[willgolfforfood]

Crap article. We could TRADE Mexico for electricity for oil. We'll always need oil, even if the internal combustion engine is superseded. Same with Canada.

Plus, even on a crash basis, with environmentalists shot on sight, it would take a couple of decades, maybe 3 even, to get the US to 40-50% generating capacity supplied by nuclear. Doesn't this guy think we may have more electrical load connected to the grid by then?

When we mothball our older plants, regardless of what they burned (coal, gas, oil, taking down hyrdro generating dams, etc.) many of those could be replaced with nuclear. Does this guy think we won't de-commission any generating plants in the next 30 years?

Finally, the heat from the nuclear pile heats water to steam, and the steam turns a turbine. To "turn down" the reactor from 100%, you just vent off some steam prior to feeding it to the turbine.

Crap article.

[wolfpat]

To "turn down" the reactor from 100%, you just vent off some steam prior to feeding it to the turbine.

No. To "turn down" the reactor from 100%, you increase the concentration of boric acid in the reactor coolant. If you vent off steam, like you suggest, you're going to increase reactor power. That would be bad.

Also, venting off steam means you have to make more demineralized water. Expensive stuff. And a bit of trouble to keep making (Running the system until you have to regenerate the anion and cation beds, and then dealing with the large amounts of acid and caustic produced from the regen procedure is time consuming and tedious.)