John Rumm wrote:

Bruce wrote:

The facts about nuclear waste haven't changed. In the 60 years since we
started making nuclear weapons the waste problems have never been
solved, or even properly addressed.

Bit of a non issue really - we make relatively little of it (compared to
the waste from other power sources - many of which are also radioactive)


As someone who has worked in the nuclear industry, and was involved in
the construction of dry stores at power stations to house spent fuel, I
can assure you that you could not be more wrong. We have a huge waste
problem. It cannot be reprocessed in a reasonable time at reasonable
cost so it is being stored indefinitely, and quantities are building up
every day.


If you build a few breeder reactors then you mitigate the problem further.


That's hilarious! The fast breeder reactor idea was killed stone dead
when it was found that the waste problem was magnified many times over,
with large quantities being created of some really nasty, very toxic,
extremely radioactive isotopes with very long half-lives. One pilot
fast breeder was built at Dounreay. It has already been decommissioned,
leaving behind the worst toxic nuclear waste problem in the world which
will take billions of pounds and many years to solve. The fast breeder
programme has been a complete unmitigated disaster from start to ...

.... finish? It won't be finished for tens of thousands of years!


The facts about the limited supplies of uranium haven't changed. If the
major industrialised countries make a significant change towards nuclear
power, the uranium will quickly run out. Back to square one.

Indeed - although it is worth bearing in mind that the volume of
material mined to keep a large coal fired station going for a few hours
will keep a reactor going for a year. So a little goes a long way.


There are enough coal reserves to keep the UK, US and Chinese (plus any
other countries' you care to mention) power stations going for at least
three centuries. The uranium will last only for a few decades.


However the basic tenant that the resource is limited is true. Which
suggests that it should be exploited to the maximum to facilitate the
generation of the next source of energy i.e. fusion. It buys us several
more decades of power to reach that goal with relatively low climatic
impact. If we don't reach the goal then we are shagged anyway.


Fusion is 15-20 years away. 15-20 years ago it was 15-20 years away. In
15-20 years' time it will still be 15-20 years away. Meanwhile, it will
employ tens of thousands of very highly paid but sadly completely
ineffectual scientists who will always tell you that a commercial fusion
reactor is "only 15-20 years away".

Politicians have been fooled by these scientists' promises since the
1960s. Clearly you have been fooled too. ;-)


And please don't mention the fast breeder reactor - it didn't work,

They work rather well actually.


They are a complete disaster. See above.