakers jump on any proverbial bandwagon. Instead, our leaders are following the public’s increasing acknowledgement of nuclear power as a safe, secure, and reliable way of producing mass quantities of electricity with low carbon emissions. Note I didn’t say zero; of course some carbon is emitted by mining uranium, building plants, etc., but those “net lifecycle” emissions are far lower than most any other power generation method out there.

Renewables are great, but they’re not a silver bullet. The best renewables out there only work around 20% of the time (a phenomenon known as “capacity factor”). Nuclear isn’t a silver bullet, either. Nuclear plants are highly capital-intensive projects and take many years to construct. However, only by wielding all practical methods of generation will we arrive at the best method of maintaining our way of life and reducing our carbon footprint at the same time. We owe no less an effort to our progeny.

Currently there are some 442 nuclear reactors in the world with at least another 12 under construction in Asian countries, Brazil and Finland.
So what are advantages of nuclear energy?
Fissile atoms contain vast amounts of energy
No greenhouse gases are released by nuclear power plants.
Uranium is obtained from open-cut mines and is not expensive to mine. World reserves are estimated to last anywhere between 6 to 150 years.
There has not been any other incidents since Chernobyl. I would consider Nuclear power to be Relatively safe. All our submarines and aircraft carriers use nuclear power.

Just like they say drill, drill, drill. I also say nuke, nuke, nuke. They have always been a good way to go. Yes, some issues need to be worked out, but I think they are just below the radar now and with better technology, can easily be solved if they come to the forefront with new reactors. It will take a while to build and lot more and by that time many issues can be worked out. So I say drill, drill, drill and build, build, build. Nuclear can be controlled and understood with more research and experience.

Does anyone know what is going on with nuclear fusion research? It was being touted as the future of power production but now you don’t even hear about it.

Liquid metal cooled fast breeder reactors with a closed fuel cycle are available today. With breeder technology the fuel supply is virtually inexhaustible . Fuel supply issue gone, waste issue gone, C02 issue gone. You just have to get over your Plutoniumphobia.

If we would reprocess our spent fuel rods the way practically every other nuclear power producing country does, where to find fuel becomes much less of a problem. I agree, if we continue to not reprocess our spent fuel there is not enough uranium in the world to support a long-term U.S. nuclear power program, but if we reprocessed there is enough for centuries. Any serious U.S. nuclear program MUST include provisions for repealing the reprocessing ban currently in place.

Nuclear power does not emit CO2, NOX, SOX gasses that cause acid rain and ozone deterioration. Unfortunately, President Carter’s policy towards nuclear power has left the US high and dry. France is powered by 80% nuclear power. The current policy of a single pass use of uranium fuel rods (use and throw away) has allowed the US to stockpile more uranium in the cooling pools. ONLY 3% of the fissionable U235 is used up when the rods are removed from the core, that means 97% is still available for use. It is estimated the is currently enough uranium without additional mining to power the US for another 300 years. The word “recycling” comes to mind as other countries (France, England, Japan) are already doing this, but Carter’s policy put us behind in the energy game.

Granted nuclear power is not the only answer, but it could definitely be a major substitute until solar (<8%) and wind are online. Unfortunately, the power output from these methods is not efficient enough yet to power city. We would have cover the state of oklahoma to generate enough electricity, but does not take into account redistribution across the US.

The bottom line is we need to develop our power grid and change our transportation methods by actually developing a national system of trains, trams and buses that run electricity rather than oil. We have to change our habits to conserve energy and quit wasting it away.

Interestingly to note that in addition to green house gases, the burning of coal release far more radioactive materials (Uranium, thorium, decay products) in the air and surrounding soils, which have been sited to cause higher rates of cancer, especially in children.

Fuel a problem for a reactor?

Last time I checked, breeder reactors put out the same abount of heat (usable for power generation) as the non-breeder reactors currently used for power generation. Build one, then let IT make the fuel for the others…..

Little additional new fuel is needed (AFAIK).

Rick- where to get fuel? How about australia?

Yucca Mountain - could it have overrun its budget because the design criteria were dictated by politicians?

Seriously - this is a no-brainer. Nukes are the only answer to fossil fuel dependance in the forseeable future.
.
Its much easier to police our own country than the whole world, so I think the waste argument is valid but not a deal-breaker.

Did you know that the US is the only country in the world that tries to bury it’s nuclear waste? You know why that is? Because it is a stupid idea! Nuclear fuel can be recycled and used 100 times!!!! After 50 years the remains are less dangerous to the environment then when the Uranium was dug up out of the ground! That’s why every other country recycles it’s nuclear fuel. (I heard the US doesn’t be cause we thought if we don’t no one else will and we don’t want them to recycle fuel and potentially reclaim plutonium in the process. But everyone else recycles anyway because burying it is a waste and stupid.)

When the US grows up and stops trying to bury its nuclear waste the US will be able to have a real nuclear energy program.

nuclear fusion is a more likely candidate, although not ready to be implemented. it is based on the same principles as the reactions in the sun. a fusion of hydrogen isotopes produce helium. if more research and funding was placed into projects like ITER and DEMO, then the worldwide results would be profound. a near inexhaustible supply with little nuclear waste (50 years for the equipment only) and little potential for any dangerous accidents. please research it fully before you write it off. its power output and eventual cost of construction alone are reason enough to consider it. factor in its safety and this is the most logical next step.

Yes nuclear energy is safe and effective, but with the exorbitant cost of the steel and concrete needed to build new plants as well as the huge environmental toll, I just don’t see how it will be feasible. Expanding wind and solar farms, investing heavily in discovering and developing new technologies like clean coal, and encouraging energy efficient improvements through tax incentives and a cap and trade system is really the only solution.

“And where do they propose to get fuel for all of these nuclear reactors?”

Nuclear waste can easily be recycled into new fuel. There is fuel enough for thousands of years if we recycle.

S Callahan, you have to realize that wind and solar are not adequate sources of base energy. There are no nuclear proponents who are against solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, etc…, but at this point and the foreseeable future, those renewables are not capable of replacing the energy coal and nuclear provide. If we are serious about the fight against global warming, nuclear has to be a part of the solution.

We need to start building thermal or fast breeder reactors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_breeder_reactor). With these reactors more fissile material is produced than consumed. Once you have them up and running all they need is natural (non-radioactive) uranium or thorium (more abundant than uranium) to continue. They can use nearly all of their initial fissionable material (with on-site re-processing), resulting in less radioactive waste. Any waste that is produced has a significantly shorter half-life than what comes out of our current pressurized water reactors. The U.S. had a project that was canned in the 90s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor) which was a type of breeder reactor. This is the newer, safer generation of nuclear reactors which could replace all coal and natural gas power plants that are spewing out harmful amounts of gases and heavy metals.

1- Most of the problems with spent fuel storage are politically created, not science based.
2- There is a large supply of uraium, if the market is there to spur supply.
3- Nuclear fission energy is probably not a “forever solution” , but it could be a very good “100 year” solution to energy cost and indepenedence
4- The US invented and developed nuclear power. We should be able to return to the “top of the heap” if we choose to.
5 - The West, indeed the entire US, was won by people who had the gumption to “git’er done”. Have we lost it?

The time has come to revive nuclear energy. We have learned a lot since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. At that time, we did not have the technology to handle many of the problems involved. France, Sweden and Belgium now produce 50% or more of their electricity from nuclear power. The French produce a whopping 77% making them the leader in safety and energy self-sufficiency. We need to learn from what they have accomplished in the last 30 years, as well as many EU countries, Japan and Canada that have used nuclear power well. If we ever want to break the dependency on oil bearing countries that “hate us”, wind and sun will never supply enough power. Did you know that wind powered turbines kill bats and birds at an alarming rate? A bat can eat 600 mosquitoes in one hour, so the loss of a few can have devistating consequences. We need to use our best long term option to solve our energy problems.

What will Martin Sheen chain himself to, now that nuclear is OK with liberals?

We are not running out of uranium. Studies have show that we have enough uranium to last thousands of years even at the highest rates of usage. Even then, the Japanese have come up with ways to extract the trace amounts of uranium found in seawater and refine that. And when we have TONS of nuclear “waste” that can be reprocessed and used again, we are a long, LONG, way from running out of uranium fuel.

As far as the whole water vapor feed back, there are new reactor designs which are safe and do not use pressurized water in the reactor (i.e. Sodium reactors). Therefore the risk of another Chernobyl is eliminated altogether.

The only reason we have tons of nuclear waste is because we don’t reprocess it. If we had reprocessing plants like those in Europe, we wouldn’t have to be storing this stuff in a mountain. As far as the “Environmental legacy” the one in France has left behind, those plants have been around for awhile with the newest ones opening almost 20 years ago. We have cleaner ways of reprocessing nuclear fuel now days.

No, we’re running out because we won’t reprocess the fuel. France does and gets most of its electricity from oil. If we reprocessed the used fuel rods there would be enough Uranium for thousands of years of power.

Lower uranium mining output can be linked to the price and demand for uranium. At this point it is not as profitable to mine. With new reactors coming online the out put of uranium would increase. The USA has a large supply of uranium in several western states (Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas).

I don’t even know what Franko is talking about. Looks like bullet points. Burning coal produces more radioactive elements in the atmosphere than nuclear generation does. Uranium and other radioactive elements are found in coal. Solar, wind, and other alternatives are great ideas and will be beneficial in the future. The problem is that is in the future. Solar also puts out long lived dangerous chemicals just like nuclear. Nuclear energy provides the best technology to bridge the gap between current alternative technologies to future alternative base load production.

Very interesting…I’m glad they’ve finally given up on how dangerous nuclear power plants are.

My father-in-law is a maintenance engineer at a nuclear power plant in Illinois. He had to have one of those medical tests done where they inject radiation into you to measure the uptake — he set off every alarm within 30 yards of the plant entrance for 2 weeks! What the medical community considers “safe” radiation is hundreds of times what the nuclear industry allows to enter or leave its facilities.

I’d personally like to see more discussion and attention be given to the idea to determine its viability in today’s economy — I’d recommend moving forward on it, mainly to keep an eye on Russia and Venezuela nuclear partnerships.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080929/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_venezuela_russia_nuclear_power_1

Solar cells are becoming more and more efficient, and one day, could be our energy solution, which would be fantastic. The only question is, is that day 10 years away, or 30? All the nuclear waste created in America since the 1950’s would fit in a high school gym. Dingy Harry Reid needs to shut up and let Yucca proceed. It seems he believes Nevada’s desert is priveledged over other deserts, despite the fact that much of the infrastructure is already in place. If reprocessing has become viable, let’s do that too. We need to to throw the kitchen sink at our energy problems, doing what we can to meet needs, and address climate change by putting dirty coal power plants on the endangered species list. Nuclear is a ready bridge to the future of clean energy.

The article does a kinda half encouragement half dissuade type of presentation. It does not discuss the facts about all the nuclear power plants that have run for years with little or no problems. It does not discuss the difficulties in making weapons grade nuclear material out of regular old U-235. It also does not address the gains in management and operations learned from years of problem free operations on the Navy ships that have used nuclear power for decades. True the U.K. and France have problems with disposal of used fuel, however, they started early and made choices on the knowledge and beliefs of the time and have not been able to totally shut down and start over. Any disposal in today’s world would have a headstart by building and learning from their early mistakes.

Wind is a viable technology as well as solar, especially for large cities with sky scrapers. To elaborate, there are many sites around the U.S. today that utilize several different functions, i.e. a water tower that doubles as a cell tower. Why not take this idea a little further by combining skyscrapers, wind turbines and solar panels. Place the wind turbine on top of the skyscraper (where winds are at the highest velocities) and have the glass panels be solar panels? Sure, you might not have that wonderful view from the office, but your company would definitely be able to afford your salary by completely cutting their energy expenses. Maybe that building would be able to produce enough electricity to contribute to the grid of the city around it. This way we don’t have to deal with the non-renewable resources of coal, uranium or natural gas (which is sort of renewable when accounting for the growing landfills). Just an idea…just throwing it out there.

Reprocessing has been feasible for about forty years. The breeder reactor idea died because the result of reprocessing spent uranium fuel is plutonium, and plutonium is weapons-grade fissile material. It’s not a technology issue, it’s a proliferation issue.

We can do about half of what we need through application of more conservative technologies. The internal combustion engine is pitifully inefficient, for instance; by solving the power storage problem and moving personal transportation with electric vehicles, we reduce emissions even if the electricity comes from coal, because steam turbines, transmission lines, and electric motors, taken together, are still more efficient than a gasoline engine. Similar opportunities exist for building climate control systems: Earth-exchange heat pumps require less than half the power conventional air-exchange systems need.

By becoming more conservative in our use of power, we can become energy-independent at much lower cost than we can by just finding more sources of energy to squander.

After we harvest the obvious low-hanging fruit, nuclear power’s a good option, but I’d like to see the US take up the fusion power challenge again. If we depend on fission reactors, we will eventually run out, but we’ll never run out of hydrogen.

We’re seeing now that even if we start using less oil, OPEC is going to cut production to keep the price of oil high. They got a taste of $100 per barrel oil and they liked it!

We should use ALL available sources we have at our disposal to stop importing oil.

I personally think fusion is the long term answer and am glad to see international cooperation for the ITER fusion project. (google ITER)
It is long overdue.

In the mean time, any and all power producing methods should be employed to cut the flow of oil into the US, including nuclear power.
As a side effect of building a bunch of Nuclear plants maybe our steel industry would be revived.

So you can understand where I am coming from - I have degrees in physics and nuclear engineering - I worked in the nuclear industry for about 12 years (out of about 35 years). Nuclear power, if you look at the larger picture (and don’t cherry pick one segment of the industry) is the safest way to generate the amounts of power that need to be generated in the places it needs to be generated. NOTE: There are technical limits to how far the power generated in one place can be transmitted. There is a concept called power density, which relates to how much land it takes to generate how much energy. We cannot meet all of our demand off of the so called renewable energy sources. It takes vast areas to produce enough power from the windmills to replace ONE conventional power plant. And the windmills are deadly on migrating birds, so we can’t locate them in the migratory “flyway” areas. And they drive peoplenuts if you locate the things close to inhabited areas. They do OK in West Texas, but dang near no one lives there. I have no grudge against renewable power, but anyone who tells you we need to replace conventional power with the renewables is talking through his hat. We need ALL of the available options - including nuclear - and we need them to come on line fairly soon. The “waste disposal problem” is solved - it has been for at least 20 years. If anyone tells you different they are either ignorant or lying. The only problem is political.

There are 2 problems with nuclear energy, only one of which gets any attention, and very little at that.

Of primary concern is the waste involved. Until we can get a functional repository in place, by storing the nuclear waste on-site at each plant we’re just urinating and defecating in 5 gallon buckets that we store in the back closet in our own homes, and those buckets are continuously deteriorating.

Of secondary concern is the plant design. Right now, every single nuclear plant in the U.S. is uniquely designed, costing as much in engineering as it does to actually construct the plants.

What we need is a single, functional plant design that can be replicated anywhere a nuclear power plant is needed. This will allow us to have a parts repository and operational doctrine that will work for all plants.

Until we can establish a standardized plant template, we’re wasting endless money and resources.

Yes, we should use more nuclear power and will have to if we seriously want to confront climate change. While there are still issues, these are minute compared to the true costs of climate change. Consider that if you got all your electricity from nuclear power over your entire life, the waste you would generate would fit into a soda can — this is without recycling, which could reduce that by a factor of 20.

With regards to fuel supply, there is plenty, over 100 year’s worth without any recycling. Rick, I don’t know where you got information that uranium mines are running out, but I can assure you that there is plenty left. Of course, if we recycle, we can extend this resource dramatically to last thousands of years. The issue, in the past has been isolating plutonium, but new chemical separation cycles avoid this issue. Today, the issue is raw economics. There is simply too much cheap uranium around to make it useful.

I agree with the idea of restarting the fusion program. With all of the advancements in quantum science the solution to our energy issue seems right in front of us, the sun. The sun uses fusion to create its energy and currently we ARE able to control a fusion reaction in labs. This country must invest more time and money into this technology because if we solve the fusion problem we will not only fix the energy crisis but we will also solidify our position as the world’s leader.

We can all thank the Carter Administration for putting a stop to nuclear reprocessing, and throwing us back to the stone ages. Breeder reactors produce electricty and continuosly make more of the uranium fissable. Only about 5% of the nuclear fuel used in the US nuclear reactors actually is converted to energy. That means almost 95% is tied up ,wasted, because we won’t reprocess. Using the *waste* nuclear fuel we have already produced would be sufficient to keep the current set of reactors going for several hundred years. It would also get rid of the thread of terrorists stealing plutonium. Nuclear is the way of the future. No currently available energy source can produce as much electricty without the side effects (greenhouse gases).

The time for Luddites is over. Nuclear power is safe, secure and reliable. BUT … we must close the fuel cycle. The fuel must be reprocessed and the usable uranium and plutonium extracted for further use in power plants. To continue to dump over 90% of the usable uranium into waste piles because we are “afraid of proliferation” is wasteful and foolish. Jane, Tom, all you Holly-weirdo’s — go make movies and leave us alone. We must get nuclear power on line now!!!!

I for one, believe in the bridge concept for the use of nuclear power plants. I also believe we should leave no stone unturned in our quest to become not just energy independant (short sited view) but develope an energy source that can be used on a global level. I’ve lived closer to nuclear reactors than most people, USN sub service, I believe that they can be operated safely.

The nuclear industry has ALWAYS had a technical solution to its “waste problem”. In fact, it’s the only major energy source/industry that ever has. Nuclear waste is generated in tiny volumes, has always been completely contained, and had never had any measurable impact on public health or the environment. This, in stark contrast to fossil fuels, whose wastes (that are freely released into the environment) cause 25,000 deaths per year in the US alone and cause global warming.

As for the longer term solutions for nuclear waste, the “messy environmental legacy” of European reprocessing plants has not ever killed anyone. Even conservative analyses (just submitted to NRC) show that Yucca Mtn. will never have any significant environmental impact, with no possibility of exposing anyone to radiation levels outside the range of natural background (levels for which no health effects have ever been observed).

As for nuclear weapons proliferation, increasing the number of nuclear plants in the US will have absolutely no impact, period. Even the expansion of nuclear into developing countries will have no significant impact, since it is no easier to extract weapons material from spent fuel than it is to simply mine uranium from the ground. The only thing that needs to be controlled is the building of fuel cycle facilities (enrichment or reprocessing centers) in developing countries.

Finally, while there are some environmental impacts associated with uranium mining, any such impacts are much smaller than that of coal mines, per amount of electricity produced. This has to do with the fact that you get almost a million times as much energy from a pound of uranium than you do from a pound of coal. It should also be noted that any modern uranium mine will have a much smaller impact than those built in the bad old (pre-environmental) days of the ’50s and ’60s. Even renewable sources like solar and wind have a measurable environmental impact, since those sources require covering an enormous amount of land area with machinery in order to produce any significant amount of power. This issue is starting to rear its head, causing divisions between environmentalists.

Anyone who believes that radioactive waste disposal is only a problem for nuke plants is either ignorant or delusional. Fossil fuel plants create many, many times the radioactive waste that nuclear plants do (even on a curies/watt basis) but it is in the exhaust (smoke) rather than being captive in spent fuel cells. So instead of being put into barrels and buried, it gets pumped into the sky where we’ve been breathing it for the last century.

While wind, solar and other renewable sources are on the horizon, nuclear power can meet and exceed our capacity NOW and for a very low environmental cost. We need to shift to nuclear now, even if it is thirty years late.

It’s about time. No source is safe and to the best of my knowledge no one in this country has died from a nuclear plant related accident. Of course there are risks, but the rewards are greater. Nothing comes for free in real life.

as far as the critical mass comment - uh, you need to read up a little on your reactor design material and what critical mass truly means. Nuclear bombs are a little more complicated than putting the requisite amount of Uranium (or other) together.

Ken in Dallas

Agree… well said…

The most expensive part of burning hydrogen is seperating it from water… however I saw an interesting thing in the news about a guy who burns saltwater…. simple salt water… he puts it in radio waves that release the hydrogen which is what is actually burning… at like 1400 C….. pretty cool… look up “Salt Water Burns” on You Tube.

We have a lot of options… just need to look… especially if it can be more economical that many other avenues… etc…

Not a green nut… just like the idea of anything better! and if it helps the Earth in the process…. win, win

Where to start…..

All power plants require cooling towers or a large body of water to reject the heat into. Those TMI cooling tower symbols are also seent at coal plants.

This blog contains the usual fallacies about nuclear power, closing with the most offensive: implying that commercial nuclear plants in the U.S. provide a risk for weapons proliferation. Mr. Dykstra, you cannot produce weapons from any of the spent fuel that is stored at a U.S. nuclear power plant, nor with any of the NEW fuel destined for U.S. nuclear power plants. If you want to debate about reprocessing facilities in other countries, then do it in a separate piece.

Notice that this piece pretty much ignores the ravaging of the land due to the coal mining industry…and the much larger health problem burning coal poses than the rather pitifully small (by comparison) problem of mining uranium (and we’ve made some progress in that department, by the way).

Take a drive through any major city in the U.S. and think of the electrical loads there. Think of all the PCs in all the offices you see, the heating and cooling loads out there. Now look around at your own house and notice how many electrical appliances you have. We have a huge need for large base load power plants in the U.S. and while it’s great that wind power and solar power are improving and new generation methods are being developed, there will still be that need for large power plants. And nuclear power technology is here now. It’s a proven technology whether you want to admit it or not.

True, earth exchange heat pumps are more efficient, but who’s going to make everyone replace their hvac units with one? Who’s going to pay for it? Retrofitting a city with these things would be a more monstrous task than Boston’s Big Dig.

If you’re looking for a cause, then champion the snuffing out of fossil burning plants, not the nuclear ones. I’ve worked at both and I much prefer nuclear power.

If you really have the need to fear something, then look at the railroads running through your town. Look at the oil refineries and the chemical plants there. Remember Bhopal? You’ll see a more clear and present danger there, than nuclear power anyway, if you’ll just look.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, if you want to bring other countries into this discussion, look no further than China at the environmental and human toll of the use of coal for producing electricity vs. nuclear fission.

Hi, I encourage you all to take a read at the http://www.inl.gov about generation 4 nuclear research. There are reactor concepts that will get more power per pound of fuel, and concepts that will co generate Hydrogen Gas for the Hydrogen economy.

I also encourage you to review what you can about nuclear fuel cycles and ‘Experimental Breeder Reactor 2′.

I strongly believe that there are and have been technical solutions to technical problems. I think Yucca Mountain is the wrong thing, and reprocessing and recycling is the correct thing. Unfortunately, political will seems lacking, as does a general public knowledge of what really is technically possible.

Also, from a physics and engineering perspective, you cannot expect to completely decouple effective Fusion research from current Fission work. The people and agencies that oversee these fields are very similar if not the very same, aside from the practical aspects of performing meaningful Fusion growth, which will probably be given boon by additional general nuclear interest.

You do not produce energy by burning seawater. Water is H20, so you have to add enough energy to chemically seperate into H2 and O2 molecules. Burning the hydrogen simply returns that chemical energy back and reproduces the water. That’s why hydrogen is like a battery, not an energy source (it would be if H2 occured naturally, avoiding the energy intesive chemical seperation).

Fusion is another story altogether, as you get more energy out of the resulting nuclear reaction than you put in during chemical seperation.

[...] Then, on CNN.com’s SciTechBlog, Nuclear power: Seeing less political fission these days [...]

Radioactive nuclear wastes remain dangerous for millenia. For example, a recent spill of less than 1 gram of plutonium in a lab in Boulder, Colorado created widespread concern and Congressional investigation, bacuse even this small amount can poision and kill hundreds. Yet, spent nuclear fuel and especially recycled fuel would contains miilions times more material that remains toxic, with a half-life of 25,000 years. Nuclear power can provide a fraction of our energy for a few decades. Is it fair to endanger for this thousands of future generations? Instead of spending hundreds of billions for these reactors, we should invest in safe and clean solar power that will remain abundant virtually forever.

The nuclear industry will never have my support until they come clean and take responsibility for all of the people they have killed already (Read KILLING OUR OWN :The Disaster of America’s Experience
with Atomic Radiation by Harvey Wasserman & Norman Solomon at
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn/). Once they have done that, they can make their economic and environmental case and I might listen. Bear in mind that no nuclear plant has survived without taxpayer subsidies, government guarantees and/or money stolen from captive ratepayers.

Nuclear power is the way to go. Fusion is a nice idea, and hopefully can be achieved one day. Fission we have right now, and through the use of breeder reactors, there is enough cheap uranium available to provide for the worlds energy needs for the next 100-200 years.

Obviously that would involve the creation of plutonium, which could be used in a bomb. So can ammonium nitrate, and yet we aren’t holding back the farming sector for fear of fertilizer bombs. Honestly, the latter is far more likely than the former, considering the technology that is required to actually make plutonium “go boom”. As far as the fear of proliferation it is a moot point. Nations, even small nations, have massive resources available to them. A nation intent on developing a bomb will eventually do so. North Korea is one of the poorest, most isolated countries on earth, and they managed. Our only real hope of avoiding the issues of nuclear proliferation is with voluntary compliance to existing treaties through diplomacy. A country who wants a nuke will get one no matter what. A country who doesn’t want a nuke won’t build one even if they are swimming in weapons grade plutonium.

I have operated nuclear reactors for over 20 years safely and without incident in the Navy. The biggest issue nuclear power faces is the general populations lack of knowledge. I do not glow in the dark, I still have most of my hair, and my two children are “normal”. Our nuclear power knowledge comes from watching movies where they use terms like “critical reactor” (thats good by the way) or scram and do not know what these terms mean. The other wonderful source of info is the media and usually, they have no clue either. Our industry maintains very high standards compared to nuclear programs in other countries. Nuclear power is a very viable source of power for our future. Cuss nuclear power all you want, but while you are typing your reply, remember, it would be a lot harder to see in the dark.

USA is Advanced Country , why not Nuclear Power Plants
Government should support the Uranium mining Companies

France’s 60% Electricity is from Nuclear

INDIA AND CHINA ARE GETTING READY TO BUILD Nuclear POWER PLANTS

WHY NOT USA , WE ARE TELLING OTHERS TO CONTROL POLLUTION FROM COAL WHAT ABOUT US

I STONGLY RECOMEND Nuclear POWER PLANTS

Nuclear power is a good option to meet the needs of the large commercial and heavy industrial sectors of our economy. As the French have shown, it can be used safely and efficiently to produce a large percentage of the countries energy needs. And, of course, it has the added advantage of NOT being a fossil fuel, which means it is NOT a finite resource.

HOWEVER, I believe that a combination of solar and wind energy is better suited to power the residential and small commercial sectors of our economy. Through the use of solar panels, residential scale wind turbines, passive solar heating & cooling, rain water collection, grey water recycling, etc; there is no reason that every house in America can not be energy self sufficient.

Domestic supplies of unlimited energy is the key to both our national and economic security. A key factor in security is risk management; and, a key factor in risk management, is spread of risk. And, what better way to spread the risk, than to make every home and small business energy self sufficient. We have had the knowledge and technology to do this for over 50 years; why hasn’t it been done? Answer - GREED & CORRUPTION!!! The fossil fuel industry and it’s “employees” in Washington and every State capitol, have done everything in their power to maintain the status quo, and prevent energy independence for every American. Personally, I would love not to have to pay a monthly bill to power my home, heat my home, cool my home, and supply my home with water. But, because of GREED & CORRUPTION, this option has been surpressed or outright eliminated from the market place. Hell, in Kansas back in the 1980s, a utiltiy company bribed (oops, influenced) a member of the state legislature to introduce a bill that would have outlawed home generation of electricity. Gee, and I thought the GOP was in favor of smaller less intrusive government??? But, in all fairness, there have been plenty of Democrats that have been bribed (oops, influenced) also. Living in Kansas, I got to see this first hand this year with the “battle” over the new coal power plant in Western Kansas. Some people are still willing to risk our security for the sake of $$$. Even when they know coal is a finite, and dirty resource, they continue to keep us dependent on it. Some might call this an act of treason. Do you???

If we built about 500 windmills a day and installed them we could in 10 years have enough wind mills to power the US. That is every day, not just week days and each wind mill would be about 300 feet tall and make about 1.5 MW of power when the wind blew not too slow and not too fast. In 2007 the world turned out enough wind mills to provide the first 18 days of installations. If we turn all the chip factories that make computers, cell phones and other silicon chips into making solar cells we could build enough solar cells in about 50 years to provide our power needs. Remember that building wind mills and solar cells are not clean processes and they have environmental impacts.

People do not realize the scope of the issue we are dealing with. If we want to us Plug in Hybrids to reduce the consumption of gasoline enough to reduce imports of oil by 50% in ten years - we would need to convert all factors to produce PHEV’s by the 1st of February 2009 and sell only hybrids in the future - this assumes all the hybrids get 50 mpg. And we need to sell at least 15 million each year for the next decade. To power the PHEV’s we would need to raise the windmill count to 600 per day.

In short the issue of energy is complex and no one solution will work. There are no simple fixes - we need to use everything we can think of to fix this problem - conservation, efficiency, peak shaving, solar, wind, PHEV, nuclear, batteries when they are good enough, high pressure compressed air storage, and turn loose every person with an idea on North America - some one will have an idea that will make things better.

What we can not do is pick one technology and say it is the silver bullet and run with it.

The Pickens plan would cost more than 6 trillion dollars to put into full effect. To make enough ethanol to replace 50% of gasoline would take 2/3 of the total farm land in the US if we do it with Corn….

We need to all start now and work to many solutions and meet in the middle.

its either nuclear power, or wear an environmental suit to go outside in 50 years to throw the ball with the kids.
solar will be a solution WITH 30 YEARS OF R&D and wind will always be too costly and unreliable. hydropower - very limited new availability, geothermal - very limited geographically.
we need to reprocess and build breeder reactors to deal with the waste. its the only real option folks, “clean coal” technology hasn’t even been shown to work outside a laboratory, much less being implemented on a large scale.

Thank goodness for a nuclear artical. Within the next few years the first new reactor will be started in Tennessee and hopefully then more and more nuclear plants will be built. The country, the world needs this amazing source of clean, cheap power!

Just build the nuclear plants. Our energy needs never drop and if we wish to keep our standard of living, it shouldn’t!

Nuclear is safe, pollutes MUCH less than the fossil fuels and is technologically feasable NOW, not many years in the future such as beaming energy from space, fusion or even solar power technologies.

“Clean Coal”.. don’t even get me started on how crazy that is!

Build one in my backyard and drop my rates. I think people will welcome them with open arms.

The case for increased use of nuclear power has been with us for 20 years. We continue to poison the environment and give money to terrorist supporting dictators as a result of irrational fears.

The Navy has been operating nuclear power plants safely for a LONG time.

Nevada pushed extremely hard to get the Yucca Mtn project and all the jobs and money that went into the site and now they don’t want the rest of the country to use it. Shame on them.

This article doesn’t even begin to address important issues in the pro-nuke argument, such as new designs for melt-down free reactors, and other safety improvements that could be built into newer reactors that don’t retrofit into old ones. As for opening up the door to weapons distribution, I find it hard to believe that we can track a person’s exact position through their cell phone, but can’t keep our eye on a truck full of stuff - pure bs.

More nuclear power plants would have been great…thirty years ago. It takes about 10 years and $8 billion to build one plant now (if you can get it approved). Solar or wind power plants could be built in about 2 years and cost considerably less.

It’s clear that we need to throw everything we have at renewable energy sources that do not pollute (like coal) or have dangerous byproducts (like nuclear). These include solar photovoltaic panels, solar thermal, wind (including high altitude), tidal, geothermal, and so on. The technology is here right now to do all of these and the prices will come down significantly once production scales up (like any new technology or industry). There is no excuse, really.

I think nuclear power is an excellent choice, no green house gasses, reliable, and we have the raw materials (in this case urainium) on hand in our own country.
The nuclear fuel is also extreamly efficent an American aircraft carrier can run more than 10 years on a couple pounds of uranium with out refueling.

Nuclear energy has already shown that it’s efficient and safe. Three mile island that everybody cites as an example of nuclear problems it’s actually just the opposite. Everything that could go wrong did and yet no one was injured by the events that followed. France, Great Britain and Japan all generate a large portion of their energy with nuclear reactors and you don’t hear of them having problems. Also electricity can be used to generate hydrogen from water providing a clean energy source for transportation needs.

The saddest part of the story is that the United States no longer has a large enough steel industry to produce nuclear reactors! This is truly a sad acknowledgment of all the state of American industry. We used to be and still should be the premier manufacturing country in the world but instead we’ve allowed politicians, environmentalists and our own complacency delegate us to something no better than a third world country in the field of manufacturing. We’ve been displaced by a country that our manufacturing ability defeated during World War II!

Thank you Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the enviro groups who are saying that safe nuclear power is OK and necessary.

SIMPLE FACT - Not cost effective in the least.

Generations beyond generation will have to pay for the safe storage and security of the waste. We will have paid little direct cost for the electricity we used because the safe storage and security will be subsidized with our tax dollars and those of our children, and their children, and their children’s children…….

Republican or not - it is not fiscally responsible or ethical.
Even if you could guarantee the safe operation of nuclear and then the safe storage from environmental catastrophe and terrorism.

I would rather see Energy companies receive huge tax breaks from government to move to renewables and away from fossil fuels and nuclear power. This would give these companies huge returns while keeping them in the energy business their shareholders want them to stay in. Who wants shares in company that has liabilities on the back end. Renewables will give energy companies infinite resources with the only cost of maintaining the renewable EQ. Profits could go into better technology and before you know it - no need for costly underground exploration for resources, environmental studies, law suits, cleanup and storage.

BTW these nuclear storage and security costs would be hidden as new taxes preventing for true market reform- not a business minded conservative plan in my mind. True renewable energy focus towards energy independence is what the USA and the market needs now! If shareholders really thought about this they would be lobbying everyone in DC.

New technologies would be developed here and exports to developing countries would go up.

There is not one upside to safe nuclear or even clean coal because they don’t exist yet. As far as renewables - the can be built faster then the other non-existent clean or safe coal/nuclear options. They will infuse our economy with jobs and innovation.

And yes - when you produce electricity with nuclear and coal you need lot and lots of water!!! The water would evaporate and add to the largest greenhouse gas problem we have!!! Yes water vapor is the largest contributor. Besides we need the water for other more pressing things like drinking and agriculture, etc.

I also like T. Boone Pickens plan if he wasn’t “anything(nuclear/coal) as a bridge. Natural gas can be the only bridge and renewables are the final destination.

S Callahan; “would that be ‘clean coal’?”

Particulates cause “Global Dimming” (see µTube)
Stomp your foot, caused a print, raised dust, changed rainfall in Africa.

If coal plants emit only CO2 and H2O, so what ?
Buckeyballs, soot, throat irritating, cancer causing, not very smart.

Nuclear is high cost, high technology, makes me uneasy.
Would not want to live downwind; no matter the safety record.

R.K. Pachauri is just EcoNuts
Seeing danger in CO2, overriding Nuclear cost and real danger.

The assumption that we need nuclear energy to reduce global warming is inherently wrong.

First, nuclear fuel acquisition is highly energy intensive, requiring us to “move” a huge amount of soil/rock. This is only done using fossil fuels. Also, we simply don’t have a way of containing the spent radioactive fuel we already have. I know there are currently attempts to “redefine the problem away” by changing what is considered to be highly radioactive, but this is absurdity. Another important thing to consider is that the UK has determined that it will cost more to decommission their reactors than the value of the electricity that came out of them in their lifetime. This is why they are not going to build any more of them. Finally, It will take several thousand reactors to cover all of our current energy usage.

Besides, the facts show that in 2003 the US used 3.2 Trillion kWh of electricity. If we were to cover every house in the US with an approximately 25′ x 25′ solar array, we could produce enough power to fill our need. Don’t forget that somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of the electricity we create is wasted/lost in the lines during transit (DOE gave this number). So if we have at-the-point-of-use energy production, we can significantly reduce how much we need to create. This would take about $2.5 Trillion to do this, which is about 1/2 as much as our national debt has INCREASED under the Bush Reich. So instead of crushing our economy, almost eliminating our middle class, and starting a war for no reason, we could have had enough renewable energy to eliminate our need for coal, nuclear, damns, and all the other ridiculously dirty energy sources (NG is relatively clean and good enough to hold us over until we can get other clean sources like wind and ocean swell (not wave) online.

Not to mention the security benefits of a distributed energy system, and the absense of the obvious targets of nuclear power plants and more dangerously the trucks/trains that attempt to transfer the spent fuel from the reactor to the imaginary repository (we only have the Yucca Mountain site and that can’t hold what we already have created.)

There are of course very significant health benefits from using newables for humans, wildlife, and the economy (via less people-hours lost to medical incidents like athsma, bronchitis, many types of cancer, …) but most people are not aware enough to understand these concepts.

Of course, the idiots will now attack me personally, not responding to any of the facts I’ve presented and they will delude themselves into thinking “they sure told me”.

Finally, the biggest problem is that our government will not support any plan that does not have a legion of, as I call them, “cherished dependent consumers” to make companies rich.

As a country, we almost deserve what we are going to get, but I don’t.

By the way, I drive an electric vehicle (Ford Ranger EV) that is charged off solar energy along with my house. It costs me less than the status quo and is very fun to drive. It also feels great to not have “visited” a gas station for about a year now. For those very few times that I need to drive more than 60 miles in a single trip, I plan to make it a serial-plug-in-hybrid by adding a generator that can run off Natural Gas, or Propane, or gasoline though I will rarely use gasoline because Propane is readily available at many gas stations.

This article is interesting, but makes one crucial error. We DO build reactors in the US, and have been since the 50s. They are all used by the Navy’s nuclear power program. Every active US Navy submarine except the USS Dolphin, and every active aircraft carrier except the USS Kitty Hawk are nuclear powered. In fact the carriers all have at least two. The program has its own flaws, like being a terrible place to work and serve because of all the micromanagement, but that micromanagement is what has prevented major problems. (Yes, there have definitely been plenty of minor ones, as any navy nuke veteran knows.)

Spent fuel storage is not a solved problem. Reprocessing would minimize but not eliminate the need to store radioactive waste safely for long periods of time. Uranium mining may cause health and environmental problems, but if you are choosing between mining uranium and coal, realize that it takes incredibly less uranium to produce the same amount of energy as coal. Is coal mining any better for a miner’s health? Is coal mining less damaging to the environment? In the case of “mountaintop removal” mining, coal mining ERASES the environment.

Finally, as bizarre as it may sound, coal power releases far more radioactive material to the atmosphere. Trace amounts of naturally-occurring radioactive material present in coal go up and out the stacks of coal power plants because release of this material is not federally regulated. Because of the sheer volume of coal burned, these “trace amounts” are better measured in the thousands of metric tons of uranium and thorium released to the atmosphere - by burning coal.

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

Net result: nuclear fission is not perfect. Nuclear fusion is still a pipe dream. But the phrase “clean coal” (that keeps popping up in the ads on the CNN website) is bull$#&%.

wouldn’t want to live downwind hmmmm…

but don’t move and increase your commute 25 miles you’d increase your risk of dying in a car accident more than living next door to a nuke plant.
“Health Hazards of not going Nuclear” by Petr Beckham (sp?) read it more than 30 years ago seems others are finally beginning to listen.

As a current member of the nuclear power generation workforce, I see an attitude toward continued improvements in safety and conservative decision-making.
The new power plant designs are based on “passive” safe shutdown systems. That means that limited power is required to actuate the core-cooling systems in an emergency.
That said, I think we need to take a larger view of the repercussions of other energy sources.
First, the diversion of corn and other bio-fuel sources traditionally used for animal feed, creates higher food price