But you can bet on one thing — the DOE won’t be releasing the detailed tech info on whatever they do come up with. Unless, of course, some moran happens to leave a laptop lying around.

Aside: radioactivity measured across the river from TMI peaked at only 20 – 30 mrems/hr but quickly subsided to 1 mrem/hr (about the dose received by passengers on a Concorde flight).

Here’s a cool link on TMI from GSU:

http://tinyurl.com/yv2ag7

But to my respect–in a past google I read several sites that stated the radioactive waste problem was overstated in that the majority bulk of waste with a long half life was not that harmful. Then I read other websites that call the waste the most harmful substance on earth? I think they are talking about different issues, but hard to tell?

Now–seems to me that ANY STORAGE SOLUTION must be taken on faith? How do you test the long term storage of any container except by a long term storage test?–ie–cannot be relied on. The glass enclosed, ceramic wrapped, covered in concrete containers were supposed to last for 10K’s of years and started leaking after 3 years. They discovered an unknown chemical reaction between the inert materials!!! Har!!!!!

So–the only safe nuke disposal is a technology that “uses it all up?” But like you, it would be nice to read an authorative post on point.

Chernobyl was a really poor design. TMI didn’t harm the environment, but remember, the accident happened almost 30 years ago. It, too, is old tech.

New nukes are practical, cost efficient (even after the expenses piled on them for inspections and govt. regs.) and dependable. As far as I can tell from reliable sources, the only real problem remaining is disposal of the nuke waste.

We will be able to solve that problem with some of the new disposal tech, hopefully soon. Nanotech, buckyball and other approaches are being investigated.

Maybe there’s a nuke plant expert here who could enlighten us.

If that is a response to my post #20==please comment on what was posted. While both statements are not 100% accurate, which is more insightful/revelatory/meaningful/relevant?

A–“the disposal issue still hasn’t been fully answered yet”

or

B–”the disposal issue has not been answered at all.”

Yes, another good reason not to go nuke. Often commented that Americans have short memories. I think the evidence is clear on Nuke energy that there is no memory at all. 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, plants closed or under reduced operations due to problems are recent examples of the risk outweighing the supposed benefits.

More likely there would be envirocrazies who would sabotage it on purpose.

It might be neat to watch, though!

The entire Earth would be vaporized before it hit the surface — the coronal temperature is about 15,000,000° C.

The problem with sending waste material to the Sun is getting it out of HEO. One single accident on liftoff, 2nd stage, etc. and it will be a problem that we cannot handle.

What are those plants doing with their nuclear waste?

They could always send everything into space towards the sun.

If there is a decades solution, then the space solution will get cheaper and cheaper.

Wake up dopes. Li is WRONG. “the disposal issue still hasn’t been fully answered yet” attempts but fails to state the fact that the disposal issue HAS NOT BEEN ANSWERED AT ALL!

Poisonous to all life for 100K’s of years? Yes. Lets burden future generations with even more crap than we already have.

Good plan, because it is “cheap” for us? Many things are cheap when their waste products are dumped into the environment. And thats what storage on site is==dumping plain and simple.

Lets wait until the waste problem is SOLVED before we go poisoning ourselves.

The difference between wind and oil is that when the windmill breaks down, the owner stops making money until it is fixed, but when the pipeline breaks down, you make more money by delaying action.

BTW, solar systems are usually very low maintenance, especially when compared to a coal fired power plant. Suppose that is why coal needs all of that welfare to stay profitable: 10-40 billion a year, in bits and pieces. I wonder what affect such socialism has on their competitiveness in the private market, hmm?