Recently in Nuclear Power Category

BHO and Harry Reid kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. So, I guess we'll just leave all that stuff where it sits - everywhere.

Solar and wind are useless unless they're connected to the grid. Where do we put 6,000 miles of transmission lines for all these new sites? The folks running things now are suing the folks who came up with Plan A. I doubt lawsuits will get us Plan B either.

And power tourist Julianne Couch clears security, dons a dosimeter and takes us inside a nuclear plant in far east Nebraska.

Cold Fusion Reactor

High Altitude Wind Power

Solar in the Sahara

Alaska's Untapped Hydrates

Senator Alexander made a call to return to the promise of nuclear energy:

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander called Wednesday for doubling the number of nuclear reactors nationwide, a potentially $700 billion proposal that calls for building 100 more over 20 years.

Obama's administration is considering a cap-and-trade program designed to reduce greenhouse gases and to require larger quantities of carbon-free energy production.

The country's 104 commercial nuclear reactors produce 20 percent of the nation's electricity, while most of its energy comes from carbon-producing coal.

Of course, the enviro-radical end of the eco-concerned quickly turned on the scare tactics:

Steve Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, called Alexander's proposal "reckless."

"Nuclear power is a problem, not a solution," Smith said. "New nuclear reactors are expensive, create significant water use and thermal pollution risks to our communities and produce radioactive waste that after 50 years we still have no long-term solution for."

Actually, had we built all of the reactors we originally planned decades ago, we wouldn't be having an energy crisis. Nuclear energy has been proved safe. Other countries use it even more extensively. New reactors are even safer, produce less waste (much of which is recyclable), than the older generations. We do have places to store waste, people like you, Steve, won't let us.

Alexander said he also backs renewable energy sources, notably solar power and biomass fuels, yet called those still too expensive and inefficient.

Exactly. We need diversity.

"Today there is a huge energy gap between the renewable electricity we would like to have and the reliable, low-cost electricity we must have," he said.

There are a number of reactors waiting approval or already approved. It's time to end the scare tactics and the pretend-to-care-politicians and really solve our energy problems. -D

The National Ignition Facility opened today at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:

[the device] will focus 192 laser beams on a hydrogen pellet the size of a bead, heating it to incredible temperatures in an attempt to recreate the power of the sun.

Nuclear fusion would create huge amounts of energy from tiny amounts of fuel. It would produce far less radioactive waste than conventional nuclear reactors. But it takes huge amounts of energy to trigger, and so far humans have managed to do so only by detonating atomic bombs.

Of course there are critics:

"We don't need this machine to solve our energy problems," says Dr. Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environment Research in Takoma Park, Md. "The main thing the National Ignition Facility has accomplished so far is to burn a hole in the taxpayers' pocketbook."

People like you, Dr., are why we don't have working fusion yet. Instead we're bailing out failing companies so they can continue to fail with our tax dollars. -D

Glenn Reynolds:

Why not? It’s clean, reliable, and greenhouse-friendly!

I'll tell you why not. As they used to say about Olympia beer, "It's the water."

The Independent:

So you drive a Prius, eat organic and boycott anything made in China – but will that help to fight climate change? Simon Usborne faces the facts many ecologists would rather ignore.

First line: "Cute animals will have to die" Whole thing's worth a scan.