Re: So what now do we do?

I would like to throw in a couple of questions touching Larry's statements regarding nuclear problems:

1. What is France's current stand regarding re-processing fuel and using breeder reactors? I thought the old Phoenix reactor was quite successful, but don't know what became of Super-Phoenix. It seems that one direction toward addressing the amount of highly radioactive wastes is to create more fuel rather than bury the whole mass.

2. The problem with reactor waste is that it is far more radioactive than natural uranium ore; both by the changes in the reactor and because of initial enrichment processing. It is "natural" but not in its present form.

3. In addition, the residents of Nevada do make a good point that it is the transportation of hundreds of tons of material to the site that may be the largest worry. Accidents happen even with the best precautions, and it is an invitation for terrorist actions. (On the other hand, I could see that having tons of material scattered at hundred of sites might actually be MORE dangerous.)

Alan McCarrick

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Larry Johnston wrote:

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.
Received on Thu Dec 4 08:16:35 2003