10% of US Power from old Soviet Nukes

[rhoenix]

[quote="NY Times"]MOSCOW — What’s powering your home appliances?

For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it’s fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones.

“It’s a great, easy sourceâ€

[frigidmagi]

Yeah but what do we get instead? Yucca mountain being closed. Gee thanks Democrats. Fuckers are just lucky that the Republicans are bug fuck crazy.

[rhoenix]

Yeah but what do we get instead? Yucca mountain being closed. Gee thanks Democrats. Fuckers are just lucky that the Republicans are bug fuck crazy.

That's honestly what frustrates me the most. Personally, I hope this means an end to two-party rule in the US, since we really need more opinions than "timid Democrat whose pockets are lined with company money" and "bugfuck crazy Conservative" in our public political discourse.

[rhoenix]

That's honestly what frustrates me the most. Personally, I hope this means an end to two-party rule in the US, since we really need more opinions than "timid Democrat whose pockets are lined with company money" and "bugfuck crazy Conservative" in our public political discourse.

On further consideration, I completely retract that. Recent events and studying has shown me the merits and power of a two-party system, so I most certainly do not agree with this sentiment now, as if we did, we'd be constantly dealing with types like Palin and her ilk to get anything done legistlatively.

However, I would like further examination done as for the energy-based future economy of the USA, since I strongly believe nuclear energy will and should be a large part of it.

[SirNitram]

Oh, for fucks sake, screw Yucca. Oh wow, a big dumpsite. Because just dumping stuff out of mind never resulted in kilometers-across expressions of the filth.

There's a real solution for it, but it's never spoken of. Because 'Just throw it away' is A-OK by Republicans and no Democrat's heard of it these days(Except for the ancients). Just reprocess the shit!

[frigidmagi]

Just reprocess the shit!

Even with reprocessing you need someplace to get rid of the waste. Don't get me wrong, reprocessing is great stuff and should be done (good luck getting anyone to sign off on it though), however it's not 100%. It is pretty damn close at 97% of the reprocessed waste being able to go back into the pile but you still got to put the remaining 3% somewhere.

Sure, that's a trickle. But even tickles take up space.

[The Cleric]

Oh, for fucks sake, screw Yucca. Oh wow, a big dumpsite. Because just dumping stuff out of mind never resulted in kilometers-across expressions of the filth.

With all that I've read about Yucca and the precautions used to prevent any spread of material to ANYWHERE, it would take a rather improbably set of circumstances that I can't even really imagine right now to cause any kind of leak. As frigid said, the waste has to go SOMEWHERE, and since I'm a firm proponent of nuclear power as a primary energy source...

[SirNitram]

I'm not denying we will need a dumpsite. I'm railing against the singleminded 'Yucca... Yucca.. Yucca..' from nuclear proponents. It's like zombies announcing their preferred organ these days. Reprocessing will let it all fit nicely in our existing space, and it'll take much longer before we need a waste site.

[frigidmagi]

Okay I'll explain it.

Look we all want expansion. But there are members of the Democrats who refuse to allow real expansion before there is a dumpsite for the waste. A really massive, super safe waste site. Reprocessing won't change that objection, let's not pretend it won't. Yucca met every requirement. It'll take years (more likely decades) before we can find another spot and build another site like that. I happen to think that the main problems are political (course the only problems with Yucca are political) not engineering or scientific.

So basically we have a need for expansion, but a sizable block of people in power blocking it unless we have a dumpsite that mets their frankly inflated requirements (look I'll be the first admit paranoia is a good idea when storing nuclear waste but most of their requirements are set up to stop any site from being good enough). We had a site that worked. It's been shut down. It's like having the best steak ever right there in front of you only to have it yanked out of your teeth on the very first damn bite and you didn't even get to start chewing!

Maybe we are getting a bit repetitive, but well you can see why. Because we're looking at years of wasted time at best rebuilding something we already had in order to start years of building to fix a problem we should have been solving back in the bloody 90s. It's enough to make a guy pull out his hair. Especially when you factor how much carbon is being dumped into the air because of this block while the people doing so pat themselves on the back for being "green."

[SirNitram]

You know, it's not lack of a government bill that's stopping this.

19 applications were filed this year. Several have already been put on hold by the companies because of the cost. This is after already-existing subsidies are considered. Why? Because we've managed to not lose regulation on nuclear power plants yet(And frankly, I hope we don't.), and thus they require quality components. So it's each to fire up some more coal and oil and pretend they'll last.

[General Havoc]

That is not entirely accurate, Nitram. Part of the reason the cost is so prohibitive is that there are groups of lobbyists and NIMBY-ites who are dedicated to making it prohibitively expensive to construct nuclear plants at all, through endless lawsuits designed solely to spiral out the cost to the point where nobody can afford to undertake them. I'm not saying we want to de-regulate the Nuclear Power industry, but I refuse to believe that nuclear power plants are commercially inviable on their own merits when nearly every other western country manages to make them so without any trouble. Not having to deal with a bunch of religiously superstitious anti-nuclear loonies helps keep costs down a bit.