> > True. But it's worth noting that SO FAR the cost in lives per
> > Petajoule (or
> > whatever) is lower for nuclear than for many alternatives.
>
> Yeah, the *know* costs are lower, if *known* is defined as everything we
> can not put on someone elses backyard :)

I suspect that the unknown cost of eg coal is higher percentage wise than
the unknown cost of nuclear. Nuclear dangers are reasonably well defined.
Even if people argue over the implications of the epidemiologically abnormal
cancer rates in close proximity to the Windscale/Sellafield waste processing
plants, you can in most cases be reasonably certain as to the upper
statistical limits of what you are doing to yourselves with nuclear system.
Coal ash is spread so widely and there is so much of it that its deleterious
affects are less certain.

I am by no means a nuclear apologist, but I do feel that IF one could solve
the waste problem (quite an if alas :-( ) then it would transform the
relative merits of the system.

The "sensible" thing to do is to pursue fusion with the zeal it deserves. I
really cannot conceive why this is not being done. Funding at 100 times the
present level would be justified. The first versions of fusion are also
going to have waste problems but when you get to Helium 3 fusion you have
essentially no waste products. Maybe we could install the first fusion
plants in Yucca mountain until we are certain we have got the containment
right :-)

If we do things correctly then, by the time we get the first beanstalk
commissioned to provide the safe down trip to earth, the Lunar flingers will
be delivering Helium 3 mined from the Moon's "topsoil" to power the new
fusion reactors :-). One can dream.


        RM

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