Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

tim.... wrote:
"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
news:NCiYn.44629$cJ6.42108@hurricane...
Yes, I'm a little unclear as to what exactly the objections are
to nuclear power generation.
For me it's the (apparent) completely open ended costs of
disposal. If the private sector is going to be allowed to build
nuclear power stations they have to factor in the total cost of
decommissioning into their kWh price, but they can't.

They do, and they can. The problem is that no one has actually defined
exactly what decomissioning means. Currently 15% of build cst is set
aside for decommissioning, BUT teh government refuses to say whether
at some later date it might just decide to change the rules, and make
the companies liable for wrapping the whole things in cotton candy and
having the board of directors lick it all off.

I mean, should a coal fired station have to spend the totality of its
profit fixing the carbon its used, back into coal?

Having spent a lot of money concentrating radioactive ores to get
decent fission, just grinding the ores up and scattering them back in
uranium mines where they came from is deemed unacceptable. In fact
nothing satisfies the green ****ers.

The easiest way to decommission a reactor is take the high level waste
out, reprocess that, and then fill the sodding thing with a decent
concrete, and leave it for 500 years. But that is not satisfactory
apparently, either.

On a decent times scale, nuclear power is removing net radioactivity
from the planet.

They should get medals.

Only from the surface, though, really. The earth's core is molten
because of the uranium and other heavy elements, that, when the whole
planet was molten, simply sank to the middle. Which is why the core of
the earth is iron [1] with added radioactive elements, keeping the
******* hot. Very hot. [2]


well actually the earth is simply cooling down internally. The
radioactivity merely slows it a bit.

The green party will be putting the Sun out when it gets to power, on
account of all the radiation it produces, so no need for an atmosphere
after that.


[1] Just as well so we have a magnetic field protecting us from the
solar wind that would otherwise trip the atmosphere off.

[2] also just as well so we get plate tectonics that is useful for life.