The oil era is coming to an end. It's a slow-motion withdrawal, and it comes not due to societies lessening addiction to the stuff. 150 years of exponential growth has run the laws of economics aground on the shoals of geology. There is a finite amount of the stuff and we're rapidly approaching the point where new projects will fail to match the decline of old fields.

It won't happen overnight. Humans are likely to keep burning oil as fast as we can find it, suck it out of the ground, and refine it. As conventional supplies dwindle, we will turn increasingly to tar sands, to liquified coal, and to other unconventional sources to keep our addiction fed. We will be using petroleum decades from now.

But that amount will slowly decrease. As the economic growth of the last two hundred years could be said to be the conversion of energy into goods, society will either find new sources of energy or strangle to death.

Read the rest: http://theopinionator.com/energy/more_nuclear1.html

Until the anti-nuclear crowd caves in and the government can be allowed to transport various types of radioactive waste to a more centralized waste storage site, this is a DOA issue.

Nuclear waste from existing facilities sits in terrifyingly open conditions at some plants, and in sufficient quanties this creates contamination of the water-aquafir beneath that same temporary storage site. The same left which screams "brownfields" and makes routine demands for big-cost EPA Superfund clean-ups surely fails to explain clean-up costs for these scattered sites. They should, as they're the ones causing that very delay.

Leftists don't care. They won't accept that waste going where there is no aquafir (Yucca Mountain). Leftists endanger local communities by this insanely narrow view. The nuke-plants which exist WILL create waste, and leftists are definitely part of the problem in safely disposing of that problem.

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.

Nuclear waste is no longer as big a deal as it used to be. The newer plants are capable of burning waste as fuel. I started a thread about this a while back.

After multiple processing, radioactive waste can be reduced to less than 2% of its original mass.

Yes, yes – it is long past time we harnessed the power of the atom, perhaps the greatest scientific breakthrough of the millennium. We’ve gone though the period of learning how to build reliability into power plants and have come a long way in solving the nuclear waste problem. This IS the alternative energy source of the future. It may have to be transformed into electric energy or hydrogen energy or some other form, but this is our best promise for a prosperous future.

I can’t believe anyone would question the issue of a small volume of nuclear wastes, especially when you look at the environmental pollution caused by fossil fuels – acid rain, air pollution, global warming(?).

Great idea, I am sure our Congress will jump right on it! Hah.

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Hobo
Charter member of 'Republicans Who Hate Bush" Club

It sounds good to me.
But if we embrace this technology, it is going to be much harder to take a stance against other countries getting ahold of the necessary materials.
We may just need to enter an age of nuclear transparency.

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"Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money."

-George Carlin

Right now coal is reasonably cheap and abundant. But in the long run I would love to have nuclear plants providing our energy.

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Some days it's not even worth chewing through the restraints.

Noted. If you find that thread, drop me a link.

What concerns are being addressed about somehow releasing radioactive pollutants into the atmosphere, during burning? Does the obviate the Yucca facility, or merely reduce the necessity for opening it soon?

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.

Well the looming energy crisis of the next few decades is somewhat worrying to myself as a European, and the only nation in anyway ready for it is France which fairly close to being self sufficient from oil.
The US should consider nuclear, and also to expand its renewables as much as possible, because nuclear is still a non-renwable resouce. Its merely longer lasting than oil.

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"Better to die on you feet than live on your knees" - Emilio Zapata

Actually, nuclear power doesn't release nuclear waste into the atmosphere, barring a catastrophic failure like Chernobyl. Coal powered plants do release some radioactive material simply through the burning of vast quantities of fuel that has radioactive trace elements.

I agree with the comment someone made re: transparency. That's the key to dealing with proliferation issues.

Opening more nuclear plants isn't going to reduce the number of oil needed. Nuke plants make electricity, oil powers vehicles. No electricity is made using oil.