Apparently the National Research Council found that things should proceed as they have proceeded.
They hardly sound like the religious retards at Greenpeace. For instance, where would find a retard at Greenpeace making this statement:
In view of the above, the committee concluded that the once-through LWR fuel cycle should not be abandoned. Further, this has the advantage of preserving the option to retrieve energy resources from the wastes for an extended period of time. This can be achieved by adopting a strategy that will not eliminate access to the nuclear fuel component of the waste for a reasonable period of time, say about 100 years, or by preserving easy access to the repository for a prescribed period of time, or by extending the operating period of the repository.
A reason for supporting continued use of the once-through fuel cycle is that it is more economical under current conditions.
But, this is just a
report. The primary consideration of the report is
economics specifically
short term economics, the kind of short term thinking that makes obscene statements about the year 2050 - when most people here will be dead - about some bullshit renewable energy program that didn't happen in the last 50 years, when bullshiters like the Rio Tinto fraud Amory Lovins started talking about wind energy storage with compressed air, for instance.
Five hundred billion tons of dangerous fossil fuel later, most of Amory Lovins concerns amount to reeling in payoffs from corporate giants who want to delude the preternaturally gullible about how "green" they are.
In fact, I am secure enough in my ideas that I don't do "appeal to authority arguments." I couldn't care less what Amory Lovins has to say, or Robert F. "let's put gas terminals off the SoCal coast while opposing wind off the Nantucket coast" Kennedy says.
I have my own ideas.
I believe there is sufficient and necessary justification for a serious investment in nuclear fuel recycling. I believe that nuclear energy is the
only for of climate change gas free energy that can get to 100 exajoules in the next 20 years, but that such a program demands fuel recycling. The main reason that I reject the NRC conclusions is that I do not elevate the immediate short term consumerist bullshit over the rights of future generations. I believe it is our moral responsibility to leave the next generation as much uranium and thorium as is possible. They will need it every bit as much as we do.
In short, I argue that the NRC report is
wrong because the philosophical assumptions are wrong. It is not always about being cheap, although nuclear energy is, by far, the cheapest form of climate change gas free energy there is.
The entire 1996 NRC council report is, of course, available on line, like most NRC reports, and can be read by anyone with a decent scientific education - automatically excluding the entire anti-nuke religion/industry.
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=4912#tocI have found it convenient to have a paper copy of this work, which gives a pretty good overview of available technologies, even if the conclusions are dubious.