Is there a role for nuclear energy?

[Viking King.]

Again, uranium is on the way out, thorium will be the nuclear fuel of the future. Good thing we have tons of thorium, eh?

May well be on the way out, but what has been mined and processed is enough to last the next 100 yrs before running out if production stopped today, there are many sites around the world that have some small production with the process of uranium, it comes as normal part of normal ore mining, either process it and store somewhere somehow or just leave it unprocessed to blow about in the winds, either way, something has to be done to control it.

[Jovial Monk]

Nope, all available uranium reserves would only last for 30 years with Gen 1-3 reactors. Need the Gen 4, fast breeder reactors to keep nuclear fuel going for more than a few decades.

[Viking King.]

Nope, all available uranium reserves would only last for 30 years with Gen 1-3 reactors. Need the Gen 4, fast breeder reactors to keep nuclear fuel going for more than a few decades.

Nope, was just reading about it, they expect with what is on the ground at present there is enough to last 100 yrs.
and looking at the half life of these products,
thorium said to be more readily available as it is in just about every rock and grain of sand and only currently being tested in India, thorium has a half life of 14.05 billion years,
uranium is 4.47 billion years,
plutonium is 80.8 million years,
mary j hooanah is a couple of days.
Although thorium has a smaller quanity of radioactive material, it stays around a heck of a lot longer,
we won't be here to worry about it but the fact is, it is still under heavy testing even though it was first found back in the 1800's.

[Viking King.]

A prominent use of uranium from mining is as fuel for nuclear power plants. As of 2008, known uranium ore resources that can be mined at about current costs are estimated to be sufficient to produce fuel for about a century, based on current consumption rates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining

[Jovial Monk]

Ummm slight correction to what I said, if nations were to install more nuke plants to reduce emissions there is only about 30 years of uranium left.

[Viking King.]

Ummm slight correction to what I said, if nations were to install more nuke plants to reduce emissions there is only about 30 years of uranium left.

No worries, but still, 30 yrs - 100 yrs, long time to wait.

[Jovial Monk]

It does give a breathing space for something better to rock up.

That something better will be be nuclear. . . .

. . . nuclear fusion.

Nuclear fusion once conquered should be very scaleable—power plant big enough for a whole major city and small enough to power your car. The Very Large Hadron Collider is of interest to me only as it brings insights that help research and development of fusion.

Renewables a good secondary source. I no longer see it as ever being a primary one. Just one decent sized solar thermal power station would take up 20Km by 20Km—enormous! Expensive! Windpower also expensive. Tide power might be good but would have to be able to withstand one in a thousand year storm. More $$$

[Viking King.]

All being very good points to ponder,
personally I don't like the collider, they have managed to create a replica big bang and within milli milli milli seconds they have collapsed, this is also the current answer to how the universe began, what ever was there pre big band collapsed down to what is called "Nothing into something", since the collider is a new toy, might it not be possible for the same to occur?
they are producing big bang time and time again, what if these little tiny big bangs suddenly all collapse at the same time and a black hole created as the result?
Worrying.

[Jovial Monk]

I am not a believer in the big bang. Can’t see how matter would pack down into the monobloc. More a believer in some form of steady state, the universe has always been here changing and growing.

Big Bang is too much like Genesis—would fit in nicely with “. . . and Dog said let there be light. . .” and a big fucking explosion created the universe.

[Viking King.]

I am not a believer in the big bang. Can’t see how matter would pack down into the monobloc. More a believer in some form of steady state, the universe has always been here changing and growing.

Big Bang is too much like Genesis—would fit in nicely with “. . . and Dog said let there be light. . .” and a big fucking explosion created the universe.

I don't disagree, because apart from what we can see in the sky, science can only work with the tools it has today, that's why when something is mentioned by science and the greatest minds on the planet like "Stephen Hawking" they all say
"In theory" as in, it's all guess work at the moment, black holes are only a guess at something they can't understand, same as the local doctor, "You have a viral infection" meaning the doc has no idea what it is and so try this it might work.
I greatly enjoy watching doco's to see what might have be found and proven, the Orion nebular is the most watched piece of sky but science still has not worked it out other than "It looks like this is where planets and stars are being created"
radiation and possibly nuclear waste is floating around out there, but so small an amount our ozone blocks it without a worry, it's what is happening from what we are doing is the concern, will thorium be the better answer?
we don't know as it is all tests at the mo, it may well turn out to be the most efficiant fuel ever, but what of the byproduct and the use left over product, what might it do 10 yrs after use?