A vessel moving at 4 knots will move 96 nautical miles (110 statute miles) in 24 hours. Placing large nuclear reactors on floating barges is a really bad idea. Placing them on the sea floor, far away from tectonic plate boundaries, is a somewhat less bad idea.
Fine. I'm sure that sea going reactors could be scaled up. Where would be good points to dock them at?
Big Oil is already asking the federal government to build massive seawalls to protect existing refineries. To me that indicates that new refineries have to be entirely redesigned as to locations and the civil engineering that goes into them. But I think that can be done, just pay more at the pump. Nuke power on a floating marine foundation? idk, very difficult sell.
I think it would be a very good way to get around local opposition to nuclear power plants. As I said you very seldom see protests in the U.S. about American Navy nuclear powered vessels docked in a port city. And there have been hundreds.
Nuclear powered carriers have a good record. Nuclear powered submarines and nuclear powered ice breakers not so good.
Okay...then no where. The problems with the concept have been clearly explained to you with no rebuttal so the entire idea is dismissed.
The Savannah River Project is still being cleaned so companies have to account for those costs even after the reactors have been shut down.
You do get that every spent fuel rod is one step closer weapons grade. The more reactors, the closer we get to No. Korea having more nukes then Israel.
I'm pretty certain that nuclear weapons grade uranium is not made out of "spent" fuel rods. A uranium based nuclear weapon (a very primitive design by the way, most are made with plutonium) uses uranium far more enriched than any used in a commercial nuclear power plant. By an order of magnitude.
Do you know how they have wind farms? What about current farms? Line the gulfstream with a network of large impeller which will each rotate a turbine. As far as off shore nuclear power plants. I think that bad weather could make a barge sink or something. So it's best to have a permanent submersible structure to avoid the bad weather on the surface. Like a giant submarine with no propellers. You can make it super big because you dont have to worry about propulsion. Fill tanks up with water to make it sink during bad weather
You’re wrong. The US, Russia and more advanced nations produce more efficient weapons.... Iran, North Korea etc without access to this technology can use the cycled spent fuel over several cycles from N plants for less effucient weapons. A plethora of nuclear reactors produces fuel for less efficient low yield nukes and dirty N bombs. Do we have to explain what dirty bombs are.....you taught science ? All this waste has devastating use for terrorist and rogue nations. I know you’d like to play this game of promoting N plants,, but being as short sighted as most conservatives are about the economy, the decommissioning of these plants can be cost prohibitive.
What if they are never decommissioned? By the way, a "dirty bomb" is only a theoretical device. None has ever been used or as far as we know ever even been constructed. Even at worst they are a mere terror device. Not a war winner.
Nuclear power advocates aren’t that much into science.....otherwise, they’d be supporting other sources and looking at the effects of climate change on the plethora of larger storms that are more prevalent now.
Just because you maybe an older farder and not live long enough and don’t care about the future, it’s a big concern for the future. Please tell me you know what “half life “ and exponential decay are as related to nuclear waste. You want to guard this material and plants to perpetuity, or are you depending upon alien invaders to clean it up ?
Theoretical device ? .......that’s insane. All you need is nuclear waste and explosives and a detonator. Many Terrorist have access to detonators and explosives. Ask our active duty military. Imagine if nuclear waste were added to it. You did teach science ? The area could be uninhabitable for hundreds of years.
I guess you didn't know that radioactive material having a "half life" of thousands of years (some) does NOT mean that it actually stays dangerous to humans for those thousands of years. Why do you keep referencing that I've taught science? You either believe me or you don't. At any rate I knew a great deal about nuclear reactions long before I started teaching science.
Personally, I have complete belief that within a hundred, two hundred years at the outside we will have reasonably affordable and reliable launch systems so that launching nuclear wastes into space (ultimately allowing it to fall into the sun) will be a safe and affordable option.
That is unlikely to be needed or acceptable as non-nuclear becomes (already is) more cost effective and reliable. We may be using fusion but fission is pretty much a dead energy source.
Nuclear waste “half life” is variable, it can range from thousands to millions of years. It’s practically dangerous to life.....”forever.” You do know what half life is ? Material can still be toxic after many half life periods. I reference the idea of “taught science” with a question mark, (?) because, As a science teacher, you don’t have to know everything but you should at least research a little before you post. Obviously, what you know about nukes, and what you are saying indicates what you know has “ decayed”.
Just like you believe in Ryan’s dynamic scoring, you're planning on liberal science solving both your nuclear waste and recession problems. You cnnot plan on unknown science of tomorrow, you plan on what is available today....