The Nuclear Option
From The New York Times:
"The North Korea agreement, announced in Beijing on Wednesday, sets out the first specific timetable for the North to disclose all its nuclear programs and disable all facilities in return for 950,000 metric tons of fuel oil or its equivalent in economic aid. "
To me, this is a real mixed bag. Kudos to President Bush and the six-nation pact that got North Korea to stop building nukes without killing anyone. But this is a step backward in humanity's energy-source evolution. If anything, we need more nuclear power.
Climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions is doubted by a segment of scientists that can be characterized as a "fringe" with ever-increasing accuracy. But give the fringe-devil its due. Even if emissions aren't changing the climate, we still need to kick our "addiction to oil" or it will be kicked for us when the supply effectively runs out. It's arguable how traumatic an experience that will be, but the more we move to alternative fuels, the less traumatic it will be.
What alternative fuels? To be brief, all of them. Diversity of energy sources has to be the name of the game in the future (it's exactly what the game isn't right now), and nuclear has to be a part of that diversity. It's the only source, I think, that could pretty much supplant oil right now, using existing technologies. Hell, using technologies that existed before I was born. But in thirty years nuclear power has become much safer, for man and his environment, than it was. We needn't fear Mr. Burns. There are still issues of what to do with the waste. But, from the Nuclear Energy Institute:
"Over the past four decades, the entire industry has produced about 56,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. If used fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, this would cover a football field about six yards deep." Italics mine.
Think about how close to nothing that is. About 5% of the mass of oil needed to get the North Koreans to give up nuclear power. And once we get annular fusion going, nuclear haters won't have a leg to stand on.
"The North Korea agreement, announced in Beijing on Wednesday, sets out the first specific timetable for the North to disclose all its nuclear programs and disable all facilities in return for 950,000 metric tons of fuel oil or its equivalent in economic aid. "
To me, this is a real mixed bag. Kudos to President Bush and the six-nation pact that got North Korea to stop building nukes without killing anyone. But this is a step backward in humanity's energy-source evolution. If anything, we need more nuclear power.
Climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions is doubted by a segment of scientists that can be characterized as a "fringe" with ever-increasing accuracy. But give the fringe-devil its due. Even if emissions aren't changing the climate, we still need to kick our "addiction to oil" or it will be kicked for us when the supply effectively runs out. It's arguable how traumatic an experience that will be, but the more we move to alternative fuels, the less traumatic it will be.
What alternative fuels? To be brief, all of them. Diversity of energy sources has to be the name of the game in the future (it's exactly what the game isn't right now), and nuclear has to be a part of that diversity. It's the only source, I think, that could pretty much supplant oil right now, using existing technologies. Hell, using technologies that existed before I was born. But in thirty years nuclear power has become much safer, for man and his environment, than it was. We needn't fear Mr. Burns. There are still issues of what to do with the waste. But, from the Nuclear Energy Institute:
"Over the past four decades, the entire industry has produced about 56,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. If used fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, this would cover a football field about six yards deep." Italics mine.
Think about how close to nothing that is. About 5% of the mass of oil needed to get the North Koreans to give up nuclear power. And once we get annular fusion going, nuclear haters won't have a leg to stand on.
posted by john at
10:33 AM
1 Comments
