IN response to Ptone, nuclear was the way to go till the morons in D.C. got involved. I used to work in the nuclear industry, and the plant I worked on was one of the first to design and implement above ground casks for storing waste. What a lot of people forget is that way back in the 70's the DOD was to reclaim the spent fuel (4% enriched) from the commercial power producers. Around 1988, The DOD handed the spent fuel program over to the DOE. They started building Yucca Mountain in NV. They have since spent over $35B developing the mountain paid for by our electric bills. In 1995, The US supreme court ordered Yucca Mounatin to start accepting waste per the agreement with the DOD. They, until last year have been fighting it tooth and nail. Once again, our government piddling around with a problem they said they could solve....and suprise suprise.....failed.
As for safety, TMI incident was a missreading of a pressure guage. The operators saw pressure on the cooling water loop , and wrongly assumed that there was water in the lines. It was steam pressure they actually were looking at and since, they added the correct monitoring gear.
What amazes me is that commercial plants are restricted to 4% enriched fuel, neccessitating a 90 refuel cycle.
The Military, however, used 95% enriched fuel, allowing a 15 year refuel cycle.
The Yucca mountain debate circles upon the "life cycle" od the spent fuel. I have heard everything for 50,000 years to 100M years. What is factually left out of the debate is called the half life. This is the span required for the material to return to it's "mined" state, or to the same levels as it was when it was originally pulled from the ground. It is a naturally occurring element. In the spent fuel debate, it would take an estimated 10,000 years if we just buried it raw, which was never the plan in the first place, to return to it's natural state. We put it conatainer casks, monitor them, maintain them......pretty much indefinately.
thats enough rambling for tonight......G' night all.
