Re: So what now do we do?

Dear ASA'ers;

I thoroughly agree with all five of Walter's points about Nuclear
Fusion and Fission. To solve the political problem, we can look
at what was done in France, where about 80% of their power is
generated by fission reactors at present. Their leader (DeGaule?)
called in all the nuclear protesters, and gave them a choice:

Would you rather freeze in the dark, or would you rather have
nuclear reactors?

One of the most often heard complaints about fission is that you
would need to bury the fission products, which are radioactive.
And the products initially give off a lot of heat, which means
they need to be properly dispersed, for the first hundred years.

But remember that that Uranium was removed from the ground in
Uranium mines, where it was giving off its heat and radiation,
all wasted except for keeping the Earths's crust warm. You can
think of those reactor products as being a continuation of that
process, except that while we had them in our reactors, we used
up a lot of their potential energy to do useful work, and we are
burying the ashes which have lost a goodly fraction of their
original potential energy.

Any of the available energy sources has major problems associated
with its use, but in my opinion Fission power has a minimum of
them, except for the usual mention of those who are frightened by
the word Nuclear, and the word Radiation.

Thank you, Walter.

Yours for a warm winter, Larry Johnston, Nuclear Physicist

=======================================================
Lawrence H. Johnston home: 917 E. 8th st.
professor of physics, emeritus Moscow, Id 83843
University of Idaho (208) 882-2765
Fellow of the American Physical Society
http://www.uidaho.edu/~johnston/homepage.html =========

Date sent: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 13:32:39 -0500
From: Walter Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: So what now do we do?
To: Jay Willingham <jaywillingham@cfl.rr.com>
Copies to: ASA <asa@calvin.edu>

>
>
> Jay Willingham wrote:
>
> >
> > Why don't you think fusion reactors will be practical?
>
> Several reasons:
>
> 1.) We have the ability to generate what we need with with fission reactors but
> the politics stops us. If we do not have the will to do what it is possible
> today, how we get the will to use fusion tomorrow.?
>
> 2.) The same politics that stops fission will undoubtedly stop fusion.
>
> 3.) There is waste from fusion just as there is from fission.
>
> 4.) current designs are monsters that are only experiments, not practical
> devices.
>
> 5.) We lack the resolve to just get out and do it! Instead, all the money spent
> is used in scientific experiments that are guaranteed to be dead end. to
> succeed, the world needs a cogent plan which presents a road map to success.
>
> 6.) I once talked to the head of the Tokamak reactor project at MIT. I was
> interested because it had been related to my dissertation. His claim at that
> time (maybe 15 years ago) was that we have no practical way of extracting the
> energy even if we had a reactor. I don't see that it has changed.
>
> I would search for other approaches. I think that it will take a combination --
> with no single "silver bullet".
>
>
>
>
> Walt
> --
> ===================================
> Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
>
> In any consistent theory, there must
> exist true but not provable statements.
> (Godel's Theorem)
>
> You can only find the truth with logic
> If you have already found the truth
> without it. (G.K. Chesterton)
> ===================================
>
>
Received on Wed Dec 3 17:53:54 2003