I am no expert either but I can read what experts write and the use logic and experience for the rest.People are rightly fearful of radiation exposure. There's lots of thorium and uranium to use. To make commercial reactors appears too costly. One reason is the development costs for containment and cooling/moderation. If there was a conceptually better technology for fission use, we'd be home free. Even the costs to make safe molten salt reactors is way up there, merely for the research. Civilization could groove on thorium 233 and U235, but costs and safety still prevent use.
-----Original Message----- From: LizR <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, Mar 22, 2015 5:27 pm Subject: Re: TEPCO admits Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 core completely melted down I've been given the impression that nuclear waste can be reprocessed in thorium reactors, which I assume includes spent Uranium? But I am (of course) not an expert on this. Everything I know about thorium reactors I learned from an article in "Cosmos" (I think it was). On 23 March 2015 at 03:48, spudboy100 via Everything List <[email protected]> wrote: I am saying that I don't know if uranium fission can be made safer, and cheaper. I also think that part of the cost is waste management. I think that natural gas, solar and wind (with Storage) may now be the past of least resistance. -----Original Message----- From: Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, Mar 21, 2015 5:24 pm Subject: Re: TEPCO admits Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 core completely melted down On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 10:08 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: On 3/21/2015 9:05 AM, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: We can yap about technology but it's all out of our hands. Nuclear fission has taken permanent hit because of its cost$. It's not safety that halted uranium, but money. In a darwinian fashion, natural gas has superseded uranium, from a cost-price ratio. Could fission or solar re-take the hill top any time soon? Will fusion ever be there? Don't know, and since I have no power to influence, don't care. That's because fossil fuels don't pay for the environmental damage they do The problem I have with this argument is that it assumes that either: a) there is some straightforward way of converting money into environmental damage mitigation, or b) that the disincentive introduced by making fossil fuels less lucrative would lead to their replacement with cleaner technologies. and because the exaggerated fear of radiation drives up the cost of nuclear power. From my limited knowledge nuclear power seems to be the best shot at b). I tend to agree with JCK that Fukushima can be taken as a reason to trust nuclear power more: a perfect storm of natural disasters struck a nuclear power plan based on old technology and still nobody died. But Chris claim that the tragic effects may only be detectable in the long term also seems reasonable. Telmo. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
