nuclear energy

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McCain wants to build 45 new nuclear reactors. Does anyone know whether there's enough fissible material inside the United States, that's reachable in a fairly economic manner, to power those reactors for any length of time? I'm not sure that buying nuclear material from Niger (or wherever) is better than buying oil from Saudi Arabia.

Crap, something I agree with McCain on.

We can get fissionable material, and cheaper than oil at least. I actually think we need to diversify the our energy supplies enough that we aren't dependent on one or a few technologies- we should have fossil fuels, nuclear power, wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric. Combining all of these will help to ease the strain and spread demand out enough to keep markets more stable.

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Australia has plenty of fissionable materials to be entirely self sufficient in nuclear power, without even impacting upon the uranium we provide India and world trade.
The only problem is getting panicky vegan environmentalists to shut up about the word "nuclear". I wish those people would get an education about nuclear power from anywhere but media! All the while coal resources diminish.

Maybe read Gudrun Pausewang's The Cloud then. Or come up with a plan how to store the used-up material for x k years.

No need; others have. Using new process nuclear waste loses it's radioactivity after merely ten years. As for "the cloud"... you do know what that really is, right...? Do you?
...would you rather acid rain, every city looking like Beijing? Two words; growth, infrastructure. Knowing that will let you find out - from resources other than one book - what can work where, etc.
Modern technology, modern nation, no three eyed fish or chernoybl disaster. Besides which; coal is running out, solar, hydroelectric and wind are not constant enough to provide complete power - only so much as around 40% could ever conceivably be those, given current infastructure and population distribution, social and cultural life.

Evidence please

Just google it, if you want prelims. Many different teams in several nations are developing this sort of tech. Information is limited for the uninvolved, at this time - though I believe there was a news report earlier this year. Probably besides the point, some reactor models would not produce waste.

http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/tex ... types.html

I googled "shorter half-life for nuclear waste" and got nothing. If you want us to believe your claim (which would essentially remove the primary obstacle to using nuclear fuel once and for all, if it were real), please find your source and submit it.

More good news for Canada. We produce 23% of the worlds supply of uranium.

LKL, I can't post links on an iPhone. As I said; there is little information available, because for some reason this sort of work is put on the back burner, in addition to it's relative infancy.
About the only name I can find references to is a germen scientist, last name of Rolf, I believe. New scientist has a topic from 2006 on it, he was amongst the first to try such. Very little is publicized. Personally, I think the ten year figure some are suggesting is a little optimistic, but not impossible.
Still, I wouldn't get my hopes up - if I were you - for much more information until 2012, and perhaps nothing of practical application until 2016.

Utter BS.

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?recor ... 67&page=R1

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?recor ... 9970050001

Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) which is High Level Waste (HLW) will need to be contained for centuries, at least. The containment will need to withstand earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters and well as deliberate sabotage, and will need to continue over this extreme period of time.

I'm no vegan; I've worked in the industry (not that the two are mutually exclusive). (I held a US "Q" clearance, which, at the time held you up for investigation back to the 6th grade - not that stringent anymore - $$$). Storage is the number one problem with nuclear energy.

Yowling cat; of course it's BS for SNF. It won't change existing waste! Merely produce a waste with a lower half-life. Good luck finding out more information in English, though...

Storage isn't a problem in my country; but still do the environmentalists complain.

Type 'Nuclear remediation' into google and you will get some articles on this. Apparently this technology has been around since the mid 60's. Funny though, no peer reviews, no links to government or recognised scientific sites, mmmmm what's that smell. OOH its BS.

It does seem on the face of it as though it would require changing the laws of physics in order to work...

^ yep thats one of the unsubstantiated claims made.