On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 6:24 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdre...@gmail.com > wrote:
> 2009/8/11 Paul Houle <p...@ontology2.com>: > > Martin Koppenhoefer wrote: > > The waste issue is complex, but I can tell you one thing. The current > > LWR extracts only 2% of the energy in it's fuel. Future reactors could > > extract much more of that: there's enough energy sitting in the spent > fuel > > system in the US to power the country for centuries: a closed fuel cycle > > could put a stop to Uranium mining for generations. Yes, the technology > > isn't there yet, but we've still got decades to develop it. > > why should we (or you) focus on the development of an > industry-scale-technology with high potential risk, if the sun sends > far more energy for free than we need, without either the risk of a > MCA nor the waste-problem, which also scales much better (less Let me give you the South African perspective on energy : We have enough coal for 200 odd years. 200 years is a long, long time. Who knows where technology and demographics will be by then. So there is a lot of coal under the ground that is basically worthless (e.g. discounted cash flow basis). So we have two energy sources that are free (coal and the sun). Actually a few more when you include things like uranium resources (underground). So it's not a surprise that we are planning to build several coal fired power stations. Adopting cleaner, more expensive power sources will mean fewer houses being built. Living in cramped conditions in shacks, cooking on wood burning or coal burning fires is much more unhealthy than the effects of global warming. Hopefully our economy (and the world economy) will grow faster over the long run than our population. So it's not all doom and gloom (except for credit crunch). -- To get back to crowd sourcing. I've been helping someone at Los Alamos National Laboratories with the details of South Africa. AFAIK they already have all the nuclear plants in the world : http://openmodel.newmexicoconsortium.org/
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