In my latest Science and the Media web column at Skeptical Inquirer Online, I take a look at the current debate over re-investment in nuclear energy as a means to curb greenhouse gas emissions and shift the country towards energy independence. I show that the same frames used in the nuclear energy debate during the 1970s are still in play today.
I also review poll findings that indicate public support for nuclear energy has increased since 2001. However, comparisons to independent surveys show that public support isn't nearly as strong as industry-sponsored poll trends indicate.
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It appears to me that one of the primary ways in which the nuclear question is framed today concerns the proposed hydrogen economy, the generation of which requires massive amounts of energy. All other things being equal, if the public is asked specifically about the use of nuclear power to generate hydrogen does the positive response increase?
I've worked at a nuke plant. Nukes are incredibly clean. The fuel is incredibly cheap per unit energy. The safety proceedures are incredibly expensive. And the best waste disposal system i've seen so far is to guard it like a hawk on the plant site.
Put it in a $15 billion mountain? What if you want to get it out and burn it some more?
They used to mine copper in the UP, Michigan. Nearly pure copper came right out of the ground, mixed with a little quartz. They'd get the copper out of it by pounding the snot out of it. The quartz dribbled out as sand, which they piled up in big piles. Eventually, they pushed the stamp sand into Lake Superior. Just a few decades later, they dredged up the sand, because copper was expensive enough that you could make money by refining the stamp sand.
Nuclear fuel is limited. We'll want to use the 'waste' again. Well, maybe not, if fusion energy becomes available.
I want my 15 billion dollars back.