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Nice thought, but right now no synchrotron is powerful enough to kick start the reactor

This struck me as odd. Somewhere I read that what was needed is an accelerator producing 1000 MeV, which I translated into 1 BeV. Having worked as a grunt entering photographic data from a hydrogen bubble chamber hooked up to an accelerator, a Bevatron, into a computer at the Lawrence Rad Lab in Berkeley in late 60s, I figured it was just a question of getting one hooked up to a reactor. And I thought I had read that some small scale experimental ones were in operation. I guess not, from what I've been able to turn up in the past few days.

Completely beside the point for you, either way, as you're faced with having the waste dumped in your back yard. My attitude has been that conventional nuke reactors are losers, because nobody is willing to take the stuff.

You seem to think safe transport and storage isn't necessarily that big a problem. And that the Yucca Mountain plan is just a bad one.

Nukes are the way to go in the long term it seems to me, failing some completely new technology, and Thorium, from what I had heard of it seemed a good choice to be developed for a variety of reasons besides the waste disposal issue.

Scroll down at this link for some comments about Thorium not requiring an accelerator driven system.

"You seem to think safe transport and storage isn't necessarily that big a problem. And that the Yucca Mountain plan is just a bad one."

Safe transport IS A BIG problem, I support the naysayers - a secure transportation system really will require a military component.

The Yucca MT plan is at least sane, and safe above ground (temp) storage is possible, given the French example.

I would rather much, if not all the waste, be in one or two locations (Yucca Mt and WIPP) so at least it can be safeguarded.

And for the record, I live in Alaska. I thought Spokane would be a good place to live until there was a brush fire at Hansford and radioactive smoke blew into town, so I moved the family to Alaska.

And also for the record, NUKE POWER (as used today) IS INSANE. Imagine if Jesus (to pick a familiar personage) ran a BWR reactor in His time.

The waste would still be LETHAL to an unprotected human exposed for just a few minutes. The waste would continue to be lethal for more the next 10 centuries.

That said, we have a real mess to clean up. I won't go into the mess the whole Nweaons program left behind and the expense that will entail. But clean it up we must. If a breeder reactor will help reduce long life, high level waste -super. If a Thorium reactor will reduce the existing waster, even better.

Yucca is a first step and at least we are *doing something positive* to control the waste and limit long term exposure. The second step is to quit being the world's nuke garbage man. The third - explore real alternate technology for power generation, be it wave power, hydro, solar or something so new we haven't ever thought of it yet.

Beats waiting for the Vulcans to show up and start cleaning up our messes.

Merry Christmas.