>>>>
>>>>>We the ostensible First World moral trendsetters are long past due to kick-start a change in our energy gluttony.
>>>>
>>>>We did, it's called nuclear. The rest of the world has embraced what we started and then stopped.
>>>>
>>>>>Bonus: biodeisel, hybrids, ethanol discussions on the rise. None is a viable alternative at scale, but all are excellent starting points. Also: Mopeds could become cool again.
>>>>
>>>>If you really want to get an alternative energy source online then lets do it seriously. Offer a BIG chuck of money (like 5 billion) to the first company that develops a clean source of energy that produces something like 10-20x the amount of energy it takes to create it.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>Jake;
>>>
>>>What this country needs is more nuclear power plants like Rancho Seco! :)
>>>
>>>I have created software for the Nuclear Power Sector for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). If a reactor blows up – it could be my software! :)
>>>
>>>Come to think of it I have only lost one client and that was the World Trade Center! My track record seems to be a problem! :)
>>>
>>>While attending engineering college I had the option to obtain my degree as a nuclear engineer. This was in 1969 and the field was wide open. It seemed like a good opportunity but I chose electronics.
>>>
>>>I would truly like to assist in the development of “alternative energy sources”. I helped put men on the moon while working on the Apollo and LEM projects. Becoming independent of oil as a source of energy is something that we must do and quickly.
>>>
>>>Tom
>>
>>I'm not an engineer, so pardon my lack of expertise, but wouldn't developing lots of nuclear power just leave us with a different future problem? How do we store growing masses of waste nuclear matter than needs to be safely kept for thousands of years? The half life of plutonium is 25,000 years.
>
>Recyclying what we can and storage of the high-level waste. Spend a considerable amount of time/effort/money finding a way to recycle or dispose of the waste. Hmmm this sounds familliar. Like its been going on for decades...
>
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.htmlI agree with the article that it'a huge political problem, but at the same time, the article makes it sound like the technical problems are minimal. Maybe even all but solved. I think that's a very long way from the truth. We have no good way to store anything at all for over 20,000 years, never mind something as potentially dangerous as radioactive waste.
Complete destruction of the material is the only way, and nobody has that little problem quite figured out yet.
