Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihuxx.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!ihuxx!ignatz From: ignatz@ihuxx.UUCP (Dave Ihnat, Chicago, IL) Newsgroups: net.followup,net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Lockport Blast: safety of oil vs nuclear power Message-ID: <805@ihuxx.UUCP> Date: Fri, 3-Aug-84 18:11:56 EDT Article-I.D.: ihuxx.805 Posted: Fri Aug 3 18:11:56 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 4-Aug-84 02:31:04 EDT References: <338@tellab1.UUCP> <1588@druxv.UUCP>, <651@teltone.UUCP>, <4146@utzoo.UUCP> <447@tty3b.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL Lines: 42 Gosh, Mike, if you could have said anything more damaging to your stance, I don't know what it is: "...you will never convince me we need nuclear power." Closed-minded, or what? Say things like that, and no one will listen to what you say, either. Suppose I informed you that a means DOES exist to get rid of those nasty nuclear wastes? Is, and has been feasible, and results in a waste product with a half-life measured in 10s of years, not 10000s. A friend of mine is an editor at Nuclear News. (For those not in the know, this is the publication of the American Nuclear Society; but it's not always in good odor with the industry, because of some misguided notion that it should report facts, instead of being an industry propaganda sheet. Believe me, Mike would not espouse some position to make ANS happy.) He told me, a couple of years ago, that the means to get rid of the worst of the nasty long-lived radioactives in the waste fuel has been tested. It involves building high-energy accelerators to, essentially, transmute the materials and hasten their decay. The problem is that you're talking about an industrial accelerator, not a scientific test tool. To build ones big enough, reliable enough, and safe enough to process power-plant waste, it would take a massive, multi-megabuck building program RIGHT NOW to process this country's wastes by 2000. It isn't going to happen, for a lot of reasons. Mostly political. (Incidentally, those who question this technique, or want more info--let me know, via mail; if I get enough requests, I'll ask Mike to write a brief USENET article expressing the details and considerations.) The question is not whether we need nuclear power. The question is: We need intense power sources for our industrial lifestyle. Where do we get them, and where do we want to use them? (Note that I am NOT willing to 'conserve', if by conserve you mean back off to an energy-starved economy. High-tech is the only way we're going to support this planet, and high-tech needs abundant energy.) Dave Ihnat ihuxx!ignatz