[mythtv-users] [Slightly OT] solar power for all our gadgets

[Simon Hobson]

David Brodbeck wrote:

>>So, the anti-nuclear lobby caused our contribution to global warming.  I'm
>>still waiting for them to admit it and change their stance...
>>
>I'm all for it as soon as we figure out where to put the waste, and 
>commit to cleaning up all the previous messes from when we thought 
>we could just dump it in any random hole in the ground.  Until we 
>have a realistic waste disposal solution, though, it's hard for me 
>to support making more of the stuff.

Which incidentally we have an answer for - but start talking "fast 
breeder" and the anti-nuke lobby go into a frenzy ! A lot of what we 
currently call "waste" can actually be fed into a different type of 
reactor, used again, and the result is a smaller volume of waste with 
a much shorter half-life (I don't know the figures, but the stuff 
doesn't have to be locked away for thousands of years). But once you 
start talking about reactors that can make their own plutonium fuel, 
for some reason people get even more tetchy than they are about 
common uranium fission reactors.

I've heard that over in the UK we have enough processed waste in 
storage now to run something like one of these reactors for it's 
lifetime, and several times that waiting for re-processing. I would 
think several of those reactors would make a big dent in our CO2 
emissions.

What's needed is some cool rational debate, but I think that is about 
as likely as cool rational debate about 'climate change' :-(

Oh yes, I don't have any connection with the nuclear industry - but I 
do have the Sellafield plant just up the coast from me, and a 
shipyard just down the coast that build (amongst other things) 
nuclear powered subs. Contrary to a joke I got at university, we 
still need headlights on the cars, the hedges don't glow at night :-)
-- 
Simon Hobson

Visit http://www.magpiesnestpublishing.co.uk/ for books by acclaimed
author Gladys Hobson. Novels - poetry - short stories - ideal as
Christmas stocking fillers. Some available as e-books.