Nuclear Power : Policies, Practices, and the Future.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1 Africa's Especially Special Issues -- 2 Why Everything Boils Down to Energy Inputs -- 2.1 How Much Clean Sustainable Energy Will Our Descendants Need? -- 2.2 This Book's Technological Fix's Specifics -- 2.3 The Reasons Why Politically Correct Renewables Couldn't Save the World -- 2.3.1 Which Food Crops Should Our Descendants Raise and How Much Land Would That Take? -- 2.3.2 The Whys and Costs of Desalination -- 2.3.3 Fertilizers -- 2.3.3.1 Nitrogen and the Cost of Fixing Enough of it to Feed Everyone -- 2.3.3.2 The Reasons Why Powdered Basalt Should Supply the Phosphorous and Potassium Required to Feed Everyone -- 3 A Sustainable Nuclear Renaissance's Other "Killer Apps" -- 3.1 Atmospheric Carbon Sequestration -- 3.2 Nuclear Powered Transportation -- 3.2.1 Direct Electrical -- 3.2.2 Nuclear Powered Transportation Fuel Synthesis -- 3.2.3 "The Age of Substitutability" -- 3.2.4 Additional Apps -- 4 Why Sustainability Requires Breeder Reactors -- 5 Today's More Promising Breeder Reactor Concepts -- 5.1 Heavy Water Thorium Breeders -- 5.2 Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors (LMFBRs) -- 5.3 Molten Salt Reactors -- 5.3.1 MSFR -- 5.3.2 MCFR -- 5.3.3 MOLTEX -- 5.3.4 Tube in Shell Thorium Breeder -- 5.3.5 LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor) -- 5.3.6 THORCON and IMSR -- 5.3.7 The Whys, Hows, and History of Sustainable Reactors -- 6 Economics: The Main Reason that the USA's Nuclear Power Industry is Now on the Ropes -- 6.1 Generic Reactor Build Costs -- 6.2 Sustainable Reactor Build Costs -- 6.2.1 Materials -- 6.2.1.1 Concrete, Steel, etc. -- 6.2.1.2 Other Metals -- 6.2.1.3 Isotopically Pure Salts -- 6.2.1.4 Other Materials -- 6.2.1.5 Startup Fissile -- 6.3 Waste Management Costs -- 6.3.1 Waste Treatment -- 6.3.2 Waste Disposal -- 6.4 How Do We Pay for It?.

7 The Nuclear Establishment's Self-Inflicted Wounds -- 7.1 Refusal to Choose/Set Rational Goals -- 7.1.1 NGNP -- 7.1.2 DOE's Savannah River Site's MOX Boondoggling -- 7.1.3 DOE Hanford's Reprocessing Waste Treatment Project's Boondoggling -- 7.1.4 DOE's "Lead Nuclear Engineering Lab's" Radwaste Boondoggling -- 7.2 Fukushima's "Nuclear Disaster" -- 7.3 The Nuclear Industry's LNT-Based Radiation Dose Assumptions -- 7.4 ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) -- 7.5 Over Blown Proliferation Concerns -- 8 "The Damned Human Race" [196] -- 8.1 Greed -- 8.2 Tribalism -- 8.3 Gullibility -- 8.4 Laziness -- 8.5 Deviousness -- 8.6 Bullheadedness -- 8.6.1 Anti Nuclear "Environmentalists" -- 8.6.2 Hyper Secrecy -- 8.6.3 My Own Bullheadedness -- 8.7 Bullheadedness' Consequences -- 8.7.1 INEL's Calciner's Off Gas "Opacity Issue" -- 8.7.2 Argonne Idaho's IFR Waste Management Scheme -- 8.7.3 DOE's Radwaste Classification System -- 9 Why the Western World's Erstwhile Leader in Nuclear Energy Must "Embrace Change" -- 10 Suggestions for Improvement -- 11 Conclusions -- References -- Appendix I: Reprocessing -- Appendix II: MSFR Isobreeder Fuel Salt Reprocessing -- Appendix III: More Opinions about TERRAPOWER's Reactor Concepts -- Appendix IV: Example Additive Molar Volume Calculation -- Appendix V: QBasic Startup Fissile Program -- Appendix VI: A More Realistic Tube-In-Shell Thorium Breeder Reactor Startup Scenario -- Appendix VII: Letter Sent to INEEL's Director Circa 2001 (After "Separations" &amp -- Before "Steam Reforming" was the Site's "Preferred Alternative") -- Appendix VIII: Letter Sent to Two of DOE's Inspector General's Lawyers Just after My Job Had Been Downsized for the Last Time -- Appendix IX: Suggestions for Improving INL Reprocessing Waste Management -- Appendix X: Greater Confinement Disposal -- Appendix XI: How « hot » Are DOE's High Level Wastes?.

Appendix XII: How the Nuclear Industry's «experts» Sometimes Mislead Us -- Appendix XIII: Example of a Promising Concept that Needs Experimental Verification as Soon as Possible -- Appendix XIV: INL's Steam Reforming Process -- Index -- EULA.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.