Harry, At 09:42 13/02/03 -0800, you wrote: >Keith, > >You may have noticed the following about safe nuclear reactors. <http://www.economist.com/science/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=1559861>
I saw it. I don't buy this, I'm afraid, Harry. This is just one of a long, tedious line of "breakthroughs" in nuclear power (fission and fusion) that have been announced in the last 40 years. It won't come to anything. The standard nuclear power station is about the best we can do. Don't you think for one minute that the massive nuclear power industry of 30-40 years ago would not have taken nuclear power to far higher levels of productivity, profitability or sophistication -- if there were the potential to do so? No, like the bicycle, nuclear power has been developed just about as far as it's capable of. No serious forecast that I'm aware of gives nuclear power more than about 10-15% contribution at the most to future power needs (and to retain nuclear bomb-making potential). Besides, nuclear power can only create electricity. It's not the forerunner of the hydrogen economy (except at astronomical costs), and it cannot create fertiliser for agriculture or chemical feedstock for drugs and plastics, etc. Only second-grade scientists and engineers go in for a career in the nuclear industry. They're pitied by their (brighter) colleagues. I've worked in industry for 20 years and know to what low standards maintenance procedures can sink. My advice is: don't live anywhere near a nuclear power station of any sort. We may well "cruise through" the end of fossil fuels as you write below -- but it will not be nuclear power that will enable us to do so. Jeremy Rifkin's article from the FT I posted recently was quite right. The new energy technology, whatever it will be, will have to depend on renewable methods because the potential energy is thousands of times greater than from fossil fuels, nuclear or any other technology and nothing else can possibly hope to replace the huge contribution from oil and gas as at present. Keith (HP) >Maybe 15 or 20 years ago I was suggesting a nuclear reactor in the basement >of every apartment building. (How to get an audience frantic!) It is >probably closer than I thought possible. >There are massive amounts of uranium under the earth's surface. >So, the post-non renewables era may be already beginning and we haven't >noticed. >There's a link from the story to TRIGA reactors, which I've called >"inherently safe". You'll recall my story of the documentary I saw in >which nuclear technicians turned off the cooling water, then sat down for >lunch - to the consternation of the reporters. >A computer CPU can be "over-clocked" - that is run far above its capacity >(my sons do it, but I'm not brave enough). So, you get a quart of power out >of a pint chip. Something I didn't know is that they can do the same with >the new nukes. They call it pulsing and they get bursts of power far above >rated capacities. >The waste problem is unimportant. The Pacific trench is waiting for all our >spent fuel rods. If we dumped the lot in the Trench now, natural radiation >would still be 99.999% of total ocean radiation. >So, all is not lost. We may well cruise through the ending of the oil economy. >Harry ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
