[red-beard]

Jeff,

The problem is political with nuclear, not technical. Most of the "waste" today could be recycled and re-used, but is not because of FEAR of nuclear proliferation. We should be using breeder reactors and using Plutonium for power generation.

All waste from all reactors in the USA is presently being stored onsite. Making 5 times as many reactors in the USA would not put waste on every door step. Yucca was again techically fine, but was shut down because of Harry Reid and the fear of shipping the waste through the Las Vegas area. Again, a political issue, not a technical issue.

And finally, the best reason to go strong for nuclear, we have a whole bunch of weapons grade fission materials that needs to be run through a nuclear reaction, which is the only thing which will make it "safe". We might as well get electric power from it in the process.

Finally, 1950s/60s nuclear designs are very inefficient. With a pebble bed reactor, run in a combined cycle system, we could easily achieve 45% efficiency and probably reach the mid-50's using GE FA (1980s/90s technology). That would reduce the waste to 1/3rd, for each watt produced.

Again, the problem is political, not technical. And we have hundreds of years of proven reserves of Uranium. It will be a stop gap, until we can develop the final energy source, which is mass to energy conversion.