How should nuclear power be expanded throughout the U.S.?

Question

Build more plants is obvious. But what is the most efficient way to do so?
DO NOT PUT INSULTS ON NUCLEAR POWER. ANSWER THE QUESTION.

Except downsides that effect the expansion efficiency

Answer 1

For the capital investment, they are not terribly effecient in a delivered kWh/$ sense. Considering the amount of power that is lost in the transmission lines, the most efficient, and cost effective method for power generation is to have wind and solar power production capabilities tied locally to each municipal area, with privately owned solar electric cells on everyone's roofs to add to capacity.

Aside from being extraordinarily expensive, the costs of waste disposal are not included in any estimates given by the government or the power companies, because not only do the power companies not pay for it, no one knows how to effectively deal with the large amounts of radioactive waste generated. It just sits in big holes and leaks into the ground.
No container made can hold it for the 12,000 to 60,000 years necessary to allow the radiation to dissipate to levels that are only very quickly fatal instead of the instantly fatal levels they start out at.

As well, there is the terrorism issue, the problem with nuclear fuel disappearing, and the fact that only a very small mistake could cost millions of lives. Look up the Zion nuclear power plant in Illinois.

The most effecient way to expand nuclear power in the US is to dismantle all of the power plants and seal all of the debris in hundreds of feet of cement.


How can one not put insults in these answers?
Asking "How should nuclear power be expanded throughout the U.S.?" is like asking "What is the best way to put pedophiles into every elementary school in the U.S.?"

Nuclear power is a BAD thing. It should NOT be spread all over this country. It is expensive, inefficient (massive power loss in transmission), very very very dangerous, and produces the most horrendously deadly wastes this world has ever seen. Why would anyone want this to have an even larger presence?

Answer 2

The word nuclear isn't all that descriptive. Solar power is nuclear, it comes from fusion reactions inside the sun. Geothermal is nuclear, heat is coming from the decay of unstable elements inside earth.

To answer your question, the most efficient way to expand nuclear throughout the U.S. is to choose one of the new GENIV reactor designs, which rely on fundamental laws as safety measures (such as the law of gravity), and essentially do a cookie-cutter operation and build hundreds of these plants. By doing so we can reduce costs to a point at which other sources of energy will be non-competitive. We also would need to adopt a reprocessing scheme so that we may reuse our "waste".

On the other hand, we could jump into the future a bit and expand upon the ITER program in France to build a thermonuclear reactor. In truth, ITER is never meant to be a power-producing device; however, in the works is the second prototype power plant named DEMO. At this point, a small minority of the population - that has just enough knowledge that it actually hurts them - would like to point out that the ITER reactor uses tritium (which is radioactive) and produces neutrons, which make things radioactive.

Enter advanced fuels for fusion reactions. One of the many alternate fusion reactions that can be utilized is the D-He3 reactions which produces both an alpha particle and a highly energetic proton. These products can be converted by means of something called Direct Energy Conversion. In short, DEC can be explained in the following way: We get an alpha particle and a proton, both charged particles, from the reaction. Current is time rate change of charge, thus if we have these charged particles moving we have current. There are many ways to extract this current, but most use an electrostatic potential to slow the ion, which then transfers the current to a wire. Efficiencies can be upwards of 90%.

There is also some more crazy stuff that you can do, like P-B11, but that requires much higher temperatures.

Answer 3

not intended to be an insult, but still, we must always remember history to not repeat it ! We must learn from Tchernobyl, and Three Mile Island. Safety First ! before trying to cut corners and cut costs !

Answer 4

It would be good to have it throughout the US but, you know there is going to be that one person not knowing squat about what they're doing. It only takes one idiot to make just one mistake turning it into a disaster.

Answer 5

NUCLEAR POWER IS GOOD FOR YOU, YOUR A RUDE THOUGHTLESS LITTLE ?

Answer 6

they should build more of them...develop CAESARs

http://www.umresearch.umd.edu/newsletter/RFUM030303.htm#5

Answer 7

Please don't. I understand the advantages but they are an open invitation to terrorists.