What do you do with the waste? – Kirk Sorensen’s
answers
by
Rod
Adams
on
October 13, 2011 in
Fuel Recycling
,
Nuclear Batteries
,
Nuclear Waste
,
Plutonium
,
Thorium
Share3
Gordon
McDowell,
the film maker who produced
Thorium
Remix
, has
released some additional
mixes of material gathered for
that
production effort. One in
particular is aimed at those people whose main
concern
about
using nuclear energy is
the often repeated question “What do you do
with
the
waste.”
Many
people who ask that
question think that it is a trump card that
should
end all
conversation and let
them win the hand. I used to play bridge
and
enjoyed
it when I could “no
trump” a smug contestant who thought he had
a
winner.
Kirk’s discussion
below is one example of how that can be done in
the
nuclear
energy
field
.
My friends who like the Integral Fast
Reactor
have
another
answer
. I am pretty certain there are dozens of other
good answers
to the question – the primary obstacle to
implementing them comes from the
nefarious
forces that LIKE raising (artificial) barriers to the use of nuclear
energy.
On another note, I want to point to a story
published in the evening of
October
12, 2011 on the Wall Street Journal web site titled
WSJ: Fluor Buys Stake In Reactor Maker
NuScale
Energy
. I am
happy to see that NuScale has found a suitable, deep
pockets
investor with a lot of nuclear plant engineering and construction
experience.
One more short note. Jay Hancock, a writer for
the Baltimore Sun, has
taken note of some of the work published
on
Atomic Insights
regarding
Exelon’s decision to destroy the Zion Nuclear
power
station rather than allowing it to compete against existing power plants
to
increase the supply and decrease the price of electricity.
On October 8, 2011, Hancock published a column
titled
State should pull plug on
Constellation-Exelon
deal
that
explored whether or not it would be beneficial for Marylanders
to allow
a company like Exelon to own a dominant number of electrical power
generation facilities in the state.
One of the pieces of evidence that has convinced Hancock to oppose the
proposed merger is the way that Exelon has acted with regard to the Zion nuclear
station. He recognizes that the company has adequately demonstrated a history of
using market power to drive up prices and profits at the expense of customer
interests.
Additional reading related to Exelon bear hug attempt:
EDF Asks Maryland Regulators To Block
Exelon-Constellation Merger