Quote:Bluemage wrote:We already have prototypes for nuclear power plants using "bucky balls" imbedded with U-238 that use air instead pressurized water as a medium. And they can be sized from 500 KW to 500 MW depending on what market you want. You fire an RPG into the pile and you wouldn't get a runaway reaction, since the engineering was designed to shut down automatically. And that was 25 years ago when I was in college.
BA has the right of it. One big pollution source is easier to manage than five million smaller ones.
Also, nuclear energy. Most of the plants you hear about, in the US or Japan, were built something like 40 years ago... and the Fukushima one still nearly survived both an earthquake and a tsunami. Update the plans with what we've learned from natural disasters since, throw in the last four decades' worth of materials science and physics advances, and I'd bet you could make a plant nigh-on Ragnarok-proof.
We also have the technology for safe (by comparison) nuclear waste disposal. Between fuel reprocessing and vitrification, we can drastically cut the amount of nuclear waste produced, and trap the rest of it in glass so it can't get into the water table. If the US ACTUALLY DID ANY OF THIS, we could cut emissions, produce enough energy to make hydrogen-fueled cars practical, and even clean up the waste we've still got sitting around from WWII and the Cold War... but we won't. There's no political will for it.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell