Quote:
David Orange wrote:
nuclear waste
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No such thing! Phrase invented to turn folks against nuclear power. Except for the US everyone else on the planet reprocesses depleted fuel rods and keeps on using them. There is very little of any real unusable material that could be termed waste.
http://kgoradio.com/Article.asp?id=1...d=7&spid=33320
Considering the vast amounts of radioactive materials spewed by coal fired power plants either we are fussing over nothing or are totally screwed and it has nothing to do with nuclear power.
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/...t/colmain.html
Most folks are shocked to find out that 104 nuclear power plants have been operating in the US 24 hours day for the last 50 years. Everyone has heard of Three Mile Island. How many know what actually happened there?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident
Whether one like wikipedia or not the page gives lots of good jumping off points and a reasonable summary of events.
Pretty much a good plan is to switch to natural gas for transportation (huge reserves ya know - probably more than oil) and go exclusively nuclear for electric power generation. Localized use of alternatives like wind and solar ,etc are encouraged but economically not quite ready for prime time. The president or congress could start tomorrow and require all new federal vehicles to be natural gas ready - that will push the major manufacturers to increase capacity. A pretty significant percentage of the fleet is already running on natural gas so all it takes now is will power. The distribution system is almost complete already as almost every household in the nation is fitted for natural gas delivery.
The backbone of modern industrialized economies is clean steady power (cheaper is better).
The situation in California is simply too pathetic and frustrating to even bother going into detail.