On Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:39:41 -0400, wrote:

If we could actually build nuke plants that made economic sense , a
lot of these problems would be moot anyway.

I have not studied the economics of nuclear power but my sense of it
is that the main issues are perceived safety (political) and waste
disposal. If the price of fossil fuels goes high enough, any economic
issues with nuclear will become irrelevant. The French are way ahead
of us on nuclear power, have a perfect safety record, and have
developed a centralized facility for reprocessing spent fuel.
Necessity is the mother of invention and nuclear is still our best bet
for stationary power production using existing technology.

What is most needed now is a substitute for diesel and gasoline with
mobile power production. Hydrogen is one of the possibilities but
there are a lot of issues with safety, storage, distribution and
production.

On Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:30:23 -0400, Wayne.B wrote:


I have not studied the economics of nuclear power but my sense of it is
that the main issues are perceived safety (political) and waste
disposal. If the price of fossil fuels goes high enough, any economic
issues with nuclear will become irrelevant.

Many of the proposed Generation IV reactors will burn the nuclear waste,
and are by nature, much safer than the pressurized systems we have now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor