Comments acollins has made

  • Questions From Snake In The Grass Nuclear Engineer

    Questions for My Environmental Friends (In the
    Interests of Coming to a Mutual "Meeting of
    Minds"):

    1) How do we keep several hundred million poor on
    this planet from starving, and yet keep taking
    more crop land for biofuels or environmental
    preserves?

    2) Can we stop climate change, using strictly
    renewables, without nuclear?  I.E. I would like
    to see numbers on crop land acreage taken out for
    solar, wind, etc., & how is this numerically
    feasible, without messing up our planetary
    food supplies.

    3) You seem to have strong concerns on nuclear
    safety.  What are your feelings on the South
    African pebble bed modular nuclear reactors
    (PBMNR), which are allegedly passively safe?
    (I am aware, on the PBMNR, of the concern about
    accidental burning of the pebbles, due to acci-
    dental exposure to air.  This is being worked on,
    by R & D on oxide ceramic coated pebbles, such
    as magnesium oxide).

    4) Have you folks considered nuclear waste dis-
    posal in space, or into the sun, via the
    Slingatron hypervelocity ground to space launcher?

    5) Have you considered putting nuclear reactors
    in large diameter earth orbit, beaming power
    down to earth via microwave, and associated
    space waste disposal?  This supports putting
    industry in space, outside our biosphere, and
    addresses mineral extraction from the minerally
    rich asteroids, to avoid mineral depletion of
    earth resources.  These mineral resources are
    a million-fold as large as all of the mineral
    resources of earth.

    6) Have you considered uranium / plutonium cycle,
    recycling, to extend uranium fuel supplies to
    several hundred years, and associated nuclear
    proliferation concerns?  This is currently
    illegal in the US (Jimmy Carter), but the
    French have offered to recycle our fuel for free.

    7) Have you considered uranium / thorium breeders,
    with resultant 600 - 2000 year world energy
    supplies at 10 times current generation rates?

    8) Have you considered the proliferation issues,
    of every country in the Middle East currently
    building, or planning to build, nuclear reactors
    either for energy production, or optimized for
    plutonium production, as in the case of Iran?

    9) Have you considered the rapidly developing
    technology of accelerator - driven sub-critical
    micro (house supply) or mini (small industrial
    facility) uranium or thorium nuclear reactors,
    which can be currently built by any individual
    or small group, without access to "critical
    nuclear materials"?  Turn off the accelerator,
    & presto, the reactor shuts down in milli-
    seconds.

    10) Have you considered accelerator - driven
    systems, for 'burning up' long-lived actinides
    & fission debris, into short-lived radioactives
    or stable isotopes?

    I.E nuclear technology is in its earliest
    infancy...

    Regards, Art Collins, Retired Nuclear &
    Aerospace EngineerOn Umbra on plastic bottles and BPA posted 1 year, 6 months ago 13 Responses