Saturday, June 26, 2010

Really good write-up on nuclear versus renewable power

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but this site really has a good summation of why we need nuclear, and how wrong most of the anti-nuclear arguments are. So if you ever find yourself arguing with an eco-tard or just someone who is naive about the truth of nuclear energy you can link them to this page.

Some examples:
Q12. What about the waste?

The waste issue has been solved. Indeed it is not waste. It is ‘once-used-nuclear-fuel’. We’ve used about 1% to 10% of the energy so far. We will use the rest of the energy in the future, by recycling the once-used-nuclear-fuel through Generation IV nuclear power plants. The waste from these plants has a half-life of 30 years and will degrade back down to natural background levels within 300 to 500 years.

Used fuel is stored safely in containers like this:

This is all the ‘once-used-nuclear-fuel’ from 31 years of power generation from a now decommissioned power station.

The amount of used fuel is minuscule compared with the waste from fossil fuel power stations, much of which is far more toxic and lasts forever.

Q15. Is there enough uranium?

Yes.

There is enough uranium to provide all the world’s energy indefinitely. Indeed, we’ve already mined enough uranium to power the whole world using next-generation nuclear power for 700 years!

There is sufficient uranium and thorium in the top 4 km of the Earth’s land areas to supply all the energy needs of 10 billion people at the USA’s current rate of energy consumption for 220 million years. That’s as long as far ahead as the start of the dinosaur era is behind. But actually, the rivers of the world naturally replenish sea water with 30,000 tonnes of uranium each year due to erosion, so we wouldn’t even need to dig this up.

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