Hi John, Sorry, don't agree with your suggestion that nuclear energy is somehow less polluting than fossil fuel sources. The exact opposite is true. As James Bellini said (in his excellent book "High Tech Holocaust", published '86) the nuclear process creates an open-ended problem that has no parallel in the history of technology. A single 1,000 megawatt nuclear plant, typical of most in the US, will within a single year generate the following: 179,000 tonnes of uranium ore as tailings at the mine 242 tonnes of refinery waste 29 tonnes of high-level waste in the form of spent fuel rods. One tonne of mixed isotopes, producing one-fifth of a tonne of plutonium waste. ALL OF THIS IS RADIOACTIVE. Some of it for a matter of days, some for years, some for millenia. There are three phases of production of nuclear energy i.e. fissioning, activation and ionisation. The fissioning process alone creates more than 300 different radioactive chemicals some of which remain unstable for hundreds of thousands of years. One, Iodine 129, has a half life of 17 million years. Much of this is contained in the spent fuel rods. The activation process on the other hand contaminates the surrounding areas of the plant - air, water, pipes and even the structure of the building itself, which has a safe operating span of around 25 years. After that the installation becomes unstable and must be dismantled. All of this, ore tailings, refinery waste, fuel rods and eventually the plant itself must be disposed of. CURRENTLY THERE IS NO SAFE MEANS OF DISPOSAL. So we mothball the plants and store the waste in nuclear depositories around the US (about 20 of them so far). The mine tailings are left to erode to air and waterways, the rest of the residue is encased in concrete, steel or glass and dumped in the sea, left down old mine shafts or stored in purpose-built shelters. No container yet designed is fool-proof. All show signs of deterioration. What will they be like in ten years, fifty years, a century? Don't ask, we know the answer and it isn't reassuring. The cost alone is horrendous. Assuming only a nominal dollar a day for each site, the cost for a century or so will bankrupt our offspring, let alone the idea of guarding some facility for the 17 million years it takes for the Iodine isotope to decay. Multiply all that by 95, the number of nuclear plants in the US. Add in another three hundred or so worldwide and you can see we have an ongoing and steadily accreting annual problem that makes fossil fuels seems almost benign. Enjoy your day, Bob.
----- Original Message ----- From: "John Woolsey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <biofuel@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2004 9:41 AM Subject: Re: [biofuel] New to the group > Think about it. Electric cars have the same problem as hydrogen cars. There is no free supply of electricity. The only way to produce relatively polution free vehicles would be to have all electrical power produced by nuclear energy. Right now any increase in electrical energy consumption is generally produced by coal. Net CO2 output from coal after inefficiency of batteries and the like are taken into account is far higher than gas vehicles. > > As my air modeling friend told me. Electric vehicles are just a moving the smoke plume issue. > > - bfn - JAW > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! Domains - Claim yours for only $14.70 http://us.click.yahoo.com/Z1wmxD/DREIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/