Sure, we can use geothermal to make steel for wind plants and crush ore for nuclear so I see the question there is about which give a better return for your investment in the technology.

Most radio isotopes from power production are extremely toxic, so your response doesn't really make sense in that regard - it is clear to see that it is a major threat to the environment, just not well understood how...

Sure, that's why the IAEA has publishing interdiction orders over the WHO in all matters nuclear.

Besides I'm not certain what NASA/UN studies you refer to? I do know that some rely on a document sponsored by the nuclear industry player Vattenfal, as does the IPCC, which gives them an overly optimistic picture of what is achievable with Nuclear.

Can you send me a link of what your referring to, mine is in the last two IPCC reports if you want to check.

And speaking of vilification, that is what happened to the peer reviewed science regarding the energetic return of the nuclear industry. From actual nuclear industry scientists, you'll understand the Nuclear Industry from an "energetic return" perspective on investment in the nuclear industry. I hope you find it interesting.

As of the biological harm, there is no question, it is a toxic threat to the environment via radiological and transgenic disease. I don't know if that is GP's objections but they are pretty good reasons to think radio isotopes are a threat to the environment and ultimately, humanity.

Absolutely. The actually implementation of a serious nuclear driven state would exclude corporations from being involved as the industry created would span generations. Unfortunatley I think it will take something pretty bad to get us out of this 'next quarter' short term mentality before we can really develop any vision for the future that is truly sustainable - no matter what technology we use.

If they actually built it *underground* many of these issues would go away, but it would be better if the reactor was engineered to last for 500 or 1000 years.

Breaking it up and hauling it away safely is approximately one third of the energetic output of the reactor over its lifetime. You have to wait for some time before the reactor is cool enough to disassemble anyway, so why not just design the reactor to be disposed of, in place?

The answer of course is money. It is not impossible to design a reactor that way. In fact Westinghouse, GE and so on have already responded to NRC proposals for a design that does just that with 30 odd safety improvements over current standardized designs.

They're just too expensive to implement compared to current Nuclear Reactors designs like AP1000 that doesn't incorporate those design features.

Do you mean in terms of nuclear waste or some other toxic externality? Would you please clarify what you mean here?

We should be handling them as well. It's the by-product of our era's technology so it is our responsibility to handle it. It doesn't matter if the next generations are super-human or cave men, it's still the responsibility of human's of this era to deal with its mess.

Not for pu-239, about 50 times more time is right. Remember it is still highly toxic even when you exclude its radioactive emmissions and that's what it will take to do that.

C'mon Firethorn, didn't we find common ground on this years ago? You already know that to do this with burners you would already need to have the spent fuel containment, fuel management and reactor units already set up with the reactor disposal in place to even come close to achieving it. Anything those reactors produced will be hot and as toxic to life as anything can be. No structure will last 10k years and siting them in a porus mountain is the same amount of effort to do it in a mountain which actually would last.

If we focused on preparing the infrastructure and technology to burn up the radioisotopes we would have about 30 years work and another 50-70 years research into materials technology to make it worthwhile wrt the energy yeild and burn-up rate of the reactor units. And also for humanity to mature enough to operate them, which reactor accidents like Fukushima and Chernobyl show, we aren't.

It's not impossible, but it does start with a granite mountain site that uses the DOE's original science based defense in depth strategies large enough to house the facilities and the railway (or other) infrastructure to move it from around the country. That is the only rational way to deal with radio isotopes that are radioactive for geological timeframes, treat it geologically, dispose of the reactors in place and avoid the energetic costs of decommissioning while it cools in the belly of a mountain.

Even getting started would mean getting pro- and anti- nuclear folk to agree that a geological spent fuel containment facility where you would site the facilities, is the starting point. Which is the truely fucked-up irony of this fully polarized debate.

Ok, so maybe it is impossible.

I'd like to see you explain that to Iraq war veteran and the children of Iraq exposed to depleted Uranium munitions. Very nasty stuff indeed.

That is because Nuclear power is as much of a threat to the environment as coal is. Has it occured to you that GP is fighting a battle on two fronts?

Which is exactly what the official report concluded, it was a man made disaster.

Name one with a link so I can read it. Name *one*.

I like the way you completely ignore the point of how much carbon based energy is required to extract uranium and how you try to change the subject to coal mine deaths.

blah blah babble babble blah blah

It's not *my* choice to operate it, so when more efficient technology is operating at the commercially required volumes to supply existing plants feel free to point them out.

so now they'll mange, crangle and finagle every angle, they'll try, cry and lie, play, replay every day until they get their way.

I wish they would just fuck off and accept that, just for once, that capital didn't get it fucking way like it does every single other time.

It's ludicrous for the Nuclear Industry to call itself carbon neutral when tens of thousands of tons of ore has to be crushed and refined with carbon based energy sources. The enrichment of the fuel at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant uses two brown coal power plants to run it. Then there is the massive cabon sink from the concrete to build the thing in the first place.

Even after that you have the CFC114 from the enrichment process which the EPA reports as the single largest contributor of greenhouse gasses. In all they are bogus claims suggesting the Nuclear industry is "carbon-free" because clearly it is not.

owww, my head hurts when I think of what I'm saying.