Interestingly, the U.S. Navy was the first organization to 'develop utilitarian nuclear power' and, according to that Wikipedia reference, is the only organization worldwide with a totally clean [nuclear] record. 'This is perhaps because of the stringent demands of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, who was the driving force behind nuclear marine propulsion. The U.S. Navy has operated more nuclear reactors than any other entity, other than the Soviet Navy, with no publicly known major incidents. Two U.S. nuclear submarines, USS Scorpion and Thresher, have been lost at sea, though for reasons not related to their reactors, and their wrecks are situated such that the risk of nuclear pollution is considered low."

In terms of safety, the nuclear industry itself seems to have an amazing record. Troubling me, however, is all this talk about those damned terrorists. Nuclear plants should be better protected and secured, as should be our chemical plants, shipping ports, food processing facilities, and reservoirs. Homeland Security, however, doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling on such measures, nor does FEMA in terms of having computer-modeled and expert-evaluated evacuation plans ready in the case of any disaster ranging from a nuclear accident to a terrorist attack on any one of the aforementioned facilities.)

But anyway, let's say not only hypothetically—but with more than a fair amount of statistics on our side, that nuclear is a viable option. I would much rather see old plants decommissioned, and new plants built. (Also keep in mind that, at a three-reactor facility, when one reactor is decommissioned, the remaining two—both here and in Europe, for example—are ramped up to produce the same power overall. It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to know that stressing old nuclear power plants—some dating back to the 1950s—cannot possibly be a good idea.)

Perhaps things will change for the better. Again, according to that Wikipedia piece, 'On September 22, 2005 it was announced that two sites in the U.S. had been selected to receive new power reactors (exclusive of the new power reactor scheduled for INL). It is possible that the first new nuclear power plant to be built in the United States since the 1970s may be installed in the remote town of Galena, Alaska. The town's City Council approved the idea, and Toshiba proposed to install its model 4S 'nuclear battery' in Galena free of charge as a test.'

But yes, as mentioned in Part I, there is that nagging problem of what to do with the waste.

Here are a few references from a very good series in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to help segue into the topic of nuclear waste…

Waste Primer

The British Solution

Into the Rabbit Hole [Yucca Mountain]

The French Fix

Vitrification: How Nuclear Waste Is Turned Into Glass

Storing nuclear waste through conventional means is not without its problems. One solution—or perhaps transitional solution 'til something better comes along, is vitrification.

British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), radioactive tank liquid is turned into equally radioactive, but more stable, black glass. The radioactivity of the waste will make it no less deadly, but make it safe to store since the radioactive components will be immobilized within more stable glass blocks and logs. (See The British Solution link, above.)
French company Cogema is also involved in vitrification and has completed the process on several thousand more glass blocks (13,000 canisters by the end of January, 2004 [PDF] ) than have their Brit competitors. No one is sure, however, is vitrification is viable for large quantities of waste such as those at the Hanford, WA site which was used to produce plutonium bombs during WWII, and operated 9 reactors in the 1980s to produce nuclear weapons materials.

France's Cogema might be onto something besides vitrification: reprocessing, or recycling, of nuclear waste. Here's a basic illustration of the process (See The French Fix, linked above.).

'To be sure, reprocessing has formidable negatives. It's messy, costly and politically incorrect from a nuclear proliferation standpoint. Even so, the French are making it work—so far, at least.' For security and economic reasons, the U.S. hasn't shown much interest. The article also mentions, '…when it comes to matters nuclear, the French think Americans are crazy. They consider our plan to bury our plutonium in the ground an appalling waste of valuable energy.'

So, there are alternatives to burying the stuff and keeping our fingers crossed. We could vitrify the waste and keep our fingers crossed, but perhaps not so tightly. We could reprocess the stuff, and keep our fingers crossed for security reasons.

That's the conundrum of nuclear waste. Solutions to the disposal problem exist, but they're not great (or even known-good) ones. Fortunately or not, that's what we've got to work with at the moment.

What say you?

P.s. Could someone offer tips on how to keep SimCity's power plants from exploding?