I agree on Thorium. The key issue was that many decades ago several major governments spent the equivalent of $10-$20 Billion of today's money in developing uranium processing for military weapons. Peaceful use of atomic technology then could just use the 1st part of the same processing system for uranium or plutonium based power reactors without having to spend about half of that again to develop thorium.
It's still a problem to day - who is going to fund the $Billions for developing the base Thorium infrastructure. The cost of the power plants will be similar. The uranium/plutonium cycle has had a lot of fine tuning done to it as well over the last 70 years of power production - and we have it well developed (a lot of early plants had glitches). Thorium also has to go through a similar development program as its plants get built and then improved.
Note that I worked in Nuclear Power Plants for a while. I'm a big proponent of nuclear power for base-load power.
I'm under the belief that nuke power is green power. Yeah it has a waste that will practically never go away. Buuuut it's also a drop of waste compared to coal or oil.
Nuclear is fairly green. There is no true green power if you look at how things are constructed and manufactured, and ultimately disposed off.
Nuclear is at the better end of green. Main nuclear power plants are designed now for an initial life of 60 years with potential extensions to 100 years.
Most wind turbines have to be replaced every 20 years (and that's the best we have gotten too): I have seen no evidence yet of even reusing the towers other than a few experiments.
Can we install SOLAR PANELS in SAHARA ?
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I agree on Thorium. The key issue was that many decades ago several major governments spent the equivalent of $10-$20 Billion of today's money in developing uranium processing for military weapons. Peaceful use of atomic technology then could just use the 1st part of the same processing system for uranium or plutonium based power reactors without having to spend about half of that again to develop thorium.
It's still a problem to day - who is going to fund the $Billions for developing the base Thorium infrastructure. The cost of the power plants will be similar. The uranium/plutonium cycle has had a lot of fine tuning done to it as well over the last 70 years of power production - and we have it well developed (a lot of early plants had glitches). Thorium also has to go through a similar development program as its plants get built and then improved.
Note that I worked in Nuclear Power Plants for a while. I'm a big proponent of nuclear power for base-load power.
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LloydAsher
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I'm under the belief that nuke power is green power. Yeah it has a waste that will practically never go away. Buuuut it's also a drop of waste compared to coal or oil.
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olderdude-xx
2 years ago
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Nuclear is fairly green. There is no true green power if you look at how things are constructed and manufactured, and ultimately disposed off.
Nuclear is at the better end of green. Main nuclear power plants are designed now for an initial life of 60 years with potential extensions to 100 years.
Most wind turbines have to be replaced every 20 years (and that's the best we have gotten too): I have seen no evidence yet of even reusing the towers other than a few experiments.