Every nuclear explosion since 1945

[Autumnlicious]

Sounds to me like the industry needs to invest in 4Gen. Seems like a pretty basic solution. How do we go about fixing that? By completely dropping all demand for nuclear power? HOLY SHIT HOW COME I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT- oh right, it's because I'm not a fucking waterhead...

I disagree. While not a waterhead, you certainly act like one.

Let's look at an interview with Alvin M. Weinberg, a major developer of MSR technology and noted nuclear scientist, who was fired for political reasons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_M._We...l_Research).

From ORNL's interview with him ( http://ornl.gov/ornlhome/news_items/news_061018.shtml ):

Q: In your book The First Nuclear Era: The Life and Times of a Technological Fixer, you come across as a man of integrity. You have spoken out on your beliefs, even when your views were, as we say today, politically incorrect. Should researchers at government laboratories speak out truthfully about their findings and concerns even if their careers could be jeopardized?

Weinberg: Karl Morgan, once director of ORNL's Health Physics Division, disagreed with the way reactor development was going. He thought the thorium cycle (breeding uranium-233 in a reactor by neutron bombardment of thorium) should be pursued because the waste disposal problem was simpler to handle. We had some difficult times there. The problem that Laboratory management always faced was that our survival depended on our ability to get money, mostly from the Atomic Energy Commission's Reactor Division under Milton Shaw. Karl Morgan's dissenting views on reactors placed ORNL in an awkward position, but Karl's career didn't suffer. He's going strong even though he's close to 90. Milton Shaw had a singleness of purpose. In many ways I admired him, and in many ways he drove me nutty. He had a single-minded commitment to do what he was told to do, which was to get the Clinch River Breeder Reactor built. My views were different from his. I think the Commission decided that my views were out of touch with the way the nuclear industry was actually going.

Q: Which views were these?

Weinberg: I wasn't a great believer in the liquid metal fast breeder reactor (which was designed to breed plutonium using neutrons from the plutonium fuel). I pushed for the molten salt breeder reactor, which used the thorium cycle. Also, I was outspoken on how much effort should go into developing safety systems for reactors.

So we see a man whose work has been included into our text books on nuclear physics, grew ORNL's workforce significantly, was tossed out for, in his own words, being "out of touch."

Which is funny, given that his support for waste disposal sites is steadfast and his earlier work being quite similar to existing nuclear industry designs.

Let's let Wikipedia assist here ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_M._We...l_Research ):

Weinberg was fired by the Nixon Administration from ORNL in 1973 after 18 years as the lab's director because he continued to advocate increased nuclear safety and Molten Salt Reactors, instead of the Administration's chosen Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) that the AEC's Director of Reactor Division, Milton Shaw, was appointed to develop.[13] Weinberg's firing effectively halted development of the MSR, as it was virtually unknown by other nuclear labs and specialists.[14] There was a brief revival of MSR research at ORNL as part of the Carter Administration's nonproliferation interests[b], culminating in ORNL-TM-7207: 1980–07, "Conceptual Design Characteristics of a Denatured Molten-Salt Reactor with Once-Through Fueling", by Engel, et al. It is still considered by many, to be the "reference design" for widespread, commercial Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs).[15][16]

So a technology that both can breed and burn nuclear materials, be compatible with existing nuclear fuel and waste, and is built by a man whose work is prestiguous and self-admitted focus on safety [b]that he maintains two decades later, was nearly lost and only revived as part of a nonproliferation program.

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Yes, CoH, please. Tell me all about investing in Gen 4 and other innovative technologies...

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PWRs currently used wouldn't pay for their damned selves if the US government stopped subsidizing them.

In other words they're currently paying for themselves via subsidies... How am I full of crap, again? Or are you just trying to impress me? Get the crayons out, I wanna be colored something else...

Oh, wait, I forgot about this little article:

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/04/29/...wanted=all

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main trade organization, ranks current nuclear plants as the cheapest source of U.S. electricity, with operating, maintenance and fuel costs of just over 2 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2009, compared to 5 cents for electricity from natural gas-fired plants and 3 cents for coal generation. Exelon said its generating plants returned average margins of 3.76 cents per kilowatt-hour last year, despite lower power prices, and two-thirds of Exelon's overall generation capacity comes from nuclear plants.

"These [nuclear] plants, which are fully depreciated, were purchased at a discount and are, in fact, cash cows," said industry critic Mark Cooper, a senior fellow at Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment.

Chuck already criticized your selection as being misleading. Also...

You never fucking considered the cost of decommissioning the plants.

Idiot.

Nuclear reactors, especially Gen 2,3 are not "upgradable" to Gen 4.

They have to be decommissioned. Unless, of course, you wish to maintain an less safe designs with aging components that produce waste a known rate (with no method of destroying said waste or reducing it to less radioactive forms.

Yeah, OK, Moros, I'M the one full of crap, hahahahaha!

Prophetic.

But yes, the toxic waste bit is still not a very pleasant result. As far as the storage issue goes: Then it's not just Nevadans who are idiots. Big shock, this nation is full of idiots. Considering this nation is full of born-again evangelicals who send their gay/bi children to "Faith Healing" camps, I never expected otherwise but I WOULD hope that people pull their heads out of their buttpuckers on the subject. If indeed these storage facilities were not as airtight, figuratively speaking, as I have read that they were designed to be then rather than axing the project they should've figured out ways to make them so.

Nevada is going to be the big loser. All of that so-called waste will turn into a gold mine when you have to use it for MSR technology. It's going to be worth a fortune and they didn't even want it.

But that's Nevada. Always with their fatal lack of vision.


Oil was once a waste product. Never forget that.

Ok we seem to be arguing about how to agree: If it solves the waste problem then WHY AREN'T WE FUCKING USING IT.

Because they'd say to you "fuck you, we have reactors already and we're keeping this design". Alvin Weinberg can attest to that.