RICHLAND — Workers cleaning up the Hanford nuclear reservation are going after radioactive wasp nests.
I think I’ve seen this movie, and it didn’t turn out well.
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Republicans like nuclear weapons. Lots and lots of nuclear weapons. Republicans also like nuclear power plants, the more the better. But Republicans don’t want to pay for cleaning up Hanford. They don’t want to pay for a nuclear waste storage facility. They don’t want to regulate nuclear power plants. Republicans like to see things glow in the dark.
Republicans want to build conventional pressurized nuke power plants because 1) some old reactors are going to be retired and we’ll need to replace them, 2) we need the energy (so the political timing is good) 3) Republican companies build them and maintain them and 4) they’re so expensive they crowd out all the competition.
I’ve been greatly enamored lately with the liquid thorium flouride reactor or LFTR which was researched heavily by Oak Ridge National Laboratories in the 60’s and early 70’s. Work on this reactor type is still carried out by the French, the Russians and a few other players. The fuel for this reactor is dirt cheap and abundant (thorium is at least three times more abundant than uranium), it burns ALL nuclear waste you can throw at it from ALL sources so the energy supply is virtually limitless. The end waste product decays to background radiation after 500 years or less which is MUCH more manageable than a Yucca mountain type plan. Reactors of this type have to be charged with U233 and breed U233 which is bomb material but I believe the proliferation risk is manageable with a combination of technology and proper international regulation and oversight. If we’re going to do that with toxic financial assets then why not the solution to the energy and climate crises?
This reactor is the closest thing to an energy silver bullet I’ve seen. It failed to catch on for one reason: POLITICS. A thorium fuel cycle didn’t complement the need to produce plutonium for H bombs in the 70’s.
But nowadays no way will the conventional nuke industry allow this reactor to be put into commercial production. The industry sustains itself building highly profitable uranium fuel assemblies and if this reactor catches on it will disrupt their business to the core. The reactors are butt-simple to build and there goes profits for right wing engineering companies.
I heard a physicist who is a LFTR advocate say in a talk that the conventional nuke industry will be PERFECTLY HAPPY to build 400 new reactors over the next 30 years to basically replace the current world wide inventory.
I strongly believe progressives have to support this thorium fuel cycle technology.
2 There seems to be a parallel between this and what’s led to the current state of affairs in our domestic auto industry. Basically, instead of truly innovating, the “big three” (especially GM in collusion with the oil companies) worked to suppress anything truly novel and kept selling us the same crap for about 60 years.
Even “technology” business is not technology-driven. It’s dominated by bean counters and marketeers who strive to squeeze every last drop of profit out of what’s available. In the past, the big leaps in innovation have been driven by wars creating a demand for new and more efficient ways to kill and maim people. Problem is, we’re already so good at that that if we get much better we’re likely to engineer our own extinction.
One word:
RAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIID!!!!!
That pic is Goldy’s dream fantasy…
The Piper
PS: Great graduation ceremony at UofW. My daughter received two degrees cum laude. The world is her bushel of oysters.
5 Congratulations to you and your daughter, Piper…that’s truly wonderful.
I assume you weren’t one of the dumbasses who clogged up our Wedgwood side street trying to find a “shortcut” home afterwards, just like the Husky football fans do on Saturdays in the fall.
@ #1….
Roosevelt and Truman were Republicans? oh……
Rabbit is a fine example of how being a partisan lemming will dumb a person down…