Nuclear Power: Safe Or Pure Profit?, Poll

[fred n yourface]

hi.
recent news here in the U.S. says the prez wants to support new nuclear power plants with public funds, even though these plants are purely private enterprises which only produce profit for their stockholders, not the public.
Any comments, or poll responses?

[fred n yourface]

Next generation Nuclear reactors, 4th Gen as their commonly called, are slated to be gas-cooled fast reactors. These reactors are closed system reactors that make use of helium as a coolant at high temperatures. The Objective is to essentially burn up Uranium and heavier isotopes so that only nuclear fission products remain. These designs could also make use of the waste products in Light Water reactors allowing them to generate power from older reactors while at the same time burning up the waste products.

At last I heard Japan, China, and France are leading the way in both the development and construction of these types of reactors.

The CESAR Project by the university of Maryland is an example of the research behind 4th gen reactors.
http://www.caesar.umd.edu/

A LOT has changed in nuclear reactor technology over the past several decades. The technology is viable, and safe, waste products can be reduced and/or eliminated. From what I remember the newer reactors while they do reduce the amount of waste, the waste that remains is highly radioactive. But I'm sure something can be done about that down the line.

ok, interesting data, and they sound great, but are any of these things actually in use currently or still just under development? When the man goes to build more reactors, he's gonna use what's already available, not neccesarily what's best to use, often based on cost. New tech is costly, and may be bypassed in favor of 'cost-effectiveness.' And, anything still experimental will probably be ignored in favor of 'tried-and-true' tech.

frednurface, I'm not saying there are no risks, but lots of things come with risk. And you have said nothing to convince me that overall risks to health and environment are lower with other forms of energy produiction.

As for your funding/profitability argument, well I don't know the details, but it doesn't sound like an Obama philosophy, does it? If Obama is putting public money into these projects ( are these grants or loans?) he must think there is some kind of a payback to the public good. I would hope so anyway. And who are these private individuals but shareholders? Consider buying some shares in one of these companies and cashing in.

I wasn't arguing other methods...although solar heat focussing tech has been around and functional for many years now. < Solar Power Towers... Wikipedia >
As far as Obama philosphy goes, much of his campaign funding supposedly came from the nuclear power lobby, while McCain was backed by coal. I haven't really seen much come out of the Obama administration which has benefitted anyone but the insurance companies, banks, and investment companies, and I personally am not among any of those groups. So, I've been foreclosed on due to job loss, and meanwhile watched bankers, investment managers, and insurance company execs pull down millions of dollars each from 'bailout' funds which were given to their parent companies with almost zero accountability for spending. If that's not bad enough, similar amounts of tax money are still flowing out of the country to fund imperialist foreign wars that the US has no right to wage, considering they are being fought on sovereign foreign soil. Some attacks by the US are even crossing borders into Pakistan and killing yet more civilians, against the stated wishes of the Pakistani government! The military does 'need' more depleted uranium for weapons, the way they've been using it up, so maybe that's an admistrative reason to build more nuke plants?
If that money was flowing into instead of away from the US civilian (not military-industrial) economy, we'd not have a problem paying to develop clean power sources. I've not really got any respect for Obama's actions in office (especially the appointment of multiple lobbyists after going on about not doing so,) and I'm sorry now that I didn't vote for Nader instead of the apparent lesser of two evils (Obama.) The differences between Democrat and Republican in this country have gotten really thin once the politicians achieve election. Maybe if millionaires were blocked from public office? Then we'd have about 237 less congresspeople < 237 millionaires in Congress... CBS > and none of our last several Presidents would have been allowed to run.

I think we're going the route of fuel cells though. Seems to be the most developed technology ATM and is the technology that's being pushed by the auto industry.

I agree about the fuel cells, Canda has been using them successfully for years both in vehicles and for power plants. Nice and clean! The only problems I've seen are how to produce the hydrogen cleanly and how to store it (though I read in a hydrogen power book that the Germans have successfully been using regular natural gas pipelines to transport hydrogen for a while now.)