"Andy Levy" <andy.levy@gmail.com> wrote:
: On 3/31/06, Michael Maskalans <dml@tepidcola.com> wrote:
:> > by the way, nuclear plants do not give off
:> > ANY radioactive emissions...
:>
:> spent fuel doesn't count? or is it okay just becuase it's sealed up and
:> trucked to the desert?
: Garbage isn't spewed into the atmosphere while the fuel is being
: consumed. And the spent fuel is at least containable - it's a messy,
: messy problem to deal with the stuff, but at least it *can* be sealed
: up. But even pebble-bed reactors mitigate this issue, IIRC - the
: individual pebbles aren't terribly problematic, it's just when you
: have them in mass quantities in close quarters.
I caught part of an interesting program on one of them there
"educational" channels, TLC or Discovery or something about a
place (don't remember if it was a company or a university) that
was starting to experimet with fusion as a power source. I don't
recall all the details now but it basically involves firing a
buttload of laser energy at a target the size of a BB. The cost
to generate the electricity for the laser fire was $5, but the
energy output from the fusion reaction for the instant of the
fire was a whole bunch more times than all the energy currently
being used on the planet during that same time period. I think
the test facility is supposed to be finished in 2008 or so, its
several billion behind budget and behind schedule currently.
Anyway, the main upside to the fusion reaction was no radiactive
byproducts. Would be pretty slick if fusion reactors could be
pulled off. :-)
Either that, or maybe a giant catapult to hurl the radioactive
waste from the fission reactors into the sun. ;-)
--
-Jon-
.- Jon Steiger --- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com -.
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