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Re: Global Warming (NUCLEAR)



The only way to reduce the CO2 emission significantly is to
make electric industry nuclear, as in France. From what I
know newly designed reactors are much safer than before.

And technology for transforming long-term radioactive
isotopes into stable, or rapidly decaying, products can be
developed in about one decade, if necessary. Two years ago
I attended a conference devoted to that subject. There is
nothing unpredictable (as in the case of fusion) about this
technology. See my note about it in TPT (vol 35, February,
1997, pages 126-127).

Turning spent nuclear fuel into products decaying in
hundreds of years (instead of tens of thousands of years)
would remove the need for the long-term underground
depositories, like Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Well protected
near-surface containers in deserted areas would be a much
better alternative. Special high temperature reactors can be
constructed to get hydrogen fuel from water at much lower
cost than through the electrolysis. Burning hydrogen is
much less polluting than burning coal or gasoline.
Ludwik Kowalski