Lurker, two cites over to the west of us is Plant McManus- a nuclear power plant.
For the last thirty years, all it's done is produce clean, cheap electricity.
By contrast, the two chemical plants in town kill one or two workers each, every year. Guess which of these I would choose to work at, given a choice?
The "whadda we gonna do with THE NUCLEAR WASTE?" issue is a red herring-- boob-bait intended to distract the easily duped into chattering endlessly about a non-problem... you just recycle the stuff, as many other nations have done for decades.
Jimmy Carter outlawed it here, that's the only reason we aren't doing it now. Yes, stupid Executive Orders, and Laws, seem to live forever.
And I remember that blithering idiot Carter and his stupid order. That's one that Bush should invalidate before he leaves office btw.
The nuke plants around here have a nearly flawless safety record. Not one single citizen has ever been harmed by any of them. Not one.
Some workers have had accidents, but none were radation related. By contrast we lose dozens of workers every year around here just in the construction trades.
Just about a week ago a young man was killed by sand in a concrete pipe factory. That's right. He was killed by sand. It was a tragic death and the business owner hasn't as of yet re-opened his plant because he's so traumatized.
In spite of having at least 3 operating nuke plants around here, (2 are out of service IIRC) Chicago still faces occasional 'brownouts' in the summer.
Now personally I don't care if folks want to put windmills on their property or if they want to sink geothermal vents. As long as the magma doesn't fry my house it's fine with me.
But this whole 'energy crisis' thing would go away, at least as far as electricity is concerned, if we would just build some more damned nuclear plants of modern design.
L
I never heard of that before. What does one do with recycled nuclear material from a power plant?
**Jimmy Carter outlawed it here, that's the only reason we aren't doing it now.**
I am not familiar with anything Carter did with respect to nuclear fuel. What did they do to prevent us from "recycling" fuel, and why?
Exactly. Recycle the nuke fuel, as France and Japan do.
Guess why we can't?
Because our fast breeder reactor project was killed by whom?
President Clinton, 1994. To "prevent nuclear proliferation" according to the anti-nuke nitwits who lobbied his administration.
I'd say that they turned out to be wrong on both the energy issue and the proliferation issue.