In one of Cecil’s editorials he states that nuclear reprocessing plants
create plutonium.
This is not true, plutonium is created inside the breeder reactor.
The reprocessing plant extracts daughter elements from the spent rods,
which poison further reactions (these elements prevent neutrons from
interacting with the fuel properly)
Many of the daughter elements are very useful in their own right
and very hard to find or extract in nature.
.
If a heavy water reactor were to be used no enrichment would be needed
the canadian (thats strange…my spell checker does not know CANADIAN) …cando reactor is just one such heavy water reactor.
When you start a thread, it’s helpful to other readers to provide a link to the column under discussion. Saves searching time, and avoids people repeating what’s already been said in the column. No big deal, but I’ve now added such a link to what I assume was the column mentioned.
Although my opinion of Reagan is considerably lower than Cecil’s, I have to agree with him (Reagan, that is) on this subject. Compared to the 10,000,000 tons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere every day by fixed, coal-burning sources, I’ll gladly take nuclear power, along with the relatively microscopic amount of waste it produces.
The greens, in all their forms, have done the world a huge disservice over the last 50 years with their steadfast, mindless, fear-based opposition to nuclear power. The alternative has turned out far worse, and it’s probably too late to fix it now. But we’ve got nothing to lose by trying.
While in favor of nuclear energy, I’m not sure more plants would be a good idea in today’s environment. More targets for mistakes, corporate cost cutting or terrorism can only lead to more disasters. Even with regular government oversight, many plants in the US are in poor condition.
