Re: List of energy-supply topics

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

Ludwik Kowalski wrote:
> Phys-L list of nuclear energy topics sorted according to
> A, D, and Q.
...
> A2) Large supplies of fuel are available.
...
> D2) Production of Pu which can be used to build weapons.
....

Let me suggest a few ways of improving the organization of
the investigation.

1) First, let's use terminology more specific than "nuclear".
  1a) It's pretty clear Ludwik is assuming fission not fusion.
  1b) More importantly, when he asserts "large supplies of
fuel" he seems to imply breeder reactors -- an implication
that the industry and the government are certainly not taking
for granted.  A proper analysis would consider the breeder
and non-breeder cases separately.  Disadvantage D2 would be
much greater in one case, and alleged advantage A2 would be
absent in the other case.

2) Secondly, we need to evaluate the _magnitude_ of each
advantage and disadvantage.  Merely counting the number of
Ds and As isn't sufficiently illuminating.  The net-present-
value formalism is the standard way of doing this.  Reference:
  http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/physics/projectology.htm#sec-npv

If somebody has a better approach, let's hear it.

3) Also, we need to compare the nuclear options with the
various non-nuclear options.  As it says at the aforementioned
URL:

] If there are multiple ways of solving the customer's problem,
] evaluate the NPV of each.  Do not just evaluate your favorite
] method in isolation.  Do not just evaluate your favorite method
] and some straw-man alternative.

] One way of organizing such an analysis is to use a spreadsheet
] with columns for the competing methods and rows for the advantages
] and disadvantages.