Safe Nuclear Power

[TimberWolf]

HMS Astute is the latest nuclear submarine which has a nuclear power plant which does not need to be refueled during its lifetime which is expected to be around 10 years. This power plant is about the size of a container and produces enough power to provide electricity to a town the size of Southampton. Now wouldn't it be feasible to build such types of power plants and surely during their lifetimes we would have developed a way of disposing of the waste in a clean and safe fashion (i.e. shooting it millions of miles into space and buggering up the 3-eyed 8-armed freaks by chaning them into humans?)

The Pioneer probes were (and still are) powered by short lived radioisotopes too. Not for propulsion but for on-board electrics. It is sometimes surprising how such a seemingly simple thing as using the heat given off by nuclear decay turns into such an expensive and difficult business in the end and with no-one wanting to take care of the waste products.

[AtW]

HMS Astute is the latest nuclear submarine which has a nuclear power plant which does not need to be refueled during its lifetime which is expected to be around 10 years. This power plant is about the size of a container and produces enough power to provide electricity to a town the size of Southampton.

Can you back it up with some good references?

Astute class submarine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia lists that reactor plus 600 kwatt diesels, can't seem to find actual power produced by nuclear reactor (probably it's a state secret and I'll have MI7 knocking on my door in a few hours), but it sounds like your claim is greatly exaggerated.

[TimberWolf]

Can you back it up with some good references?

Astute class submarine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia lists that reactor plus 600 kwatt diesels, can't seem to find actual power produced by nuclear reactor (probably it's a state secret and I'll have MI7 knocking on my door in a few hours), but it sounds like your claim is greatly exaggerated.

Seems like a lot of them end up melting down on their own accord before they get to whatever they are trying to sneak up on:
Nuclear submarine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[BlasterBates]

I reckon it's time they resurrected the idea of atomic powered cars.

[Mich the Tester]

Agree with George on this one:

The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

The one new thing I've learnt from this "disaster" where the casualties are two cleanup workers with sunburnt feet and a slightly evelated risk of skin cancer, is how harmless radiation is. Even if you get a massive dose your risk of getting cancer is still hundreds of tiimes lower than a smoker.

Lot of mass hysteria on this.

I agree, but most voters in many countries don't, and won't be persuaded to agree, especially after what's happened in Japan. So it's a non-starter because people won't buy it.

[OwlHoot]

I agree, but most voters in many countries don't, and won't be persuaded to agree, especially after what's happened in Japan. So it's a non-starter because people won't buy it.

Once their eleccy is only on for only an hour a day, and costs double what it does now, they'll soon be persuaded.

[Mich the Tester]

Once their eleccy is only on for only an hour a day, and costs double what it does now, they'll soon be persuaded.

So you want to panic people into accepting it?

[OwlHoot]

So you want to panic people into accepting it?

It's giving them a taste of what will happen anyway, if socialists had their way in limiting supplies of energy (which is what spurning nuclear amounts to).

[BlasterBates]

Well Germany is going to switch off all it's Atomic power stations over the next 9 years (all offline by 2020), so the rest of Europe can sit back and watch what happens in real time, of course they'll switch most of them off when the current government gets kicked out in 2013. 2013 onwards will be interesting. Watch the Green dream unfold.

[shaunbhoy]

So you want to panic people into accepting it?

Never underestimate the power of a good nationwide panic MTT.