One well designed nuke could replace thousands of windmills and thousands of miles of roads to build them.
If you believe in man caused global climate change nuke power is the best long term answer.
If you don't believe in man caused global climate change nuke power is the best long term answer.
If you want lots of abundant energy to drive the future nuke power is the best long term answer.
If you can find someone willing to invest the money it takes to design, permit, and bring one online and then wait 25 years for it to start generating power, nukes are the way to go.
TerraPower recently announced plans to build its Natrium reactor near a retiring coal plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming. This is an incredible opportunity for the state, which currently generates almost 90% of its electricity generation from fossil fuels. The Natrium design represents the future of advanced nuclear reactor technology and is well-suited to provide clean and efficient power to communities across the United States, including the Mountain West.
The U.S. Department of Energy is extremely excited about this project and plans to invest nearly $2 billion to support the licensing, construction and demonstration of this first-of-a-kind reactor by 2028.
Good points.
What is the solution to waste disposal is a safe manner?
There is a lot of energy left in the current waste stockpiles and the new reactor designs can use the old waste as fuel and burn almost all of it up.
Recycling Nuclear Nuclear waste is recyclable. Once reactor fuel (uranium or thorium) is used in a reactor, it can be treated and put into another reactor as fuel. In fact, typical reactors only extract a few percent of the energy in their fuel. You could power the entire US electricity grid off of the energy in nuclear waste for almost 100 years (details). If you recycle the waste, the final waste that is left over decays to harmlessness within a few hundred years, rather than a million years as with standard (unrecycled) nuclear waste. However, recycling nuclear waste generally involves performing complex chemistry processes in a radiologically shielded area and can be rather expensive and also generate significant amounts of radioactive material in liquid form.
