-----Original Message----- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Friday, November 15, 2013 1:37 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Nuclear power
On 11/15/2013 1:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote: > On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 01:01:44PM -0800, meekerdb wrote: >> On 11/15/2013 11:06 AM, John Clark wrote: >>> Lets look at the disasters associated with various energy producing projects: >>> >>> In 1975 the Shimantan/Banqiao hydroelectric Dam in China failed and killed 171,000 people. >>> >>> In 1979 the Three Mile Island reactor melted down and killed nobody. >>> >>> In 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear plant melted down and killed 31 >>> immediately and 4000 many decades later. >>> >>> In 1979 the Morvi hydroelectric Dam in India failed and killed 1500 >>> people, >>> >>> In 1998 a oil pipeline in Nigeria exploded and killed 1078 people. >>> >>> In 1907 the Monongah Coal Mine in West Virginia exploded and killed well over 500 people. >>> >>> In 1944 a liquified natural gas factory exploded in Cleveland Ohio and killed 130 people. >>> >>> In 2011 the Fukushima nuclear power plant melted down and killed nobody. >> Not only that, coal mining releases a lot more radioctivity into the >> atmosphere than nuclear plants ever have. >> >> Brent >> > For all the arguments pro and con nuclear fission, including an > impassioned speech by a 16 year old last night to a UN Youth Voice > competition, what never seems to be discussed is the elephant in the > room of how much uranium resources we have. IIUC, if all fossil fuel > power plants were replaced by conventional fission reactors, we'd burn > through our uranium supplies in about 50 years flat. So fission > reactors do not solve the problem. Of course there is fast breeder > technology, but everbody is so shit scared about all the plutonium > that would then appear on the market, making it incredibly easy for > rogue states to construct nuclear weapons, that I don't see that > happening any time soon either. >> That's why we need liquid salt thorium reactors. There's enough thorium for a thousand years. Of course they depend on breeding, but they don't produce significant plutonium. See attached. But they do produce U233. In fact, it is the U233 that breeds the fertile thorium (transmuting some of it into U233 -- forget the precise series) As I think I have already said in an earlier exchange -- of all the GenIV reactor types I have looked at LFTR is the one that seems best to me. However U233 is truly very nasty stuff and LFTR breeders breed it. If the U233 can be kept contained and burned up in the LFTR -- fine, but if it falls into the wrong hands it is a very dirty problem and could be fashioned into mass panic inducing and extremely costly to cleanup dirty bombs. This needs to be considered and the societal consequences -- what kind of world would come out of it -- need to be understood. Would we require an endless secret security state in order to keep these stockpiles and the entire logistical tail of the rep-processing of the thorium saturated liquid fluoride salts central to the LFTR economy safe. Chris 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
