It depends on the region. Some US states Yes! Some US states NO! Fuel can and should be recycled. New gen 4 reactor designs reduce waste, are much safer, much more efficient, need less fuel and don't produce weapons grade material. It's doubtful west coast US states will embrace nuclear energy in the next 30 years, most folks out here just seem blindly against nuclear energy and they aren't willing to consider newer designs or recycling of spent fuel.
I voted for "Nuclear is the only thing that can replace fossil fuels...period" because it's closest to the truth, but it's possible to get a lot closer, as follows.
(1) Understand that replacing fossil fuels means impoverishing a great many people. Some will land nimbly on their feet. Others will land less skilfully, and perhaps will have to put down a steadying hand, elbow, or face.
Most, in the latter group, are government funded. That is because end-users of fossil fuels subsidize government.
Because its fuel is so extremely inexpensive, nuclear energy already has a trillion-dollar history of depriving government of money by leaving it in the public's pocket. In principle energy efficiency could do as much, going forward, but that isn't how it has worked out in the past, and some vocal advocates of energy efficiency have, over the past 30 years, acquired vast fortunes from government and from the fossil fuel industry. They have profited by being wrong.
In the teeth of determined government footdragging, including outright bans in some countries, nuclear energy has advanced about fourfold in physical terms over the past 30 years, and its impact on governments' oil and gas revenues has increased more than that.
What, then, if some other means of replacing fossil fuels becomes effective? Say, concentrating solar power with really large two-axis concentrators, aka dishes?
The clue that this has happened will be -- and this is my second point, (2) -- the same people who now have 25 objections to nuclear power will discover 30 reasons why big solar dishes are wrong, wrong, wrong -- including the possibility that the might cause cancer hundreds of miles away. You never know what reflecting all that solar UV up into the sky might do.
Peter - 15 years ago
Of course we can hide in a cave, but nuclear energy is one if not the only one working solutions for the energy deficit problem (in the nearest future). New designs exist which allow utilising ~99% of nuclear fuel and that is an area governments could invest in instead of increasing military spending. Demonizing nuclear is stupid, it is not evil by nature, all major accidents with nuclear reactors involved human mistake.
Marta - 15 years ago
Nuclear energy is not a wealthy, reliable, cheap, safe way to produce energy and our earth has been already suffering too much for our mistakes.
Unfortunately there's this new wave towards a nuclear choice (in Italy too).
Information is the best way to disourage from the openings of nuclear power stations. Becouse it is not a trick of some stubborn green people: nuclear energy is dangerous becouse we don't know where to put nuclear waste and even the security of the stations must be called into question.
That's the idea of a almost-hippie, :-)
Marta
Bobby - 15 years ago
Nuclear power is a nightmare that we haven't even begun to view. We are still "trying" to deal with nuclear waste generated in the first decades of nuclear power. Hanford is a disaster waiting to happen. San Onofre has three plants, one of which (I believe) has been decommissioned but still contains radioactive waste. We should NEVER build another nuclear power plant.
It depends on the region. Some US states Yes! Some US states NO! Fuel can and should be recycled. New gen 4 reactor designs reduce waste, are much safer, much more efficient, need less fuel and don't produce weapons grade material. It's doubtful west coast US states will embrace nuclear energy in the next 30 years, most folks out here just seem blindly against nuclear energy and they aren't willing to consider newer designs or recycling of spent fuel.
I voted for "Nuclear is the only thing that can replace fossil fuels...period" because it's closest to the truth, but it's possible to get a lot closer, as follows.
(1) Understand that replacing fossil fuels means impoverishing a great many people. Some will land nimbly on their feet. Others will land less skilfully, and perhaps will have to put down a steadying hand, elbow, or face.
Most, in the latter group, are government funded. That is because end-users of fossil fuels subsidize government.
Because its fuel is so extremely inexpensive, nuclear energy already has a trillion-dollar history of depriving government of money by leaving it in the public's pocket. In principle energy efficiency could do as much, going forward, but that isn't how it has worked out in the past, and some vocal advocates of energy efficiency have, over the past 30 years, acquired vast fortunes from government and from the fossil fuel industry. They have profited by being wrong.
In the teeth of determined government footdragging, including outright bans in some countries, nuclear energy has advanced about fourfold in physical terms over the past 30 years, and its impact on governments' oil and gas revenues has increased more than that.
What, then, if some other means of replacing fossil fuels becomes effective? Say, concentrating solar power with really large two-axis concentrators, aka dishes?
The clue that this has happened will be -- and this is my second point, (2) -- the same people who now have 25 objections to nuclear power will discover 30 reasons why big solar dishes are wrong, wrong, wrong -- including the possibility that the might cause cancer hundreds of miles away. You never know what reflecting all that solar UV up into the sky might do.
Of course we can hide in a cave, but nuclear energy is one if not the only one working solutions for the energy deficit problem (in the nearest future). New designs exist which allow utilising ~99% of nuclear fuel and that is an area governments could invest in instead of increasing military spending. Demonizing nuclear is stupid, it is not evil by nature, all major accidents with nuclear reactors involved human mistake.
Nuclear energy is not a wealthy, reliable, cheap, safe way to produce energy and our earth has been already suffering too much for our mistakes.
Unfortunately there's this new wave towards a nuclear choice (in Italy too).
Information is the best way to disourage from the openings of nuclear power stations. Becouse it is not a trick of some stubborn green people: nuclear energy is dangerous becouse we don't know where to put nuclear waste and even the security of the stations must be called into question.
That's the idea of a almost-hippie, :-)
Marta
Nuclear power is a nightmare that we haven't even begun to view. We are still "trying" to deal with nuclear waste generated in the first decades of nuclear power. Hanford is a disaster waiting to happen. San Onofre has three plants, one of which (I believe) has been decommissioned but still contains radioactive waste. We should NEVER build another nuclear power plant.