Comments on: Nuclear storage at Yucca jumps 38% — to $96B

By: Kirk Sorensen

Kirk Sorensen — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:37:51 +0000

I agree that Yucca is a dumb idea (probably for different reasons than you–I think it’s a terrible waste of useful fuel) but one of the things I noticed was that that bill ran over 100 years. That’s only about $1B per year. If the $25B already in the nuclear waste fund was invested at 5% interest, that would yield $1.25B in perpetuity in interest alone.

By: charlesH

charlesH — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:47:13 +0000

No argument here. There is a better way.

Yep, for a fraction of the cost we could have LFTRs producing 1% of the waste volume and storage needs of 10-300 yrs instead of 10000yrs.

By: Lou Grinzo

Lou Grinzo — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:11:37 +0000

If I may–I wrote about this same development this morning over on The Cost of Energy, and talked about things like when Yucca will be filled, and pleading for everyone to take a longer-term view of nuclear waste management.

http://www.grinzo.com/ energy/ index.php/ 2008/ 08/ 06/ the-other-yucca-numbers/

By: Rick C

Rick C — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:31:49 +0000

Heard John McCain recently marvel about “cheap” available nuclear power. Guess he didn’t get the memo.

By: paulm

paulm — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:48:11 +0000

And how much do we trust that the correct Nuclear procedures will be followed when we go in to a recession/depression and there is no money in the kitty. Seems to me we play with fire down the nuclear path.

By: llewelly

llewelly — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:32:26 +0000

Yep, for a fraction of the cost we could have LFTRs producing 1% of the waste volume and storage needs of 10-300 yrs instead of 10000yrs

The nuclear industry has only ever built one LFTR. And only a few other thorium reactors have ever been built. There’s no reason to believe they will ever build significant numbers of thorium reactors of any sort. The facts that the fuel is far more common than Uranium, far safer to mine, and the reactors potentially safer to run have been known for decades - and the nuclear industry has done nothing. (Except shut down thorium reactors.) There was once a window during which development of thorium reactor tech could have created a reactor that could compete with solar and wind. But the nuclear industry has boarded that window up. For good or ill, solar and wind are available today, and highly effective today. Thorium reactors are not.

By: paulm

paulm — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:35:49 +0000

the guardian,Climate change: Prepare for global temperature rise of 4C, warns top scientist

Now we are starting to see some plain straightforward risk probabilities coming out….and it does not look good.