Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Molten salt thorium reactors can't melt down.
When they get too hot the molten salt loses density, less density and you lose criticality and the fission reaction slows and stops.
The DoE figured out at least this much by the 1960s.
Pressurized water reactor waste isn't dangerous for "eternity" when it's recycled. Once the unwanted waste is separated from the fuel the waste is highly dangerous for about 40 years.
Raw nuclear waste is so dangerous because it's still contains around 90% useable uranium and plutonium fuel.
So when the fuel is recycled the waste is reduced by around 90% and whats left over doesn't stay dangerous for thousands of years.
Once the fuel and waste are separated there is a lot less of it and the waste is a lot safer to handle, store and get rid of.
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I just wanna see that demonstrated in detail at legnth before public hearings with input from independent professionals. If they have a safe technology they should make the case. But even if they do, these power companies and the corporations that built the reactors have a public responsibility to clean up their mess: there are spent fuel rods all over the country (the world!) sitting at reactor sites. We the tax payers and rate payers should not be billed for it's cleanup. These companies should pay, and they should get no new plants, no matter what the tech, until they do. If corporations are going to have first amendment rights now, then they have greater responsibilities too. I cannot turn my house into a deadly dump and then abandon it for the government to clean up without consequences. Corporations not be able to either. All this is part of the "cost" of future nuke development in my mind.
It is important to note too that there are significant problems with solar and wind power generation too, just of different types, and not nearly as severe as Cold War nukes. When you put thousands of acres of shade creating panels out in a desert, you can dramatically change the soil and habitat of the desert (for example)
We have to use less energy and do more with it. Isn't that sorta an ecomodder mantra?