I'm unfamiliar with the term "cookie cutter". I do know that our nukes
are water moderated, meaning that a loss of water would let fission go
too fast to support itself, so you have a shutdown with a little
unstable matter. Chernobyl was a graphite moderated core which is why
it kept going during the experiment that was to test it's limits,
resulting in a big tragedy.

The Ghost In The Machine wrote:

I would hope I'm wrong, but it comes down to return on investment.
Fission plants are very capital-intensive and take years to
permit, never mind build. (This is partly because the US never
went the French route with "cookie-cutter" power plants. France
is now reaping the benefits thereof, and probably selling power
to Europe.)

I think you are wrong but at the opposite end
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor describes a cheap reactor

China may get there first.
"China has licensed the technology of the AVR, and is actively developing a
pebble-bed modular reactor for power generation [1]. The 10 megawatt
prototype is called the HTR-10. It is a conventional helium-cooled,
helium-turbine design. The program is at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The
first 200 megawatt production plant is planned for 2007. There are firm
plans for thirty such plants by 2020 (6 gigawatts). By 2050, China plans to
deploy as much as 300 gigawatts of reactors. If PBMRs are successful, there
may be a substantial number of reactors deployed. This may be the largest
planned nuclear power deployment in history.

Tsinghua's program for Nuclear and New Energy technology also plans in 2006
to begin developing a system to use the high temperature gas of a pebble bed
reactor to crack steam to produce hydrogen. The hydrogen could serve as fuel
for vehicles, reducing China's dependence on imported oil. Hydrogen can also
be stored, unlike electricity, and distribution by pipelines may sometimes
be more efficient than conventional power lines. See hydrogen economy."

On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 01:00:03 GMT, The Ghost In The Machine
<ewill@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote in alt.atheism

In alt.atheism,

[]

on Sun, 15 Jan 2006 13:06:30 -0500
<8k3ls1p18le2a6ahq2vstb8lcmee6veflt@4ax.com>:

Also, how many per year?

[]

Sounds like fewer than in the war for oil.
Sunyata

Quite a bit fewer...and there's also the issue of the dangers
of coal, which took another 12 lives (and may have irreparably
damaged a 13th) just in the US alone, recently. Prior to that
there were some deaths in a Chinese mine, which I for one would
now have to look up, but if memory serves it was a few score.

IIRC in the area of 40-45.

There are some issues, though -- uranium cannot be used for
transport fuel (not without a lot of rework of the transport
system, such as encouraging everyone to take an electrically-
powered commuter train and/or streetcar and/or bus everywhere,
or perhaps maybe using rechargeable pure-electric units, which
aren't all that desirable else we'd be using them now).

But we won't even drink irradiated milk. Not because normal
milk will eventually spoil when left at room temperature,
of course -- though that may be part of it -- but because
it's been irradiated with deadly (to bacteria) radiation.

Fear mongering by those who profit from it.

[]

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 19:51:25 -0800, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:

On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 18:51:33 -0500,

On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 20:00:09 GMT, The Ghost In The Machine
<ewill@sirius.tg00suus7038.net> wrote:

In alt.atheism,

Also, how many per year?

Sunyata

In 1986, about 150 or thereabouts died because of Chernobyl, and
800 cases of thyroid cancers. I for one do not know regarding
the dangers in uranium mines (apart from asphyxiation from helium,
which is probably very low risk, and radiation, which is also
low risk).

http://www.magma.ca/~jalrober/Howbad.htm

Chernobyl was a very unusual incident to begin with (it was
not an accident, though there was some bad planning going
on), and I am aware of no other major disasters causing
loss of life amongst nuclear plants. Three Mile Island
in 1979 was a monumental disaster as far as equipment is
concerned but AFAIK did not result in a single human death,
and only a very slight increase in background radioactivity.

One could of course drag in such things as forklift accidents,
construction issues, and electrocution, but such things don't
directly depend on nuclear power.

Sounds like fewer than in the war for oil.

Multitudes less.

I thought so. I just feel more comfortable hearing it from others I
respect.

My thanks to you and the others for info and opinion.

I'm surprised that the oil barons haven't started a propaganda to
hypnotize the gullible that clean power is somehow unpatriotic,
subject to who knows what whim regardless of law the monsters will
think up next?

Poor usage maybe - good thing this aint no grammar test.