Nuclear is Our Future Pro-nuclear activist group

“Right from the beginning of the nuclear power industry, we have been assured that the technology is safe.”

-mng.org.uk

And it was, and still is. It’s safer than fossil fuels, and (rather importantly) works.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Energy, Safety

Posted on June 3, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

“Nuclear or Geothermal power plants? Neither.”

-’amazngdrx‘

Geothermal energy comes from the heat given off when radiation from natural radioactive materials inside the Earth is absorbed by nearby rock or other materials. So it is actually a kind of nuclear power.

It is more commonly grouped with wind and solar under the banner of “renewable energy,” but this quote goes to show that “renewable” actually means “unfeasible.” When they realize that geothermal energy might in fact work, it becomes scum, the enemy of the environment. Energy allows us to do things, so if the objective is to starve polluting processes so that they can’t operate (a perfectly reasonable and understandable tactic), any functional energy source must be opposed, existing ones must be made as expensive as possible, and the depletion of reserves must be sped up–with a ban on exploration for new supplies–until there is no alternative but to revert to the solar-powered 1600-vintage “happy peasant lifestyle.” A lifestyle, I might add, which would have killed me at birth.
Thus, I ain’t too happy about proposals like this. I can put two and two together, and I like my energy. To quote one of the store designs (itself a quote):

Filed under Alternatives, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Energy, Sustainability, Their Actions

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Yep.

This is the first time that’s happened in the “nuclear renaissance,” and it won’t be the last time. Apparently a conservation program will be cheaper for the utility, since all the capital investments involved will be made by consumers.

They were originally going to submit a COL application later this year; this presumably pushes it back to 2009.

More from We Support Lee.

Filed under Alternatives, Economics, Industry Performance, New Build

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

The Mars Science Laboratory will carry a device known as a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) that converts the heat given off when radiation is absorbed by metal into electricity, with no moving parts.
All that’s required is a piece of radioactive material, sealed up inside metal or ceramic, and a thermocouple. The result is a lot of electricity from a small device that takes care of itself, for as long as the material is radioactive (a slight problem being the fact that the longer the material is radioactive, the less radioactive it actually is–materials that are chosen are the best combinations of time and activity, like plutonium-238 or the “nuclear waste” substance strontium-90). See a post from July 2005 for more.

It apparently wasn’t discussed very loudly until recently for political reasons, given the Moon-hoax-theorist level of ignorance surrounding the last major RTG mission, Cassini.

Filed under Applications, Energy, Politics and Regulation, Waste

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

“The sound waves penetrate the tank and the Helium Atoms are heated up and then they bounce into each other causing heat and get very hot by the agitation caused by the sound wave bombardment. This will make heat and with an interior of the tank coated with ceramic coating it will get really hot and stay hot, that heat can then be used to run a coil through the center filled with water which will be your basic steam generator on the exterior, which spins an electric motor. Therefore any power lost from the transmission line is recaptured and therefore there is no loss.

These little tanks can be placed on the ground, prevent that horrible noise that [expletive deleted] of [sic] people and hurts the wild life and disorients them from their normal and natural life cycles and daily patterns. The heat is used, the sound is used and we all win. If you have an idea, which is similar or based upon a similar concept, then maybe you should join a group of thinkers who do not close their minds, turn them off, think out side the box and would like to meet people like you.”

-Power Lines Should Never Be Wasted

Filed under Alternatives, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Crackpots, Physics

Posted on May 29, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Their Prime Minister has conceded that it will probably not be possible.
Regardless, it should not be desirable. Nuclear power is concentrated, resource-light, and socially responsible.

A report is coming in June on whether the phaseout should be continued; be prepared.

Link.

Filed under Alternatives, International, Politics and Regulation

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

They’re proceeding with an 8% uprate to their four Soviet-era reactors, and are looking for up to six gigawatts of new capacity beyond that. Nuclear power is under consideration for at least some of that; the rest will probably be coal.

Will they burn lignite, walking the fine line between coal and combustible dirt? Perhaps.

Either way, coal kills. It is an ethical imperative to keep coal fumes out of our air, coal ash out of our water, and coal dust out of the lungs of miners. I hope they build six nice, big, new nukes.

Link.

Filed under Alternatives, Environment, Health, International, New Build

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

It is “being studied.”

This is in addition to and in cooperation with the Chinese project from a while back. It is also made significantly easier by the dirty brown coal burned in many places in Europe, which contains more uranium (as well as other radioactive material) that would otherwise end up in the environment.

Link.

Filed under Alternatives, Environment, Fuel Cycle

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

The USS Kitty Hawk–a conventional ship–is being prepared for decommissioning. It will be replaced by a nuclear-powered one.

How about a few more like this, to significantly reduce the Navy’s oil use?

Link.

Filed under Alternatives, Applications, Security and Terrorism

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Worldwide, we “use” about 67,000 tons of uranium per year, 670 tons of which is actually used (the rest is stored). Nuclear power provides 20% of world electricity, and could provide 100%, requiring 3,350 tons per year. The US, being 5% of the world’s population, uses 25% of world energy; giving everyone American per-capita access to energy using nuclear power would require another five-fold increase in uranium consumption, assuming that the proportion of electricity out of total energy is the same worldwide–totaling 16,750 tons of uranium per year.

These eight Russian deposits contain 320,000 tons of uranium.

The math is not difficult: if their contents were used sensibly, these eight new mines could provide all the uranium needed to fuel all the nuclear power plants needed to provide American-style quantities of electricity to everyone in the world for almost twenty years.

Be reminded that this is 6% of worldwide uranium reserves. That’s enough to last almost 320 years. However, there are two other major sources of uranium: coal ash and seawater.
Uranium is present in coal ash at an average level of 4.5 parts per million. In the US–and this is just in the US–118 million tons of new coal ash are available every year. That comes out to 531 tons–about 80% of the world’s current uranium requirement.
Seawater is the big one, though. Uranium is present in seawater at an average level of 3.3 parts per billion. The oceans have about 1,500,000,000,000,000,000 tons of water and thus about 4,950,000,000 tons of uranium, with 35,000 tons added per year by runoff from rivers. Quite simply, as long as we use less than 35,000 tons of uranium per year, uranium from seawater is being made available faster than it is being consumed. Technically, it is a renewable resource.

But let’s say we only had that 4,950,000,000 tons to use at a rate of 16,750 tons per year. That will last us 295,000 years. And that’s not even counting thorium, which is another nuclear fuel that can produce just as much energy as uranium. More here.

So why do anti-nuclear activists say we’re going to run out of nuclear fuel?

Link.

Filed under Energy, Fuel Cycle, International, Sustainability

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »