Funny. I thought we were discussing whether nuclear power can ever be clean. You did open our discussion with a query whether in time nuclear waste can be safely stored. Then you wrote about Diablo Nuclear:
."No impact to scenery or the environment. Nice clean power for I think two million homes."
But you think we're discussing whether the "big bad" oilies can stop clean energy technology. We're in agreement about that. They can't. BUT they can slow its adoption. And they have. As for the masses wanting better technology, they don't yet know its available. But they will when big money gets behind fuel cells, solar panels etc. And it is inevitable.
On disposing of nuclear waste, here's the latest: NY Times 6/04/01:
nytimes.com
Says the 103 operating nuclear plants are bursting with spent nuclear rods all radiating for the next 10,000 years. They're begging the Feds to take the stuff to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which - if it's ever made ready - would hold 77,000 tons of the stuff - and which now they find will be too small - and for which nobody has an alternative.
Hey, Mark, how'd you like to have 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in San Luis Obispo. Enough radiation there to give the whole nation cancer, as it slowly leaks into the waters and air. From the Times yesterday:
" ... reactors store their wastes in spent-fuel pools ... designed to withstand earthquakes (what laugh! withstand what force. NOTHING withstands full force earthquakes)and filled with purified water. Since the fuel rods still generate heat, even years after being removed from the reactor, the water is needed to prevent meltdown ... But the pool requires additional systems: heat exchangers to keep the water from boiling away, and filtration systems to pick out THE RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL THAT BUILDS UP IN THE WATER. Over the long term corrosion and cooling are concerns."
Since those pools are brimming with the radioactive material, the plants are now building ABOVE GROUND casks to hold the stuff, because the Feds refuse to take it. Do you wonder how those casks are made? Will they leak at the seams over the years? Nobody has ever developed a universal container, Mark. If you know anything about quantum physics, you'll know you can't isolate an electron. So those pools and those casks must leak.
So this whole hysterical process is going on inside the Diablo plant. Nice clean power. |
