On Dec 4, 3:29*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
BobR wrote:
On Dec 4, 11:27 am, "HeyBub" wrote:
BobR wrote:
What makes the cost so bizarre is the anti-nuclear movement!
Fifteen years of litigation, design changes ten times the
requirements of engineering best practices, abundant political
machinations, all contribute to the bill. Who needs the grief?-
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I agree on most respects but the one cost that has been and
continues to be ignored is how to dispose of the contaminated
waste. This cost is growing and may well be the biggest expense we
will yet pay for nuclear power. Until this issue is resolved, there
should be NO FURTHER development of nuclear power plants. And
before you get on your high horse about me being anti-nuclear, I am
not. I simply believe that we have to solve the disposal problems
before we increase the problems beyond the point of no return.

This is straw-man argument.

No decision has been made on the disposal of nuclear waste because a
decision is not yet necessary!

There are several seemingly-excellent disposal techniques: Imbedding
the waste in molten glass and sinking the ingots in the Marinaras
Trench, shooting the waste into the sun, pumping the stuff into
abandonded salt mines, yak-yak-yak. There is almost no end to
possible fixes.

Until we HAVE to make a decision, it is best to DELAY the decision
on the chance a better solution will present itself.

Suppose, for example, the glass-ingot method were put into play.
Then, ten years from now, somebody discovers you can turn
radioactive material into burgers and feed the world. Can you
imagine the effort and treasure necessary to retrieve all those
ingots from five miles under water? If, on the other hand, we had
shot the waste into the sun, we'd NEVER be able to get it back
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I believe there are safe ways to dispose of it but until a valid plan
is in place to do so, we have no damn business creating yet more
waste. *Right now, there is nothing but stockpiling the stuff in
holding areas that are an ever increasing hazard to everyone. *Find a
solution, prove it, implement it and then lets talk about building new
facilities. *Until then, NO!

We HAVE a plan!

The plan is to NOT dispose of the stuff until we HAVE to dispose of the
stuff. At the moment we can no longer safely store the waste, we'll pick
from competing alternatives. Until then, it is prudent and responsible to
wait for any alternative methods that haven't yet made it to the party.

NOT disposing of nuclear waste is far preferable to disposing of it the
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That's not a plan, its a disaster just waiting to happen. It just
plain stupid and anyone with half a brain would recognize that. What
you have just said is that you don't have a valid alternative for
disposal so you just ignore the problem in the hope that some way will
eventually be found BEFORE a disaster occurs.