On Jul 5, 6:21*pm, "Mike Jr." wrote:
“Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight -
vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to
the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the
expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing
plants.”http://www.greenpeace.org/internatio...paigns/nuclear

Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, had this to say,
“In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that
nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of
my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first
voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing
of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on,
my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement
needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the
energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster:
catastrophic climate change.”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...06/04/14/AR200...

Wind power and solar generation can’t hack it. *So what are the
alternatives to nuclear/hydrocarbon power plants?
* * * * Brownouts and blackouts on a regular basis
* * * * The surest way to a low standard of living is energy poverty

Let us examine the waste balance sheet of a coal-fired vs. a nuclear
power plant.

A 1,000 Megawatt coal-fired power plant produces
solid wastes at a rate of 1,800 pounds per minute that includes
* * * * * * * * 19 toxic metals such as arsenic
* * * * * * * * carcinogens such as benzopyrene
* * * * 30 pounds of sulfur dioxide per second
* * * * As much nitrous oxide as 200,000 automobiles
* * * * 50 times the radioactive emissions of an average nuclear power plant
* * * * * * * * Each (short) ton of coal contains
* * * * * * * * * * * * 50 grams of Uranium
* * * * * * * * * * * * 129 grams of Thorium

According to NCRP Reports No. 92 and No. 95, population exposure from
the operation of 1000-MWe nuclear and coal-fired power plants amounts
to 490 person-rem/year for coal plants and 4.8 person-rem/year for
nuclear plants. Thus, the population effective dose equivalent from
coal plants is 100 times that from nuclear plants.

Highly radioactive daughter particles amount to 3% (by volume) or
about .2 cubic meters from a year’s production from a 1,000 Megawatt
Light Water Reactor (LWR) power plant.

In that 3% you have the following significant radionuclides with their
half lives.
Gases
* Kypton-85 * * * * * * 10.7 years
* Xenon-133 * * * * * * *5.3 days
Solids
* Strontium-90 * * * * 28.1 years
* Molybdenum-99 * *66.7 hours
* Iodine-131 * * * * * * *8.1 days
* Cesium-137 * * * * *30.2 years
* Cerium-144 * * * * 285.0 days

After 30 half lives a radioactive material is deemed safe. *Picking
the longest lived, Cesium-137 at 30.2 years, 30x30.2=906 years.

We are not talking about Yucca Mountain here; that is for wastes from
nuclear weapons production.

What about the remaining 97%? They can be immediately reused as
nuclear fuel. *We recycle paper and not nuclear fuel?

In 1977, that gem of a president Jimmy Carter canceled the Barnwell,
South Carolina, reprocessing plant then nearing completion because of
an exaggerated danger of terrorists stealing our nuclear fuel and
chemically separating the plutonium from the uranium in order to build
nuclear weapons with it. *They should live so long trying.

France, Germany, Japan, and Russia continued with their reprocessing
facilities and have assured themselves sources of readily available
nuclear fuel for the foreseeable future. I am sure that the terrorist
would never consider stealing from them.~

[Footnote .~ is the emoticon for irony]

My point? *Start building nuclear reactors as fast as you can.

--Mike Jr

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why is no one talking about fusion ???!!!

Y.Porat
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