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Re: Global Warming (NUCLEAR)



CO2 sequestration sounds like a terrible idea to me - it's performing a huge
global experiment with unknown ramifications.

The nuclear industry's biggest problem is dealing with the continuing
fallout (real and political) of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Its second
biggest problem of making each nuclear plant customized for each customer
with associated cost overruns and maintenance issues has been solved (in
theory) by designing standard modular reactors. The lack of long term
storage of radioactive waste is the final major issue - part technical, part
political.

There are new nuclear reactor designs which are inherently safe - such as
the one being developed by General Atomics - the modular helium reactor.
http://www.gat.com/gtmhr.html
These reactors safely and passively shut down, even in the event of a total
loss of cooling.

General Atomics also made and makes a fail-safe reactor called the TRIGA
that is used in over 65 locations in many countries- universities, isotope
production, etc.
http://www.gat.com/triga/summ.html
It sits in a pool of water. One of the ways to operate it in a pulsed mode
is to remove all of the control rods.

Dr. Lawrence D. Woolf; General Atomics, 3550 General Atomics Court, San
Diego, CA 92121; Ph: 858-455-447; www.sci-ed-ga.org


-----Original Message-----
From: David Bowman
Regarding Ludwik's comment:

The only way to reduce the CO2 emission significantly is to
make electric industry nuclear, as in France. ....

Of course there are economic and engineering feasibility issues to
consider, but I recall a proposal from a Scientific American article of
about a year ago that described a method for having a coal-based
electrical industry that did not contribute to global warming simply by
not putting the CO2 produced by the process into the atmosphere. Rather
than venting the CO2 to the atmosphere up the stack, the exhaust was to
be first scrubbed of its acidic oxides (of sulfur & nitrogen) and then
after cooling it is compressed and pumped via pipeline to the ocean floor
where it is discharged to the environment.
I suppose though, that the sea water would eventually dissolve some of the
liquid CO2 near the ocean bottom, & maybe some of this would eventually
find its way back up to the surface where the solubility would be low
enough to cause CO2 to be discharged to the atmosphere. But maybe a
sufficiently quiet and stagnant sea floor region could be found where
the water didn't appreciably circulate at such depths and the CO2 would
be kept isolated from the upper ocean even if the deepest water did
become significantly carbonated.

David Bowman
David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu