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September 05, 2006
The Continuing Rejuvenation Of Nuclear Power
In which automobile would you feel safer on the interstate at 70 mph: a 2006 Toyota Camry or a 1950 Cadillac? There's no question that 56 years of technology has made a huge difference in the safety of automobiles (whether or not our human brains choose to take advantage of that fact is another question entirely).
The generation of electricity by nuclear power is about as old as that 1950 Cadillac. Although it's a shame that the same market forces haven't been allowed to drive nuclear power technology as the auto industry, there has been a lot of progress. From Free Republic:
A revolutionary nuclear energy technology is being designed and built in South Africa, but with suppliers and partners in many other nations, says Paul Driessen, a senior policy adviser for the Congress of Racial Equality and Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).The 165-megawatt Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR) are small and inexpensive enough to provide electrical power for emerging economies, individual cities or large industrial complexes. [...]
The fuel comes in the form of baseball-sized graphite balls, each containing sugar-grain-sized particles of uranium encapsulated in high-temperature graphite and ceramic; this makes them easier and safer to handle than conventional fuel rods, says Pretoria-based nuclear physicist Dr. Kelvin Kemm.
It also reduces waste disposal problems and the danger of nuclear weapons proliferation; conventional fuel rod assemblies are removed long before complete burn-up, to avoid damage to their housings; but PBMR fuel balls are burnt to depletion.
Because they are cooled by helium, the modules can be sited anywhere, not just near bodies of water, and reactors cannot suffer meltdowns.
Since PBMRs can be built where needed, long, expensive power lines are unnecessary; moreover, the simple design permits rapid construction (in about 24 months), and the plants don't emit carbon dioxide.
PBMR technology could soon generate millions of jobs in research, design and construction industries -- and millions in industries that will prosper from having plentiful low-cost heat and electricity. It will help save habitats that are now being chopped into firewood -- and improve health and living standards for countless families, says Driessen.
The article also notes that surplus process heat from the reactors can be used for a host of useful tasks like seawater desalinization and recovering liquid petroleum from oil shale and tar sands.
We need more of this kind of innovation, and we also need to lose our emotional prejudice against nuclear power.
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Comments
Remember that the very same Moonbats that called Reagan's approach to the Cold War "suicidal" are the same jackasses that are holding the signs outside the power plants. That is, when they're not protesting in DC for the next Michael Moore film. Floyd lives in Arizona where it's actually legal to shoot these morons. Bombs away!
Posted by: Floyd at September 6, 2006 08:39 AM
