At 11:42 PM 1/26/01 +1100, you wrote:
>Sure, the IFR (if it works scaled-up, add standard provisos) sounds pretty
>damned cool. But perhaps my objection was misunderstood. I didn't mean
>plutonium from well-guarded breeders in the USA, where nothing has ever
>been known to go wrong with nuclear reactors (although excursions are
>always possible, planes do hit things, terrorists are not without their
>cunning ways). I meant they'd be scattered around the world; I meant that
>breeders would be built in many countries. They are being used already,
>after all, in Japan, France (the Super-Phenix), and for all I know Israel
>and Iran. I get really really nervous about machines that make plutonium,
>even if burning it produces power that's too cheap to meter. (Cheap crack;
>sorry.)
>
>Damien Broderick
Three Mile Island, Brown's Ferry, Enrico Fermi (outside Detroit - that one
WAS a sodium cooled breeder...)... Have I missed any? Oh, yeah, - Zion,
Braidwood, and Dresden, in Illinois, here, have all had "minor" oopses -
mostly from poor management.
Problems can and do happen, but so do chemical spills and explosions, gas
leaks, and a hell of a lot more radiation exposure from fossil (coal)
plants than US nukes, anyway.
Chuck Kuecker
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