McMansions for a recession
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Steven Colbert grows a "crisis herb garden"
Besides Obama's prioritization of energy, there was another particularly striking moment in the debate. (And I'm not talking about McCain referring to Obama as "that one.")
In the midst of an answer on climate change, McCain said:
Now, how -- what's -- what's the best way of fixing [climate change]? Nuclear power.
Sen. Obama says that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that. Look, I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it's clean, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. And I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel. The Japanese, the British, the French do it. And we can do it, too. Sen. Obama has opposed that.
Now, set aside the preposterous notion that nuclear power is going to "fix" climate change. The transcript doesn't convey it, but this line -- "Sen. Obama says that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that" -- is delivered with a kind of bemused sputter, like he's trying to figure out some peculiar idiosyncrasy of Obama's.
High-handedly dismissing safety concerns about nuclear power struck me as jarring and a little bizarre. I'd be curious to hear how it played with independents. Was anyone watching CNN's little squiggly audience-reaction lines at the time? [UPDATE: Joe says uncommitted voters were not enthused.]
Watch:
![Dear Vinod Khosla & Tom Friedman: No amount of sequestration makes coal ‘clean’ [KHOSLA RESPONDS] image](/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=http://www.grist.org/i/assets/2/coal_lump_iStock_463.jpg&w=50&h=50&zc=C&q=100)
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Japanese, French, British"reprocess spent fuel"? I don't think so -- is he referring to breeder reactors? Setting aside the practicality of breeders, I don't think any of those countries are reprocessing.
Obama and the Dems are derelict about Nuclear PwrThere is no credible way of reducing GHG from this country without nuclear power. I'm surprised McCain hasn't exploited this disparity more.
Reprocessing fuel refers to burning it up in advanced reactors such as the Integral Fast Reactor, the development of which was canceled by Clinton in 1994.
Say what you want about nuclear power, but the fact remains that it's far easier to address a few square miles of land underground for ...read more
Reprocessing normally means PUREX @Jon Rynn
What McCain has meant by reprocessing is the PUREX reprocessing to yield Plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. The obtained Plutonium can be re-utilized in Light Water Reactors. PUREX is a 1970s technology, which is in vogue in several countries. It is however not the smartest way for reprocessing because of two reasons (a) It uses only 6% of the nuclear fuel instead of the 5% that is used in LWRs (b) This technology has several ...read more
the sciam article is linked here.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
But still,McCain's claim that reprocessing is going on is not valid, because he was addressing the problem of waste, and 5% will not cut it. He could have called for breeders, but he didn't
Dave, put your emotions aside, look at the facts.That's what I did when I was antinuclear.
Fission is the only proven non fossil energy source with unlimited expandability at an affordable price.
Seawater uranium can support 10 billion people for several hundred years using proven reactor technology at a fuel cost per kWh lower than coal. Fuel reprocessing is not necessary. See this and the following comment.
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4558#comment-413193
If all U.S. ...read more
Look at it this way ...
Look at it this way. Anything that fixes climate change by replacing fossil fuels is going to ruffle a lot of feathers, a lot of very plush feathers.
Nuclear energy is already replacing billions of dollars' worth of fossil fuel per week.
It may seem preposterous that anything that ruffles as many feathers as nuclear energy can be ramped up to make industrial ...read more
bill, do you realize it is kinda funny when you say
Current generation of light water reactors will become obsolete very soon. I hope we will all be building 4th generation reactors such as IFR or MSR from 2015. But in reality, we might be delayed as late as 2050 if we continue with our stupidity. But not beyond that.
Breeder reactors use up all the actinides and leave only fission products as ...read more
Yes, yes,everyone with concerns about nuclear is twitterpated and emotional and irrational, while nuclear cheerleaders are hard-headed, sensible manly men who only look at facts and use reason.
Or at least that's what they stipulate at the beginning of every discussion.
And yes, yes, Very Special Future Pony Nuclear will have none of the problems of today's Actually Existing Nuclear. Those who raise issues with Actually Existing Nuclear simply lack the proper PonyVision.
We've been over all this many times.
grist.org
You will not always caricature your opponentsbecause you won't forever remain opposed. Not that you ever were, of course! Not antinuclear, just independent-minded.
Moral cowards with an eye to the main chance ... goers-along to get along ... coldly rational reducers-to-practice of the theory that they won't be taking it with them because neither they nor anyone will be going, but ...read more