Beyond availability of pitchblende ore, uranium requires processing and enrichment to a 12-20% [sup]235[/sup]U level for commerical pressurized and boiling water reactors typically used for power generation in the United States. Enrichment is an expensive time-consuming, and hazardous process which produces a great deal of toxic and corrosive side products (gaseous uranium hexafluoride, for one) which are not easily remediated or disposed of. Most existing commerical uranium enrichment systems in the US are based on the costly gas diffusion process, which is labor intensive and demands a lot of energy. Newer facilities are based on other methods–primarily the gas centerfuge method that is used almost universally around the world–but there’s an obvious (and pragmatically reasonable) reluctance by people to host one in their neighborhood, and so the ability of the US to ramp up domestic production of enriched fuel is very limited. The nuclear enrichment industry was deregulated in the early 'Nineties, and so lacking an economic initative there is little reason for companies to speculatively invest in increasing production infrastructure.
Reprocessing highly enriched weapons-grade material into fuel-grade material (see Megatons to Megawatts program) has similar hazards, and is of questionable economic advantage, though it does have the virtue of reducing the availability of weapons grade materials and the resultant damper on the production of improvised nuclear munitions by parties otherwise unable to produce enriched material. On a somewhat more upbeat note, the ability of the United States to produce useful quantities of weapons-grade nuclear material is essentially nil, meaning that the U.S. nuclear stockpile will continue to dwindle. This is obviously good in terms of reducing the likelyhood of a nuclear exchange (unless somebody gets itchy and decides to “use 'em before we lose 'em,”) but not so good in terms of maintaining strategic parity with existing or emergent nuclear powers, should that philosophy remain a goal in United States strategic planning. Another detrimental side effect of this is tritium production; commercial reactors are not configured to generate or seperate useful amounts of tritium. The United States has exactly one facility (the Tritium Extraction Facility at the Savannah River site) that is capable of tritium extraction, and relatively few sources of high quality tritium suitable for extraction.
Nuclear fission power should be considered at best a stopgap, albeit likely a necessary one, between truly viable and less waste producing methods of energy generation. The technical aspects of handling waste are managable (assuming good controls, monitoring, and training, all of which are pretty questionable when it comes to large organizations) but it will remain a political hot button regardless of the necessity. Transporting the waste across country and dumping it in a hole in the ground, however allegedy geologically stable, is not, IMHO, a wise move, particularly when we may someday need this “waste” if we elect or are forced to perform reprocessing and breeding.
Solar power is problematic because of a combination of factors; despite the cited almost order of magnitude costs in manufacturing, improvements in the efficiency of photovoltaic solar have been unimpressive and underrun predictions. The cost is still out of line with conventional energy production. There is little incentive to implement it on an individual basis–even after subsidies the balance works out in favor of getting energy off the grid for most people–and systems are typically pretty ad hoc rather than being well-integrated into home construction, resulting in additional maintanence. Commercial-scale solar has had some moderate successes, being relatively competitive but requiring a large footprint and only applicable to certain regions. (A solar facility in Washington state, for instance, would be an ill-advised move, though one would think that power utilities in Arizona could cover a portion of their barren landscapes without offending more then the lunatic fringe.) There’s not a lot of large-scale research going into solar, either, which limits the “critical mass” of brainpower on the problem that leads to revolutionary improvements. Passive solar is, dollars per effective watt, probably a better performer, but requires unconventional construction techniques and/or additional labor. And it seems unlikely that solar power will ever be sustainable–that is, produce enough energy to replace the bulk of fossil fuel methods–regardless of how renewable it is; certainly not the current state of the art.
I like solar–it’s clean, quiet, and uses all that waste energy that the Sun so carelessly blasts out–but it’s not going to be the salvation of humanity, at least not in the current form.
I always love simple answers to complex problems. Subduction zones are some of the deepest areas in the ocean that we can barely reach with advanced robotic probes. The cost of delivering waste to subduction zones is probably grossly prohibitive. It also deprives us of what could be a valuable resource should we decide to go the route of reprocessing.
Stranger
