*Furious clickage*
I'm in favour of more nuclear power. Just a thought though- won't we run out of uranium just like we're supposedly running out of oil?
( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Thu 19 Feb 2009, 17:16, 2 replies)

Depends on the tech used.
Fast breeders fell out of favour in the 1950s, as they could be used to weaponise fissionable materials. However they are *much* more effective at burning fissiles than regular reactors - in conjunction with reprocessing, it's possible to break down a good 70% of fissiles rather than the 10% or so conventional reactors manage.

This also results in the waste coming out the other end being a whole lot less reactive than spent fuel from a traditional reactor.

Also, they can burn Thorium - which is a lot more abundant than uranium.

(I grew up with the spectres of three mile island and chernobyl, but currently believe nuclear fission is the best current stop-gap we have).

YS
(_(_(_(_(_(_(_(_(_ =o.o=, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 17:33, closed)

I don't know about you, but I feel a little uneasy hearing "nuclear" and "stop-gap" in the same sentence. Makes me imagine reactors held together with duct tape.
(Musuko, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 18:38, closed)

there's a longer supply of fissiles than of fossils
and crucially, we're fairly well aware of the finite availability; at the *beginning* of the useage curve. If the public knew how scarce oil really was back when oil first kicked off; would it have been so misused? (Oil- and gas- fired power stations FFS!*) We have now a fairly good idea how much accessible nuclear fuel** there is; which is the cornerstone of budgeting it's use.

* I know, useful for short lead-time temporary capacity; but it shouldn't be used for regular generation just because gas is cheap at that moment.

** According to wikipedia, A 1,000 MW coal-burning power plant could release as much as 5.2 tons/year of uranium (containing 74 pounds (34 kg) of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons/year of thorium. So could we run nuclear-stations off coal-station waste?
(The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Fri 20 Feb 2009, 5:49, closed)