I've just spend a good part of the last couple of days reading Bernard Cohen's book, The Nuclear Energy Option. As pointed out elsewhere you can find it here: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/BOOK.html His publisher also has a shorter 28 page discussion by Cohen about the forces influencing nuclear power adoption here: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817939326_143.pdf After reading it I'm as fired up as a supercritical nuclear reactor on the subject. Cohen treatise on the subject is absolutely brilliant. If I were the guy in charge I'd implement completely what I call the "Cohen plan." I'll outline it briefly here: Nuclear reactors: Use smaller, lower efficiency reactors that use inherent convection cooling. No pumps or control systems to fail. Standardize on one single model and implement that model across the land. Nuclear fuel: Generate fuel via reprocessing and breeder reactors. By converting U-238 to plutonium in breeder reactors, a virtually unlimited supply of fuel would be available for the reactors. Reprocessing: Taking spent fuel and recovering fissionable material greatly reduces the amount of wastes from the reactors. This is a critical step to both conserving fuel and minimizing waste. Waste processing: Keep it simple. Encase the high level waste in glass, stainless steel, and clay. Then bury in geologically stable rock between 300-700m below the surface. Seal it up, mark it, and leave it there. Personally I like th ocean option better, but politcially I can't see getting anyone to buy in. The ocean option is to drop the waste in a stable area of deep ocean water. France has taken up the cause an implemented everything but waste processing. The final thing is to ignore, refute, rebut, advertise, scream, or whatever it takes to get folks to understand that their fears about the process are irrational. Use a bully pulpit to ban any activity that is statistically more dangerous than nuclear plants and buried nuclear waste underground. And that's vritually everything because the number of humans killed from nuclear plant radiation is so incredibly small that virtually anything else including all transporation, sports, and the like are more dangerous. The Nuclear power problem is all out fear, perception, politics, and economics. There are no technilogical issues. That's what was meant by the mature technology reference by the OP. That's the key point that Cohen makes. So taking that plan forward I will refute and rebut each of the points below. To summarize France has not dealt with its nuclear waste because of irrational Not In My Backyard syndrome. There's no technological reason for it. > Vitaliy wrote: > > > Gerhard Fiedler wrote: > >> Looking at the general outlook of nuclear waste disposal in France -- > >> presents different > >> views of the issue -- it doesn't seem there's much proven or mature. > > > > It looks like you and Russell employ similar strategies. His reply was five > > pages long. You simply threw the whole internet at me. :) > > No, just a few links... :) > > > The first result from your link above is titled "Why the French Like Nuclear > > Energy". > > > > Two citations from that article: > > "For example, while French citizens cannot control nuclear technology > anymore than Americans, the fact that they trust the technocrats that do > control it makes them feel more secure." > > I don't trust "technocrats" any more than I trust the odd guy at a dark > corner. (Nothing against odd guys at dark corners or anonymous technocrats, > but I don't know either one and there's no reason to trust any of them in > any specific way.) If you cannot trust anyone, then what do you do? I compare the risks and rewards and choose the option that has the best reward for the least risk. France's nuclear program is nearly 30 years old. Any meltdowns? Blowups? Terrorist attacks? Deaths? Anything? Well over 50 plants just chug along providing the vast majority of power to the country without incident every day. If you can't trust people, then trust the data. > > And the last paragraph of that article, kind of the conclusion: > > "Nuclear waste is an enormously difficult political problem which to date > no country has solved. It is, in a sense, the Achilles heel of the nuclear > industry. Could this issue strike down France's uniquely successful nuclear > program? France's politicians and technocrats are in no doubt. If France is > unable to solve this issue, says Mandil, then 'I do not see how we can > continue our nuclear program.'" If you read the rest of the article, it seems that the waste issue is a political hot potato that no one wants to touch. Someone needs to suck it up and take the hit. Bury it. Seal it. Mark it. Forget it. Period. Anyone that complains should have to wear a lead suit because they would get much more background radiation from every source imaginable. Xrays would need to be banned due to radiation exposure. Do not kowtow to peoples fear and the media's penchant to exploit it. According to the media here I'm in danger of being shot, killed, robbed, and burned at every moment of every day. That's what in the paper and on the TV everyday. They sensationalize people's fears. There's no technological problem with France's waste. It's a fear and political problem. > "... which to date no country has solved" speaks for itself. Because everyone kowtows to the fears of the shrill minority that things that anything nuclear is the devil's work. That somehow nuclear radiation from power plants are going to be showered upon them. They raise a drumbeat to the public and the politicos bend to the will of the public's fear. I can do the same thing. It'll all be wonderful when the Earth looks like Venus because of all the greenhouse emissions from oil/gasoline/coal burning. Make cheap nuclear plants. Make electricity cheap and plentiful. Make the entire infrastructure electricity based. All the current problems are solved. The only thing that stands in the way is the fear that "something bad will happen." Look around, bad is happening now. Take a read of Cohen's chapter on the environmental impacts of hydrocarbons. The massive amounts of waste and gases being emitted is staggering. > > > > Result #2 is a nice overview of how France successfully deals with spent > > fuel: > > > > http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0411.shtml > > Right... if you read it carefully, it's all about temporary storage, in the > range of up to a few decades -- just long enough so that the ones who put > it there are out of the picture, and the ones who come next will have to > deal with the stuff. A strategy that seems to be employed quite frequently > with bigger problems. (Some wars come to mind, or rapidly growing public > debt.) Because they can't find a politically feasible way to bury it. > Result #3 starts like this: > > "PARIS, Dec 17 (Tierram?rica) - France sends thousands of tonnes of nuclear > waste to Russia each year, but the details are shielded by a decree of > "national security" in order to block debate on the issue, says the > environmental watchdog group Greenpeace." > > Doesn't sound like the problem of waste deposit has been solved. "Send it > to Russia" is usually synonymous with "dump it somewhere in Siberia and let > later generations deal with it". > If you read it more carefully it has all of the typical media markers: 1) Huge amounts of radioactive wastes are being stored onsight. 2) Waste is being transported. 3) Terrorist could capture depleted uranium, reprocess it into plutonium, and build a bomb. 4) The Russians are not properly handling the wastes. 5) Nuclear is irresponsible. 6) Nuclear is used to manufacture lethal weapons of mass destruction. 7) Most importantly that it needs to stop. Hitting on all fear cylinders. If they reprocessed to recover onsite and buried the rest, these issues would dissapear overnight. > > Result #4 talks about > the domestic opposition to nuclear waste repositories in France: > > "'The facts regarding the French repository program contradict > Vice-President Cheney,' said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of IEER, who > has written widely on nuclear waste issues. 'France has no repository, and > their siting program faces huge domestic opposition. The controversy that > surrounds waste management is a thorn in the side of the French nuclear > industry.'" > > "France has no repository" seems to be pretty clear, in terms of what it > means. But it's not technological issue. From my reading of this the French government has been FUDded into not properly disposing of the waste. Just do it already and be done with it. > > > Result #5 > talks about some of the details of the problems waste storage solutions > face in France. An excerpt: > > "Parliament issued a report in March, 2005, on the issue of France's > nuclear waste. Its recommendations confirm the status quo: waste storage > and decontamination research. > > "The cost of waste disposal -- hundreds of billions of euros -- is being > passed along to ratepayers. High rates aren't the only legacy of 50 years > of nuclear power. Citizens and scientists alike are concerned about > security, groundwater contamination, and storage." The trifecta. Let's take them on one at a time with the Cohen Plan 1) Security: buried 500m below ground and sealed. Good luck with accessing it. 2) Groundwater: buried in rock with limited groundwater access. Cohen also points out that even if water got to the wastes, the surrounding rock would act as a filter, meaning that it may be 50,000 years before anything reaches an available water table. 3) Storage: If you buried it, you wouldn't have to deal with temporary storage. All political issues. Not technological ones. I'll tackle the rest of the stack when I get back from going out. BAJ -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist