PressCoverage

PF would rather blame the "liberal congress" for blocking nuclear expansion... To him, it has nothing to do with uranium shortage or astronomical cost, nor catastrophic dangers...

Interestingly, he gives no link to his claim that there "millions of years" of uranium. Where?

patsfan13

The design or reactors now is far different than the reactors you cite.

As to terrorist, since they have successfully used airplanes to kill more Americans that have died as a result of nuclear power perhaps we should ban air travel to 'save lives'.

So I guess you would rather impoverish the country when our supplies of enegys dwindle and become much more ecxpensive. Wonderful.

__________________
"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

patsfan13

Of course there is NO URANIUM SHORTAGE.


The oceans for example have 4.6 * 1,000,000,000 TONS or Uranium. This quantity is augmentend with Uranium flowing into the oceans from rivers each year. We can exreact this materials from the Oceans economically. See the 2nd link to the PDF I posted on this topic.

The scinetific illeteracy of the congress crosses party lines. As is shown by the MM Global warming faith among pols.

__________________
"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

PatsFanInMaine

We could always follow Sweden's example of renewable energy.

Stockholm's bunnies burned to keep Swedes warm - The Local

PressCoverage

Ever the optimist.... Then why is uranium supply only at 58% of global demand and getting worse? Do you know something that energy investors do not?

Current global uranium production meets only 58 per cent of demand, with the shortfall made up largely from rapidly shrinking stockpiles. The shortfall is expected to run at 51 million pounds a year on average from next year to 2020. During the last 15 years, the shortfall between production and requirements was made up by excess commercial inventories, uranium released from military use and other secondary sources. These are now in decline, and the shortfall will increasingly need to be made up by primary production.

Eleven countries, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, DR Congo, Gabon, Bulgaria, Tajikistan, Hungary, Romania, Spain, Portugal and Argentina, have already peaked their uranium production and exhausted their uranium resources and must rely on imports for their nuclear programs or abandon them. Other countries have reached their peak production of Uranium and are currently on a decline.

Wolfpack

Just about everything that possibly could go wrong at 3 Mile Island did go wrong, and yet the safeguards in place did their job and we experienced no casualties. 20 guys with AK's could not force a nuclear meltdown just because they had access to a nuke plant. It isn't like you could just detonate a bomb and create a nuclear explosion. It doesn't work that way.

As for the "catastrophe that won't go away for 1000's of years" comment, that just isn't how it works. As bad as Chernobyl was, there are people who have returned to living in that area and their faces are not melting off. The consensus opinion is there is an increased risk of exposure to cancer causing radiation and living there is unwise - but so is smoking and sunbathing. I guess some people are just determined to do things that aren't healthy.

PressCoverage

Agreed. Power plants are fortresses, which underscores the fact that they are enormously expensive to secure and maintain, and require enormous amounts of FOSSIL FUELS to run.

Disagreed. While your statement is conveniently vague, people are still dying there in exponentially disproportionate numbers, and the rate of birth defects for tens (likely hundreds) of miles around is horrific. Where are you getting your information? Hopeful guesswork?

View:

HBO: Chernobyl Heart - Synopsis

In Belarus, only 15-20% of babies are born healthy. Roche comforts children who are born with multiple holes in their heart, a condition known in Belarus as "Chernobyl heart."

patsfan13

Most of the Uranium on the planet is in the oceans, that is where we should be extracting uranium.....
Many of the countries you reference are landlocked.


from the pdf above:


The problems are political not technical.

__________________
"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

PressCoverage

PF13, you are struggling to tread water in this debate. It's time, for once, that you concede that your argument is wrong. If uranium was abundant, and easy to find "in the oceans," there would not be a global shortage. None of these countries are landlocked:

Peak uranium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

* Germany—Between 1946 and 1990, Wismut, the former East German uranium mining company, produced a total of around 220 kilotonnes (490×10^6 lb) of uranium. During its peak, production exceeded 7 kilotonnes (15×10^6 lb) per year. In 1990, uranium mining was discontinued as a consequence of the German unification.[10] The company could not compete on the world market. The production cost of its uranium was three times the world price.[99]

* India—India, having already hit its production peak, is finding itself in making a tough choice between using its modest and dwindling uranium resources as a source to keep its weapons programs rolling or it can use them to produce electricity.[100] Since India has abundant thorium reserves, it is switching to nuclear reactors powered by the thorium fuel cycle.

* 'Sweden - 1969—Sweden started uranium production in 1965 but was never profitable. They stopped mining uranium in 1969.[101] Sweden then embarked on a massive project based on American light water reactors. Nowadays, Sweden imports its uranium mostly from Canada, Australia and the former Soviet Union.

* UK - 1981The U.K.'s uranium production peaked in 1981 and the supply is running out. Yet the UK still plans to build more nuclear power plants.[40]

* France - 1988—In France uranium production attained a peak of 3,394 tonnes (7.48×10^6 lb) in 1988. At the time, this was enough for France to meet the half of its reactor demand from domestic sources.[102] By 1997, production was 1/5 of the 1991 levels. France markedly reduced its market share since 1997.[103] In 2002, France ran out of uranium.[98]

* U.S. - 1980—The United States was the world's leading producer of uranium from 1953 until 1980, when annual US production peaked at 16,810 tonnes (37.1×10^6 lb) (U3O8) according to the OECD redbook.[104] According to the CRB yearbook, US production the peak was at 19,822 tonnes (43.70×10^6 lb).[105] The U.S. production hit another maximum in 1996 at 6.3 million pounds (2.9 kt) of uranium oxide (U3O8), then dipped in production for a few years.[106] Between 2003 and 2007, there has been a 125% increase in production as demand for uranium has increased. However, as of 2008, production levels have not come back to 1980 levels.[citation needed]

Now, if you want to talk about disabling nuclear weaponry for needed uranium/plutonium, then you might have something (short term).

patsfan13

As usual you are unable to differentiate between reserves and production. In the case of the US the production problem is political not a matter of supply. Try getting a permit to open a uranium mine, tougher than getting a coal plant permit.


Apples and oranges.



PS in this argument you are contradicting your olutions points above...

__________________
"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."