<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for John McCain talks nuclear security, promises to promote ‘civilian’ nukes]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by GRLCowan http://www.grist.org/article/nuclear-options/ Tue, 27 May 2008 06:15:48 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/nuclear-options/1 McCain needs to be better advised ...

with regard to the likelihood that spent nuclear fuel will ever be "reprocessed to acquire bomb-grade materials". No group seems ever to have accomplished nuclear proliferation by this means.

It would have been a long way around for them, for it is much easier to build a small isotope production reactor than a power reactor and easier to extract plutonium from uranium irradiated to low burnup in such a reactor than to extract it from spent fuel, which is necessarily high-burnup.

Spent fuel plutonium is, in theory, much harder to  make into bombs than plutonium from uranium irradiated to low-burnup. The above-mentioned increased difficulty of getting it in the first place, compared to getting plutonium from small low-temperature low-burnup reactors, seems to have ensured that no-one has tried to overcome the theoretical difficulties.

--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html

]]> McCain needs to be better advised ...

with regard to the likelihood that spent nuclear fuel will ever be "reprocessed to acquire bomb-grade materials". No group seems ever to have accomplished nuclear proliferation by this means.

It would have been a long way around for them, for it is much easier to build a small isotope production reactor than a power reactor and easier to extract plutonium from uranium irradiated to low burnup in such a reactor than to extract it from spent fuel, which is necessarily high-burnup.

Spent fuel plutonium is, in theory, much harder to  make into bombs than plutonium from uranium irradiated to low-burnup. The above-mentioned increased difficulty of getting it in the first place, compared to getting plutonium from small low-temperature low-burnup reactors, seems to have ensured that no-one has tried to overcome the theoretical difficulties.

--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html

]]> Comment #2 by billgee http://www.grist.org/article/nuclear-options/ Tue, 27 May 2008 07:27:32 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/nuclear-options/2 No Newkular Options

But Im sure you know that.

]]> No Newkular Options

But Im sure you know that.

]]> Comment #3 by amazingdrx http://www.grist.org/article/nuclear-options/ Tue, 27 May 2008 16:53:03 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/nuclear-options/3 Transportation risk

Transporting this stuff is very dangerous and that makes it very expensive, as in nearly uninsurable.  But I'm sure eastern europe will take all the waste it can hold, unsafely of course.

McCain is daft.  His slightly better level of awareness of his surroundings than the shaved chimp has, will be negated by the daftness factor.

To yield a third bushco term in office.  Phil Gramm evidently passed a bill making investment houses, "banks".  A wall that had existed since the depression, to protect against another depression was torn down.

It struck me as strange when the media started talking about the fed bailing out investment "banks".  

"Since when are those hedge fund gambling partners 'banks' that come under federal protection", I said to myself (or maybe on the blog?).  Well since Gramm passed this bill in the middle of the night.  

It also gave a sheen of respectability to the faulty mortgage bundling instruments that these firms were peddling, that caused the mortgage crisis and global credit crisis.

Gramm is bush-lite's (mccain) economic advisor.  Still trust McCain to plan the future of nuclear power?  I bet he knows as much about nukes as he knows about economics.

Just enough to ask lobbyists like Gramm what he should do.  Yikes.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

]]> Transportation risk

Transporting this stuff is very dangerous and that makes it very expensive, as in nearly uninsurable.  But I'm sure eastern europe will take all the waste it can hold, unsafely of course.

McCain is daft.  His slightly better level of awareness of his surroundings than the shaved chimp has, will be negated by the daftness factor.

To yield a third bushco term in office.  Phil Gramm evidently passed a bill making investment houses, "banks".  A wall that had existed since the depression, to protect against another depression was torn down.

It struck me as strange when the media started talking about the fed bailing out investment "banks".  

"Since when are those hedge fund gambling partners 'banks' that come under federal protection", I said to myself (or maybe on the blog?).  Well since Gramm passed this bill in the middle of the night.  

It also gave a sheen of respectability to the faulty mortgage bundling instruments that these firms were peddling, that caused the mortgage crisis and global credit crisis.

Gramm is bush-lite's (mccain) economic advisor.  Still trust McCain to plan the future of nuclear power?  I bet he knows as much about nukes as he knows about economics.

Just enough to ask lobbyists like Gramm what he should do.  Yikes.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

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