The technology for nuke plants and for reprocessing and reusing spent fuel has made huge leaps since the 60’s and 70’s. The potential for 3 Mile Island type accidents has been essentially eliminated.
The Europeans have taken the lead on reprocessing and are on the cusp of total reclamation when combined with the new fast neutron reactors. What is left has a half life of 100 years or so which essentially eliminates the long term storage problems.
It doesn’t solve the problem of fossil fuel for vehicles, but we could easily eliminate the overwhelming majority of coal and NG plants around the world. Wind and solar have both reliability and location limitations. Geothermal is limited and tide power can only serve a small portion of demand.
It is long past time that we devote some serious resources to getting 4th generation plants up and running. Doing so would put a major dent in particulate and toxin pollution. Not to mention reducing fly ash pollution.
The technology for nuke plants and for reprocessing and reusing spent fuel has made huge leaps since the 60’s and 70’s. The potential for 3 Mile Island type accidents has been essentially eliminated.
The Europeans have taken the lead on reprocessing and are on the cusp of total reclamation when combined with the new fast neutron reactors. What is left has a half life of 100 years or so which essentially eliminates the long term storage problems.
It doesn’t solve the problem of fossil fuel for vehicles, but we could easily eliminate the overwhelming majority of coal and NG plants around the world. Wind and solar have both reliability and location limitations. Geothermal is limited and tide power can only serve a small portion of demand.
It is long past time that we devote some serious resources to getting 4th generation plants up and running. Doing so would put a major dent in particulate and toxin pollution. Not to mention reducing fly ash pollution.