The Best Global Warming Videos on the Internet |
Posted on 05/07/2008 8:56:00 AM PDT by kellynla
INDIANAPOLIS, May 6 (Reuters) - John McCain embraces it. Barack Obama wants to address its flaws. Hillary Clinton is cautious but not opposed.
Nuclear power -- controversial in the United States and throughout much of the world -- is on the agenda of all three U.S. presidential candidates as they seek to diversify the country's energy mix and reduce dependence on foreign oil.
Interviews with top policy advisers to the three White House hopefuls reveal a varied approach to the technology that some observers see as a necessary answer to fighting climate change and others view as expensive and dangerous.
McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona who has wrapped up his party's nomination, is by far the most enthusiastic about the carbon-free fuel source, regularly calling for more nuclear power plants at campaign stops throughout the nation.
"I believe we are not going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become energy independent ... unless we use nuclear power and use it in great abundance," he said in North Carolina on Monday.
McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said nuclear power faced an "uneven playing field" from years of political opposition. "Sen. McCain would eliminate the political obstacles that hinder nuclear power, allow it to compete more effectively, and likely increase its share of the U.S. energy portfolio," he said.
Nuclear energy accounts for about 20 percent of U.S. electricity supply, a figure that could rise if regulations on carbon dioxide emissions are imposed, making greenhouse gas emission-free nuclear plants more attractive.
There are 104 operating nuclear reactors nationwide. Obama, an Illinois senator and the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, shares McCain's belief that nuclear energy is part of the solution to climate change.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
McCain making sense on an issue. Perhaps there is hope.
Thanks!
So, the danger of nuclear waste can be eliminated?
Or is there a percentage of the waste that we just have to live with?
Yep, he says that he will come out with an energy plan that will get us off our foreign oil dependency...I’ll be interested to hear what it is...maybe there is still hope for this guy. LOL
“Now about the borders, illegals, GITMO and ANWR, Senator McCain?”
He is a tap dancer. He is solidly backed by pro-nukers such as Sam Nunn and David Boren. He helped push through legislation making the reporting of power plant "events" voluntary. He came out strong for nuclear power early in his campaign and the brie and chablis part of his support was not thrilled so he "moderated" his position. Obama could give Bill Clinton lessons about slick.
My biggest concern about nuclear power is terrorists and the cost of protecting material from them. Obama won't be of help there.
No problemo ... just start stacking the stuff up along our southern border ... it may not totally stop illegal immigration, but those that do make it through will be easily spotted wenever they glow in the dark.
In fairness, it came up early on in Bush’s first term , he was for it but look at some of the staff and support over the years.
The Yucca Flats waste dump brouhaha hasn’t helped, but storage long-term of waste aboveground can and has worked just fine so far and has for years, so until a nice hole in the ground comes along everybody likes.. let’s build some more! Heck, we have companies here selling ‘em to other countries , makes ya wonder sometimes. :-\
At most, a 5-year moratorium on new plants would have been adequate to check out all the existing plants and complete ones in progress and keep building ‘em too.
We are so far behind the 8 ball now, maybe if we said we would hang solar panels and wind turbines all over them , the econuts will acquiesce, it’s for the children yaknow,
All our children and, quite literally, their futures.
I love campaign promises. How exactly does a Republican President propose to do this with a Democratic congress?
The Best Global Warming Videos on the Internet |
How high will the price of a galloon of gas have to go before talk translates into action?
Nuclear waste is not as big a problem as people think, see
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml
Basicly the waste dones not move even in fractured rock with free flowing ground water
“How exactly does a Republican President propose to do this with a Democratic congress?”
that’s why we have elections...
the GOP had the majority in both houses of Congress for four years while Bush was POTUS;
if they can’t change the tide this time, maybe the GOP will get on the stick and try again and again and again until they gain the majority again.
“I love campaign promises. How exactly does a Republican President propose to do this with a Democratic congress?”
Remember RR got a heck of a lot more accomplished than anyone since and he did it with a ‘Rat congress!
I think we're gonna find out.
I think $5 is the breaking point when EVERONE will say “enough is enough...and to heck with the polar bears and the caribou and lets start drilling and drilling NOW!”
Yep. And that's why I get disturbed about conservatives who announce they're sitting this one out. There's a lot more at stake than a single office.
Good to know McCain is at least right on one issue.
Thank you!
Although, I still believe we can turn this guy to the right...
sure a heck of a lot easier than turning a ‘Rat to the right. LOL
and if Obama or Clinton is elected, we can kiss the Supreme court and a reversal of Roe “goodbye” for at least another 20 years...not to mention, a 'Rat POTUS will pull us out of Iraq & Afghanistan.
He’s “right” on the war too!
And he has said he would appoint conservative judges and I believe he has finally gotten the message that we want the border secured!!!
Uranium is mostly U-238, but a small fraction is U-235. When U-235 his hit by a neutron, it breaks apart (fissions) and releases heat and two more neutrons which can go on to cause more fissions in other U-235 atoms.
U-238, on the other hand, usually absorbs the neutron to become U-239, which then takes a few days to decay into plutonium-239.
When there's too much U-238 and not enough U-235, the neutrons are nearly all absorbed by the U-238, and the chain reaction can't be sustained.
"Enriched" uranium means that the ratio of U-235 has been increased. With this increase it's possible to sustain a steady chain reaction, where enough new neutrons are released to keep the fissions going without being absorbed too soon.
The conversion of U-238 into Pu-239 essentially creates more fuel for the reactor, because Pu-239 can be fissioned when hit by a neutron. In a commercial reactor, up to a third of the heat comes from fission of the Pu-239 created when U-238 absorbs a neutron, and about half of what's created is used up in this way.
When enough of the U-235 and Pu-239 is used up, the rate of fission drops significantly. The fuel assembly is then removed from the reactor core and stored in a cooling pool. It is still highly radioactive because the "fission products," the leftover fragments of the fissioned Pu-239 and U-235, are very unstable and emit large amounts of radiation as they decay into stable forms.
Once the assembly cools down and the fission products have mostly decayed, the fuel can be taken out and chemically separated. The fission products are removed, and the uranium and plutonium which still make up the vast majority (about 97%) of the mass of the fuel can be pulled out.
This separated U can be re-enriched, and the fissile Pu can be mixed in with U-238, to create new fuel that can be used again in a reactor.
What's leftover after the U and Pu are pulled out makes up a fraction of the original fuel (~3%), and is only dangerously radioactive for hundreds of years, rather than millions of years. "A year's waste from a 1000 MWe reactor is contained in ... about 12 canisters 1.3 metres high and 0.4 metres in diameter."
If you think of a nuclear reactor as a campfire, America's once-through fuel cycle is like throwing a big log on the fire, and then pulling it out and throwing it away when the bark gets charred.
I think Carter's notion was that the risks and costs of reprocessing outweighed the costs of spent fuel storage and buying fresh uranium, but I expect that the calculus of spent fuel storage has changed over the years - Yucca Mountain was supposed to be online years and years ago.
We can eliminate a large part of it by recycling the fuel rods. We also need to be more intelligent in how we think of nuke waste. There's a lot of it that's just slightly radioactive, or which decays quickly to harmless isotopes, that doesn't need a "Yucca Flats"-style long-term storage area
There are ways to turn the GoreBull Warming BS against the EviroWackos. Building more nukes are one. And give tax breaks for alternative methods of producing energy and not by giving tax money for stupid Kyoto carbon credits.
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