From the group:
If nuclear waste is your biggest concern, then you should think again.
Nuclear waste is one of the best things going for nuclear energy, since
it generates such a minuscule amount for such a vast amount of energy,
without any of the harmful emissions associated with the other baseload
energy sources. A small pellet the size of the tip of your finger can
generate about the same amount of energy as 2000 pounds of coal. The
resulting used fuel is a solid ceramic that can be (and has been)
safely isolated from the environment indefinitely. Nuclear power is
practically the only energy source that is responsible for containing
its waste. No one has ever been harmed by the waste from commercial
nuclear power in North America. Compare that to the waste product from
most other forms of energy generation which use the environment as
their storage container. A Harvard Medical School study concluded that
between 15,000 and 30,000 lives are cut short each year from the
emissions of fossil fuel energy sources.
What's more is that 95% of the waste is not waste at all! The vast
majority of this "waste" can be recycled into new fuel. The small part
(<3%) of the used fuel is from fission products, which I would still
hesitate to call "waste" since many of these isotopes have valuable
uses in nuclear medicine and loads of other applications that we still
haven't developed.
It's like calling used motor oil "waste". The true waste with either
used motor oil or used nuclear fuel is to classify it as waste and try
to dispose of it in some fashion. They should both be recycled, which
is already a common practice in France.
Sure there are lots of other potential sources of energy that can be
harvested, and we shouldn't neglect to develop these renewable energy
sources. But, we can't go without energy while we wait for those
technologies to mature, and it would be ill-advised to continue to use
up all of our fossil fuel resources until we get there.
We've done enough damage to the environment. Nuclear is a safe, clean,
and reliable source of baseload energy, and nuclear "waste" is a
political problem, not a technical one.
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Help promote safe clean nuclear energy. Tell your friends, write your
representatives and come join
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Safe_Clean_Nuclear_Power/
.
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