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nevadamedic
06-22-2007, 12:30 AM
President Bush says three new nuclear power plants will be needed each year starting 2015 to keep pace with soaring electricity demand.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/21/news/economy/bc.bush.nuclear.reut/index.htm

Looks like more and more Americans will start glowing in the dark. :laugh2:

5stringJeff
06-22-2007, 06:07 PM
Nuclear power is awesome. For once Bush is proposing something right.

Yurt
06-22-2007, 06:34 PM
I used to think nuke power was bad too, until my engineering friend in undergrad told me that all this danger hype is based on 30 year old technology. He said today the tech is so advanced that nuke power is very safe. It was a long conversation, but he convinced me.

With that said, we need this energy source, now and more of it. I have another engineering friend (no not all my friends are nerds :laugh2: ) who has convinced me that it would be temporary as tech is advancing so rapidly that we will (less than 100 years) have something better than nuke tech that will be virtually "clean."

Very exciting times.

Pale Rider
06-22-2007, 06:52 PM
It's all fine and dandy, except for the fact that there isn't enough fuel to keep that many of them running, along with the fact that we still don't have a good way to dispose of the radio active waste, that remains lethal for thousands of years. You want it trucked through your neighborhood, and then buried in your back yard?

nevadamedic
06-22-2007, 07:07 PM
It's all fine and dandy, except for the fact that there isn't enough fuel to keep that many of them running, along with the fact that we still don't have a good way to dispose of the radio active waste, that remains lethal for thousands of years. You want it trucked through your neighborhood, and then buried in your back yard?

I say we just just Iran or Iraq as the new Yucca Mountain site. Foronce then they would be useful to the world.

Pale Rider
06-22-2007, 07:23 PM
I say we just just Iran or Iraq as the new Yucca Mountain site. Foronce then they would be useful to the world.

I've heard nuclear fuel is limited and hard to obtain, and what we should do with the waste is shoot the stuff into outer space.

But I don't want anybody to get me wrong, I think nuclear power is great.

OCA
06-22-2007, 07:29 PM
When we had nuc plants running at full power all over the country energy prices were 70% less than they are today.

Yurt
06-22-2007, 07:38 PM
It's all fine and dandy, except for the fact that there isn't enough fuel to keep that many of them running, along with the fact that we still don't have a good way to dispose of the radio active waste, that remains lethal for thousands of years. You want it trucked through your neighborhood, and then buried in your back yard?

That is what I said, but he said tech is becoming advanced enough to minimize this waste. Where he convinced me was, when he said that other current energy sources also pollute and destroy the environment. The difference with RAW is that we can say it takes "thousands" of years to become non lethal, whereas, we can readily see that current energy consumption, coal, oil, is harming the eco system. We can't tell how much, but there can be no doubt that burning excess fossil fuels into the air does not make the earth any cleaner and the most important part is that they are not renewable and cause us to depend on sandy shitholes for our energy. The diff is, we don't know what impact it has, it may make storing RAW for a thousand or so years underground look safe. Again, we are not sure. Another factor is, he believes that in less than a thousand years we will probably develop a way to handle the RAW in less than a thousand years.

I can't say I disagree with him. Then again, I am no expert.

Yurt
06-22-2007, 07:39 PM
I say we just just Iran or Iraq as the new Yucca Mountain site. Foronce then they would be useful to the world.

Actually they were once thriving civilizations and very useful to the world. Unfortunately Islam conquered those areas. But I know what you mean.

Pale Rider
06-23-2007, 02:22 AM
That is what I said, but he said tech is becoming advanced enough to minimize this waste. Where he convinced me was, when he said that other current energy sources also pollute and destroy the environment. The difference with RAW is that we can say it takes "thousands" of years to become non lethal, whereas, we can readily see that current energy consumption, coal, oil, is harming the eco system. We can't tell how much, but there can be no doubt that burning excess fossil fuels into the air does not make the earth any cleaner and the most important part is that they are not renewable and cause us to depend on sandy shitholes for our energy. The diff is, we don't know what impact it has, it may make storing RAW for a thousand or so years underground look safe. Again, we are not sure. Another factor is, he believes that in less than a thousand years we will probably develop a way to handle the RAW in less than a thousand years.

I can't say I disagree with him. Then again, I am no expert.

Why can't they just shoot the nuclear waste off into space?

Yurt
06-23-2007, 04:09 PM
Why can't they just shoot the nuclear waste off into space?

Not sure. Cost? Have to have a lot of power to escape the gravity pull and make sure it does not come back down.