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(Andrew?) hvatum -

Originally Posted by hvatum

No problem

Thanks for being open minded about this, whenever I argue about this I don't mean to ever be making personal attacks, I just want to see the best solution implemented - and fast. Whether it's going to be wind, solar or nuclear we need to really move on it, because the lead time for building the massive over-capacity we'd need to go wind and solar or educating a new nuclear energy workforce would be at least a decade.

...

I think I found your alter ego :

Is nuclear the answer to climate change?
http://environmentdebate.wordpress.c...limate-change/

Andrew Hvatum Says:
March 14, 2008 at 8:59 am

Yup, I completely agree about the Canadian sand-tar oil fields. Unfortunately some of that will be going into oil burning power plants, which is almost grotesque, that could saved and replaced by nuclear.

The waste issue doesn’t bother me too much. The volume of waste which needs to go into permanent storage is minute if it’s re-processed (granted so far only France reprocesses their waste). I personally support the idea of “stocking” the nuclear waste, since in a hundred years it will likely have some useful purpose.

Burying it underground is also possible and technically feasible. People need to remember that burying nuclear waste in the ground doesn’t mean they simply pour it into a cave, it’s stored in glass or ceramic cylinders. Also Yucca mountain isn’t a big tax payer funded pig barrel, since most of funding actually comes from a tax paid by nuclear companies (passed onto consumers). Really the government owes the US nuclear industry some $58 Billion in permanent storage. This might seem like a lot, but remember the US electricity market is over a trillion dollars every year (retail + wholesale), so that storage cost is peanuts.

The real problem with storage is that absolutely no option will satisfy some environmentalists, so by definition that problem can’t be solved in their eyes. Burying it is too risky, there might be a .016% chance that a volcano blows up there in the next million years. It’s too dangerous to transport it, because terrorists could shoot an anti-tank round through the casket after allowing it to burn under super-concentrated jet fuel for six hours. Sure, there’s some risk (not really to our generation), but solar panels have risks too, every single truck transporting solar panels for the next year could crash into a school bus filled with children and kill them all.

I am really curious. Can you tell me what you do for a living?

CarloSW2