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Nuclear was hobbled badly by Pres Carter with the start of the NRC.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/world-largest-nuclear-reactor-aims-070000048.htmlhttps://spectrum.ieee.org/cop28-nuclear
The amount of nuclear waste is roughly equivalent to less than half the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The waste can be recycled. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel.
The problem is 3 fold IMHO. Americans are afraid of nuclear anything. The NRC makes it 2 to 3 times harder & more time & money to build a power plant. The unions over ran the the cost of the 3 plants I'm familar with built about 45 years ago & the repowering of them. My friend was an electricion on a plant build. He was only allowed to pull 1/4 of the wire he would on other jobs. After a week of doing almost nothing he started tendering for the block layers which caused a shite storm with there union. Another friend with no skill on another plant build got the lowest paying job, on the boat that took the welders out on the lake to install the cooling tubes. His only job was when the boat left the dock a guy thew the rope to him & on return my friend threw the rope back & brought home $1400 a week over 45 years ago. He too got bored so he started helping the oiler on the boat & another shite storm started. I also fly with the guys that do the rod changes every so many years, same thing milk it for every penny! My last point is anyhing for nuclear cost 20x or more than the exact item not marked. Pure Greed! Same in aviation. The exact item for a certified plane cost 2 to 4 times if used on an ultralight. Nuclear can be safe inexpensive clean power as it's come a long way since it started. We have subs on the move all the time with no issues.
We don't find out a bunch of stuff that happens. See: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/articl...ter-americas-worst-nuclear-submarine-disaster

Care to read this whole thing?

https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/te_1242_prn.pdfAnd whoever made the comment about how few lives are lost in nuclear disasters wasn't being accurate and did not include those living with the effects of radiation. (Especially the number of children affected by the poisoned milk.)

There are better ways, but we want things easy. No sacrifices of our time and effort. Even if it means saving lives and the planet.
 
All-electric (or better, mostly-electric) is complicated problem. But it doesn't mean it cannot be solved. It is about more ways to generate the electricity, more ways to store it, and more ways to use it.

We need different prices for electricity, peak vs off-peak vs spike. Base load can be nuclear, but peak and spike needs to be stored somewhere and released. Central storage is expensive. Distributed storage (say, home-charged cars at night) can be cheaper.

Base load is cheap. Expensive is peak and spike electricity. We need to generate excess load, to cover the peaks.

We need solar, wind, wave, hydro and nuclear energy. And better ways to store it when not available and release when needed.

One of the brilliant ways to store the energy is to compress the air at night, and decompress it during the day (which makes electricity and cold air for A/C). In every house. Another is trains loaded with gravel, pushing up (using electricity) when excess of electricity, and down (making the electicity) when needed.

We need homes with airconditioning (and other intelligent appliances) which will turn off for few minutes during spike in the consumption, and utilities should pay customers to be able to do it.

Electric cars needs better batteries too. One of the new ideas is aluminuim-based battery. Could last 1K miles, but after that, battery cannot be recharged but recycled. It is about the energy density. Planes would run on hydrocarbons.

Biologists found a bacteria which makes instead of ethanol, a buthanol. It is oil. doesn't need to be distilled (which uses energy), just skimmed of the top of the breeding vat. Another process can make methanol (fluid, CH2OH, easier to store than natoral gas) from CO2 in the air and water.

We need "all of the above" approach.

The problem is, to make this happen, we need government industrial policy (which USA never had, because politicians are allergic to it) and political will to do it. USA can make it much cheaper whan other countries. If we decide to do it, and charge the carbon tax on the carbon used to manufacture stuff, most manufacturing will return to USA because it will be cheaper. Now, manufacturing in China is cheaper, because we don't account for the carbon needed to move raw materials to China, process them, and mode products to USA and Europe. Air pollution is free, so of course we have plenty of it.
 
Now, manufacturing in China is cheaper, because we don't account for the carbon needed to move raw materials to China, process them, and mode products to USA and Europe. Air pollution is free, so of course we have plenty of it.
I've been against moving our mfg to china since it started. Do you global warmest think about that on your trip to walmart as you are part of global warming!
 
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Radioactive Milk Only A Danger After 58,000 Glasses​

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...ctive-milk-only-a-danger-after-58-000-glasses

Hydropower explainedWave power https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydropower/wave-power.php I like the idea of wave power but think it won't be viable for many years.​

The NPR article is about Fukushima. I was thinking of Chernobyl...

More than three decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, cows far from the accident site still produce milk with dangerous levels of radiation, children still drink it and the problem could persist for decades to come, researchers reported on Friday.

In villages as much as 140 miles from the Chernobyl nuclear plant, radioactivity readings in milk are up to five times the Ukranian government’s official limit for adults, and more than 12 times the limit for children, according to scientists from the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter, in Britain, and the Ukrainian Institute of Agricultural Radiology.

Without large-scale intervention, the radiation will remain above the adult level until at least 2040 and above the child threshold even longer, they predicted. They reported their findings in the journal Environment International.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/world/europe/chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-radiation-milk.html
 
The Ukraine did everything wrong. Everyone in the area were supposed to have iodine pills which were sent to the nuke plant but never given to the people nearby. Nuclier has come a long way in 50 years. Think how EVs will be in 50 years.
 
^^^We humans like to think we have advanced from the primitive being walking around with clubs worshiping things we don’t understand. We worry about it’s peacetime use while continuing to build indiscriminate weapons out of it to kill each other with. We worry about the environment while allowing unbelievable amounts of ordinance to be expended daily over land and religious disputes. Lol!!! After 7 years in a silo almost 50 years ago I’m still mostly here, amazing!
 
Interesting. Sadly, the U.S. had a Thorium Reactor first, (prototype) but never invested in it. I too think Thorium reactors make much more sense than Uranium --and even "fusion reactors". A practical fusion power plant will likely ALWAYS be too expensive, too complicated & too impractical. Still, research should continue--after we perfect Thorium.

A realistic low-carbon future IMHO: Solar+wind+hydro+geothermal and a few Thorium reactors "feeding" the grid and 'trickle charging' massive battery storage facilities. Old coal & NG power plants will be perfect for battery storage areas since the electrical/grid portion is already in place.

Here's another video on Thorium Reactors:

 
How do you make HUGE dirt cheap grid storage batteries? Older/long video...but it's worth it for the details involved. These are now being produced & sold by a company called Ambri:




PS Other non-lithium battery designs are also coming on line. Competition is good!
 
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