[Politics/Econ] another sad concession by Obama

[Aske]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/a...ge/us_obama_nuclear_plant

look, I'm not some ultra-green anti-nuclear power guy.
but uranium is a (pardon the pun) a fossil technology.
get some next-gen thorium plants on line , and you might even change some public image issues, not to mention achieving better efficiency and lower cost.   more status quo big business help.
meh.

[stroh]

You would rather have coal burning plants operate without government funding for however long it takes to get this Thorium thing off the drawing board and working as opposed to funding what works right now?

[Aske]

You would rather have coal burning plants operate without government funding for however long it takes to get this Thorium thing off the drawing board and working as opposed to funding what works right now?

it's well beyond the drawing board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LFTR 

 

[stroh]

You would rather have coal burning plants operate without government funding for however long it takes to get this Thorium thing off the drawing board and working as opposed to funding what works right now?

it's well beyond the drawing board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LFTR 

 

The real reason it isn't happeing is right in the Wiki article:

Design challenges
Molten salt reactors, nevertheless, present a number of design challenges. Known issues include:

 The high neutron density in the core rapidly transmutes lithium-6 to tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. In an MSR, the tritium forms hydrogen fluoride (HF). Tritium fluoride is a corrosive, chemically reactive, radioactive gas.






Zombies dude.  Zombies.


Think about it.






OTT, LOL  What do I know.   

[gleek]