Finally... A BDN article with some honest substance. After decades of leading the pack in dimiinishing the value of nuclear power, dismantiling Maine Yankee, and glorifing the insane acts of "the clamshell alliance", the BDN owners (Warrens/Mowers) are recognizing their massive error and the resulting devastation to the Maine economy.

Of course, If the BDN wasn't such an agenda driven newspaper, It would reported the $122 BILLION of federal loan guarantees awarded last week for 21 proposed 4th generation nuclear plants to be expected to be online by 2015. Is Maine one of the proposed sites? ... dream on. The owners of the BDN and their connections with Peter Vigue and Cianbro will see that it never happens. Cianbro has to much at stake in promoting self-serving inefficient mini-projects that attract massive government grants to keep them in operation. Its not by news worthyness, that Cianbro or the Maine Maritime Academy gets a daily press release published, all three of which incestural inter-connected.

Full WSJ article: http://www.nucpros.com/index.php?q=node/6765

Nuclear is where its at. Clean Cheap power!

Why is it that we have ships that can sail the seas for 30 years and subs that can submerge for 6 months or more but this technology cannot be set on land? Anyone in a position of authority care to explain this please?

And where were all these voices when the state of maine voted to decommission Maine Yankee???

Nothing is cheap, everything comes at a price

RolandFortKent, What is that price? Nuclear/kilowatt is cheap and safe.

What do you do with the nuclear waste from these plants that have a 1/2 life of 1000 years?

"Depleted" fuel rods can be Re-Processed and reused, resulting in One Tenth the waste.

It was a sad day when Maine Yankee was demolished.

Looking back, repair costs would have been a Much Better investment for Industry and Good Jobs in Maine.

Here is what really happens to nuclear waste: (SHEESH)!

"Depleted" fuel rods or the low-level (not extremely radioactive) waste can usually be buried in the earth, it doesn't have to be too deep. It is also not very dangerous and usually will have lost most of its radioactivity in a couple hundred years. < - yes the "low-level" will only be radioactive for a couple hundred years.

Now for the good stuff:

The high-level waste made up of of spent fuel rods, is a little dicier because a spent fuel rod contains material that takes thousands of years to become stable (and non-radioactive), it must be contained for a very long time. Some of the plans for its disposal include burying the waste under the ocean floor, storing it underground, and shooting it into space. The most promising option so far is burying the waste in the ground. "This is called "deep geological disposal". . If it is not contained, it could come in contact with human population centers and wildlife, posing a great danger to them. Therefore, the waste must be sealed up tightly. Also, if the waste is being stored underground, it must be stored in an area where there is little groundwater flowing through. If ground water does flow through a waste storage site, it could erode the containment canisters and carry waste away into the environment. Additionally, a disposal site must be found with little geological activity. We don't want to put a waste disposal site on top of a fault line, where 1000 years in the future an earthquake will occur, releasing the buried waste into the environment."

Safety?

We are extremely more safe with nuclear power plants, on the mainland, than the extraordinary highly unknown and potentially highly risky danager, though remotely unlikely, undersea nuke-sub incidents.

With over 100 (unclassified, how many classified, I am not sure) roving nuclear subs today and so are roving accidents, potentially, like moving a nuclear plant from state ot state, where it stops or malfunctions no one knows.

So point is we are already at risk without more nuclear plants. Then add other nations nuclear subs, plants, stored weapons, waste, etc., all over the world, in bunkers, storage or etc. In a zero sum game now.

Safety is a relative term and disingenuous at best for not bulding more sites.

Read the NCR case on this.

fredrogers??? your post was an advertisement for ban all nuclear power today. So here's the gist, according to you, we're all going to die from the nuclear subs and weapons so what's a few 100,000 spent fuel rods buried in my backyard going to hurt. I mean if I live to be 10,000, I'll outlive their radioactivity, so there, well, there you go.

Clean, Safe, Nuclear Power Now !

Zero carbon emissions, The Holy Grail for the "Global Warming" crowd !

Perfect for Plug-in Electric Cars !

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It's not clean and it's not safe. Didn't anyone here ever study the effects of radiation in school?

It's like talking to a bag of rocks.

Wind FAIL -

The White House would be wise to learn the lessons of T. Boone Pickens' wind-power Failure !

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Coolfusion your crazy. Your talking like the little old BDN can influence a $122 Billion decesion please. And Nuclear cheap? Are you kidding, do you know how much it cost to build a Nuclear site...someone has to pay for it. Glenme...military changes everything. Once in the "Civil" world all the rules change. T. Boone was just trying to get some respect. He's failure was in transmission...it is the down fall of power in America.

". . T. Boone was just trying to get some respect." Dh@mn, I didn't know "respect" costs so much!

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Atomic Power, No fossil fuel, No black smoke, the power of the Sun, the power of the Future, TODAY !

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Power too Cheap to meter !

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When common sense and reality hits home, why do some folks resort to slander others' intellect?

Afraid your statements cannot hold water (or energy)?

Nuclear power nor weapons, will never, in the next several generations at least, baring new science that can support wind/tidal/manure/corn/cooking oil/hemp etc, will never be turned off or removed from this World.

So I prefer to use my energy to sane and verifiable uses. Nuclear waste projects, already in the making, will save the day via human ingenuity to solve this problem.

And I have faith, in human beings on this Earth and so in reasonable folks, will continue to prevail, so this Earth will not destroy itself, by the fact that nuclear power and weapons exist, nor do I choose to be fearful and use fear as some profess, to using fear, as the reason to stop offering and increasing the use a sustainable and cheap source of energy.

LOL

Why cant we send the waste to Mars? Or if that is too expensive, send it to the moon. Rockets arent that expensive maybe even cheaper than building huge underground storage facilities.

Nuclear power is going to have to be a larger part of the solution.

Nuclear power is 'clean' the problem usually flow from what to do with the 'waste'. I think that this 'waste' is just an unsolved engineering problem. Our last generation of nuclear power plants we chosen more for their ability to provide us with weapons grade radiological materials than for their efficiency in generating power. In the end a nuclear power plant is just a big old tea kettle (as is most forms of electric generation). We use some fuel (oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear fission) to heat up water that turns turbines that generate electricity. Radioactive waste is dangerous because it's radioactive. It's because it's radioactive that we were using it in the first place. Theoretically we should be able to use that radioactivity to generate electricity. When there is too little radioactivity to be harmful to us or any other living thing we can safely dispose of it. Until that point we should be extracting energy from it. Waste not want not.

More efficient reactor designs, reprocessing of radioactive materials, that's where we should be focusing our engineering talents. In a few years we may be reopening old nuclear waste facilities to extract all that valuable fuel we've so helpfully been stock piling there. All energy boils down to gravitational, nuclear, or solar. Tidal (gravitational), nuclear (well nuclear obviously), Coal (solar), Oil (solar), Natural Gas (solar), wood (solar), wind (solar), biomass (solar), solar. Everything except tidal, nuclear, and direct solar is just using second (or third) handed solar energy. It also wouldn't hurt to come up with a more efficient method of generating electricity than boiling water....

fredrogers, think about what you just posted. You believer that they can "invent" a way to safely store radioactive material for 1000's of years but that alternate fuel sources are centuries away? HUH??? DUDE! I believe that the world could be oil or nuclear power free in my lifetime if 1). Oil companies would stop interfering with the development of these alternate fuel sources. 2). The people (and then following the governments) would educate themselves to the truth and make these alternate fuel sources a priority 3). Scientists around the world would pool their knowledge.

I don't believe they will ever find a way to safely store material that will be radioactive for thousands of years.

How is coal, wind or wood - solar?

and... I'm not going to pick apart the rest of your post line by line but I will ask you to read up on how nuclear energy is actually created and what the problems with the spent fuel rods really are.

Look, in the short term, 10-15 years I have no problem with limited use of nuclear energy but you people have to be reasonable. Nuclear energy has a by-product that doesn't degrade for 1000's of years and can kill humans by the millions with only minor exposure.

MaineExpatriat:

Wood (etc.) - Plants use the sun (solar energy) to grow. That energy is stored in their structure. When we burn wood, we are extracting that energy. The same thing happens with hemp, or any other biomass (Did you think plants grew with the help of some magical mystical limitless energy source?). Coal, Oil, Natural Gas are nothing more than plant/animal matter that's been transformed by heat pressure and the passage of millions of years.

Wind - The sun (solar) heats the land, ocean and atmosphere differently. Cold air is heavier and sinks, warmer air is less dense and so rises. This coupled with the earths rotation causes the wind to blow. It also causes the ocean currents. The steadiest currents and winds move heat from the equatorial regions (hot - from the sun) to the colder polar regions (less direct sun = colder) and back again.

Nuclear energy = the process of using radioactive materials to heat a substance that flows and turns a dynamo built in such a way to generate an alternating current. The biggest problems with 'spent rods' (there are other types of reactors, such as 'pebble bed' that don't use rods per se) is that they are still radioactive enough to be a danger to living things (like us), but are no longer usable in the reactor they came from to produce electricity. My point is if we improve the technology we can keep using the fissionable material for far longer than we do at present. As long as fissionable material is useful to create electricity the longer it's fuel and not waste. My hope is that we develop the technology to the extent that the usable life of radioactive materials lasts until they are safe to 'throw away'.

You do realize that we are getting radioactive materials from the earth right? Except for some of the more exotic materials (plutonium, etc.) these things are radioactive in the environment already. We're just concentrating them, not making them out of whole cloth.

MaineExpatriat wrote: "How is coal, wind or wood - solar? " O. M. G. ! ! !

.

jilocasin, you'll have to excuse MaineExpatriat, she was stoned in class when that was covered . . .

in EIGHTH Grade ! !

.

I agree, Finish the National storage site.

Build a Reprocessing station, could be a National endeavor.

"Mine" all the existing "waste" rods.

Sounds like a Reasonable plan to me.

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LOL... JJHampden, next time you google information you should actually read the article and not the abridged summary. You're wrong... and I think I know which one of us was stoned.

Those are not solar. There's volatile and non-volatile but the rest of your post was a little *ahem* inaccurate.

"Solar Power is a known synonym for Solar Energy. Actually the light & the radiant heat of the Sun influences Earth’s climate & weather and hence sustain life for all living beings & the plants. Solar Power specifically refers to the electricity generated using the solar radiations of the Sun.

As we all know that the sources of energy on Earth are by & large divided in to two segments – Volatile & Non-Volatile. As the name specifies, Volatile sources are those that would extinguish in some years or some centuries such as petroleum, minerals, wood, coal, etc. The Non-Volatile sources of energy are those sources that would not diminish or extinguish with the course of time, such as wind, water waves, bio-mass, etc.

Solar energy is of course the non-volatile source of energy and hence quite a beneficial choice for the human beings to use. Also it is needless to mention that producing electricity using the solar energy as compared to the other resources such as petroleum etc. in terms of cost & availability is far more cost effective & easier.

Solar power that is generated using the solar energy as mentioned above is used for several indigenous purposes such as space heating, disinfecting potable water via distillation, generating thermal energy for cooking purposes, facilitates high temperature processes in the industrial set ups, etc."

By the way, I've never smoked dope but I think it's obvious who here has. : - )

Neat to learn if we increased the number of windmills a few times we could get the power output of a nuclear power plant with none of the permanent problems caused by nuclear power. Stray escaped breezes and other "wind remnants" don't poison the communities or population where they are located, don't contribute to terrorist use of nuclear byproducts, the rise of wars for uranium (efforts to steal wind would be as effective as attempts to shovel back the tide) , and don't require multi quadrillion buck permanent waste respositories which must continue to ge maintained and guarded over all of future time.

How about comparing the rates of cancer downwind from Nuclear Power Plants and downwind from Wind Turbines? And let's get a list of names of those who'd rather have spent fuel rods in their town than a carbon fiber recycling plant. I'd personally support Nuclear Power Plants if they were located in the center of those cities that benefit most from them, where they'd do the most good if they melted down.

We haven't even begun to explore the possibilities of bridge mills and floating mills, but for centuries Europeans sawed timber and milled grain with mills powered by waterwheels that didn't interfere with migrating diadromous fish. With modern materials and proper gearing, Maine's rivers could support hundreds of bridge-and floating-generators, and we'd still recover our diadromous fisheries, along with the inshore demersal fisheries they once supported.

Work now permits so I can finish what I was going to write.

jilocasin, the solar radiation and nuclear waste are not even similar so I have no idea why you put that in your little speech.

nuclear waste:

"Radioactive waste typically comprises a number of radioisotopes: unstable configurations of elements that decay, emitting ionizing radiation which can be harmful to human health and to the environment. Those isotopes emit different types and levels of radiation, which last for different periods of time.."

Solar radiation:

The ozone layer filters out any harmful rays. It's only through a lifetime of over-exposure (sun worshipping) will anyone have a problem with the sun. Except of course in areas where we are thinning our ozone layer.......

But basically one we need to survive, one kills us quickly upon contact.

Also: concerning "All energy boils down to gravitational, nuclear, or solar" I'm probably just splitting hairs but (no I'm not splitting hairs) Wind is not solar energy, what I think you meant to say was "Almost all of the energy that drives the various systems (climate systems, ecosystems, hydrologic systems, etc.) found on the Earth originates from the sun". There is a big difference. Solar energy is solar energy, wind power is wind power but all things on earth effect all others.

Don't eat the fuel pellets, you'll be fine.

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nuclear energy was the single most important discovery Mankind made in the twentieth century, and we are still letting that discovery go to waste here in America in 2009...its sad. Nuclear power has come a long way since the days of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, everywhere but in America, that is. I've never understood why we as liberals are supposed to hate nuclear power so much. France is one of the most liberal countries on the planet, and they get around 70-80 percent of their power from Nuclear plants. We tend to think of nuclear plants as dangerous as a result of a couple of historical incidents, but they are probably the source of power that has done the least damage to the environment over time...we all know about the damage from coal plants to the environment, and they are currently providing most of our nation's copious energy needs. No matter what any of you would like to believe, wind and solar, or any other boutique energy source, is never going to provide for any more than a fraction of our nation's power needs. Can you imagine the damage to the coastal ecosystems from windfarms on every inch of shoreline, or the loss of habitat that would be caused by massive scale solar fields? Of the options that are actually on the table, Nuclear produces the least waste (though disposal is a significant issue that must be dealt with) and is the least harmful to the environment (barring some sort of highly unlikely disaster, and as I said before, N-plants have come a long way in the rest of the world). If you support green energy but not nuclear power, you are really just supporting the status quo, which is coal.

and I repeat:

"Depleted" fuel rods or the low-level (not extremely radioactive) waste can usually be buried in the earth, it doesn't have to be too deep. It is also not very dangerous and usually will have lost most of its radioactivity in a couple hundred years. < - yes the "low-level" will only be radioactive for a couple hundred years.

Now for the good stuff:

The high-level waste made up of of spent fuel rods, is a little dicier because a spent fuel rod contains material that takes thousands of years to become stable (and non-radioactive), it must be contained for a very long time. Some of the plans for its disposal include burying the waste under the ocean floor, storing it underground, and shooting it into space. The most promising option so far is burying the waste in the ground. "This is called "deep geological disposal". . If it is not contained, it could come in contact with human population centers and wildlife, posing a great danger to them. Therefore, the waste must be sealed up tightly. Also, if the waste is being stored underground, it must be stored in an area where there is little groundwater flowing through. If ground water does flow through a waste storage site, it could erode the containment canisters and carry waste away into the environment. Additionally, a disposal site must be found with little geological activity. We don't want to put a waste disposal site on top of a fault line, where 1000 years in the future an earthquake will occur, releasing the buried waste into the environment."

Yah, we we got your repetitive skew.

He's the thing, the U.S. Needs BIG Power.

You can "conserve" all you want it won't match the energy growth requirement for a Health economy.

Nukes have BIG power to give and it IS Clean, Safe, and No Carbon output.

Listen to Joshua up at 9:30 PM, Our engineers Can Reprocess "waste" fuel into New fuel.

The longer we wait, the More pollution and Costly it will become and the longer this depression will last.

Or don't you Care because you "work" for a government agency?

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And now 2 billion dollar bio-mass project being pitched in Wiscassett yesterday, and only the town of Wiscassett is in the loop?

Where is the state?

Hiding again as these folks like when letting the rich and famous in Wiscassett have sole decision on the New England gasification plant. These folks no not want nuclear and yet are for wind/solar/bio mass, AS LONG AS IT IS NOT IN THEIR BACK YARDS!

JJHampden, yeah I get your senseless repetitive spew. I hope they build it in your backyard and bury the spent fuel rods under your basement.

MaineEx, you see spent fuel as an insurmountable obstacle, whereas people with a little more intellectual curiosity see it as a challenge, yes, but a challenge that is both attainable, and presents an opportunity for the creation of American jobs.

P.S....we can all run a simple Google search on Nuclear waste and the like, it is a senseless waste of bandwith for you to copy and paste, or even to slightly rehash, the text you have gleaned from such a search.

Joshua,

I keep copying and pasting because there are many here who obviously can't read and comprehend on the first go around. You perhaps being one of them.

Furthermore there isn't an ounce of reputable science to back up your claim "you see spent fuel as an insurmountable obstacle, whereas people with a little more intellectual curiosity see it as a challenge, yes, but a challenge that is both attainable, and presents an opportunity for the creation of American jobs. " You're basing your hopes on an ill-fated dream, that is not intellectual curiousity, that's a grown man believing in fairy tales. Intellectual curiousity would be to hear about a subject and then read up on it. It's not, hear about a topic and then ignore facts and just spout unscientific rhetoric.

Don't insult people because they're rational. Furthermore... as far as creating jobs, perhaps you should investigate just how many jobs would be created by green technology, that is if the right-wing would stop obstructing progress, because that's all they can think to do.

And to all a question:

What science is out there that can eradicate (not hide in the earth) toxic radioactivity that has a 1/2 life, of a minimum, of a 1000 years. Ongoing scientific research and just plain old theory welcome.

Ok MaineExpatriat, If nuclear power is so dangerous, what do you suggest we do for power when all the fossil fuel reserves have been depleted? If you knew anything about nuclear power, you would be familiar with the new technology that the nuclear power divisions have created. Not sure if you have heard of the pebble bed, modular construction of nuclear power plants. You WILL see these popping up throughout the world for reliable, cheap and non-polluting sources of power. And as far as talking to a bag of rocks, I don't think anyone that has commented on this topic has ever talked to a bag of rocks. Maybe you should do some research and quit talking to bags of rocks.

Mattecamp, Are you familiar with the Challenger incident? Just what I want is spent fuel in the atmosphere when the rockets explode. And why should we send our trash and nuclear waste into space anyway? It just seems a little irresponsible for the human race at this point of our existence. Rockets are expensive and can fail. The best solution is to continue to use deep underground storage facilities formed by prehistoric eruptions.

Oh, trust me MaineEx, I'm at least as, likely more, informed on this subject than you. Maybe the reason no one heeded your earlier cut-and-paste warnings is because your arguments aren't strong enough to change their minds....and you can't label yourself "well-informed" just because you've read a few reports from agenda-driven agencies. "Green energy", as you see it, is the fairy-tale. Your dream of a windmill on every streetcorner and a solar panel on every rooftop is irrational. Nevertheless, your clamoring will make no difference in the long-run, the reason that nuclear plants haven't been being built as of late is a business issue moreso than a political issue, as big energy companies have been less willing to undertake such massive investments of capital on assets that take such a long time to produce a return. This is likely to change due to a number of factors in coming years.

Joshua, don't pretend you're so "informed" on this topic. Your posts have all stated everything to the contrary. You have picked a position that you like and you are sticking to it, logic and truth be damned. Your entire belief system is irrational, you base your expertise on political rhetoric and spin from right-wing dogma that is only written to benefit big business. Fortunately you and your ilk are in a very small majority, so your opinion is just that an opinion. The reason no one "heeded" my posts are because most of the posters that came here are just as right-wing as you are and do not want to hear anything that conflicts with what they HOPE will happen. You call me irrational for wanting exploration into safe green technology, yet your only song is toxic radioactive waste is no big deal.

PowermanKevin, research on non-polluting, safe, green technologies is what I and the majority of the world proposes. My understanding of the "pebble bed, modular construction of nuclear power plants" does not address the biggest issue of the toxic radioactive by-product from the plants. It may give it a place to go, so to speak, but it does not make it any lesst toxic to humans if it were released into the environment.

Possible new energy sources:

Wind Power/air turbines

Solar Power/harnessing nuclear fusion reactions/Alcator project happening now at MIT (I know the Professor in charge of the project and it has potential)

Hydrogen and Electrical energy

Hydroelectric/Geothermal/Biomass and Tidal-Ocean energy

Underwater Tidal power/A company called Verdant Power came up with an idea of placing "wind" turbines underwater. This new free-flow hydropower technology converts kinetic energy of deep water into usable electricity.

and in the short-term (for maybe the next 10 to 15 years) nuclear power.

That's just what I know about and I'm not an engineer or involved green energy in anyway. Just imagine what someone actually "in the know" could list off.

hahahahahaha anyone who posts regularly on the BDN knows I'm anything but "right-winged". If you can't even figure that out, I'm not sure there's much you can figure out....and the majority of Americans support nuclear power, including the vast majority of scientists (51% and 70% respectively, Pew Research Center poll, July 09) support nuclear development. I'll do as you say, and trust the scientists on this one...

Joshua, "If you can't even figure that out, I'm not sure there's much you can figure out" before this thread I never took any notice of you. You don't give the lasting impression you think you do.

If we're discussing the same poll... the nuclear power poll showed Americans favoring it in the SHORT-TERM, just as I do as a way to immediately reduce our need on foreign oil. Heck, I even voted to drill in that poll as a short term way to relieve our dependence on the Middle East's oil.

I tried to find your poll re: scientists. I couldn't find anything more recent than 1989. Do you have a link?

here is a direct link to the study: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1276/science-survey

There are a number of different questions, including the nuclear one. 51% of citizens and 70% of scientists sampled favor building NEW nuclear plants (not just maintaining the old ones as a "stopgap", as you say). Regardless, I doubt its going to change your mind....read the rest of the article as well, there is certainly some interesting and insigntful information on many subjects.

MaineEx, I'm sure you have good arguments for your stand but Wind power and solar power will never supply enough reliable energy to the grid to support phasing out nuclear power. These types of power generating facilities can only help supplement the grid. As far as hydroelectric power, that has a negative impact on the environment and ecosystems around them and I believe you are against nuclear power due to this very issue. Believe me, I'm all for new types of power generating facilities that are safe for the environment. Currently Maine Maritime Academy is looking into installing, if not already installed, an underwater turbine that utilizes tidal power at a site that has reversing falls near the town of Brooklyn, ME.

PowermanKevin, wind and solar alone, maybe not but with all of the other kinds of green technology being developed... in the near future (15 years) oh of course they can. You're only thinking about 2 types of green technology and the limited uses (because of limited research) that exist today. Had we not shut down research for the past 8 years on alternate fuel sources we might already be half way there.

Joshua, thank you for posting that article. It took me forever to find the "favor building more nuclear power plants" reference and two numbers. And let me ask you, why should that change my mind about nuclear waste being hazardous? Have I not said that I favorite it as a stopgap measure? But no I don't believe it is our future. We have no way to safely store the waste for its thousand year half-life. While 71% of scientists say build new ones, there isn't anything in there that says that they believe it's the way of the future. That it's harmless. That it can't be replaced with green technology in 20 years. I do appreciate you posting the article but there isn't anything in it that could change a persons mind when their big concern is decades or centuries of stored nuclear waste piling up in our earth. There is no way to make it non-toxic to human life.

People, building nuclear power plants costs a fortune. Storage of toxic waste costs a fortune and that storage can't continue, even marginally safely, for very long. It isn't all that "cheap" when you examine all costs. I agree with its use for the next decade or two ...........

Don't cry for Maine Yankee! It was near the end of its intended useful life. To run it any longer would be a maintenance and safety hazard. We might consider a modern nuclear plant with all the most modern nuclear technology. The problem with that, these days, is to make sure it is constructed properly; not with "lowest bid" contractors, shoddy materials, and careless workmanship where we'll see hidden problems surfacing during operation.

I cry for Maine Yankee every Winter now. Why?

Maine Yankee was no near the end of it's useful life than the 100 + reactors throughout the US that were re-licensed after some minor and some major re-fit. All Maine Yankee had too do was the same and at create benefits, like low, KWH if we were not so paranoid.

And wind poers:

in Comments section:

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/110425.html#comments

"....

these giants blast mountain ridges creating soil erosion, they need 60 gal a month of hydraulic fluid to maintenance them and a fossil fuel to push them along in those numerous unpredictable times when the wind does whatever it wants to. Then you have the environmental and wildlife impacts, pretty hard for a young bird to navigate around 275 ft rotor blades. Bats lungs exploding because of the low density vibration....."

And the ne Green bulbs, i.e., CFLs

"...that's right: The EPA says do not vacuum the room, or you could spread mercury dust around.

But scientists like Dr. Margaret Kupferle have a bigger worry: The effect on the environment if millions of these eventually end up in the trash.

"These bulbs need to be disposed of as hazardous waste," she says, "They should not go into the landfill." But that's where many consumers toss them when they burn out......"

Yep and we didn't fo dickey lincoln and Basin Mills becuase it was to 'safe"?

LOL

Lets build 4 nuclear power plants in Maine.

Lets build 4 nuclear power plants in Maine.

What ever happened to submersible hydroelectric power generators? I remember reading about them in Popular Mechanics magazine over 30 years ago. They looked like a jet engine pod, and could be placed in any swift-running stream. They were very low-maintanence, had a cone-shaped screen on the up-stream end to keep fish and pollywogs from getting into the fan blades.

If I had a choice, I'd rather see a "pod" in a stream instead of a propeller on a hilltop.

sillama, there is a technology "tidal power" that is being experimented with today. Maybe this is what you read about 30 years. There have been 3 hold-ups 1). the oil companies have thwarted research at every turn 2). Converting the power to useful electricity is difficult but is moving foward, finally! and is showing great promise 3). Because it does sit in water, in more shallow water (such as a lake) it could effect the ecosystem, a lot of research into its effects have to be done before a project even starts and there hasn't been any money for research - ever.

It's becoming of great interest in Great Britain. They are looking for it to supply as much as 20% of their power in the years to come.

Lets build 4 nuclear power plants in Maine. Why not 1 in every county of Maine (16).

Let's shake it up and then wa6tch industry flock to maine!

Where's the billions upon billions upon billions upon billions of dollars to build them going to come from?

The level of ignorance masquerading as opinion in this discussion is appalling . The "100,000 year half life" argument against underground storage of spent fuel rods and other nuclear waste is misleading and irrelevant . The best geologists in the world have identified at least three storage sites which are geologically stable enough to guarantee safe storage for 10,000 years . One would think (and hope) that science will come up with a better way to process this nuclear waste within the next 10,000 years. tThe arguments against nuclear power are political, not scientific . And we all know how well purely political decisions have turned out in the past .

Dear MaineExpat.......I would think that the " billions upon Billions of dollars" would come from the source of all industrial expansion in a capitalist society.....private investors , who are always willing to make a buck by investing in a good idea. I suggest you look into the sources of capital used to start the following industries : telephone, television, automobile ( before GM) , computers, the internet, etc., etc., etc. These all cost "billions and Billions " but had no trouble (before GM) getting funding.

PaulVo, I suspect you're in for a rude awakening.

We have 104 reactors in this country. France has 59. France stores all of its waste in one room. They have taken to recycling the waste and they have become very efficient at using what they have. We continue to create waste instead of finding ways to recycle. The technology is out there for safe reliable nuclear energy and cold fusion is just over the horizon. We could easily set up a new reactor here that could efficiently and safely run with minimal waste. We are stupid for not doing it. A good reading on it can be found here: http://www.heritage.org/press/commentary/ed010108d.cfm

MaineExpatriat wrote: ....."PaulVo, I suspect you're in for a rude awakening." ....Hey, maybe it's just me , but I don't know what you're talking about . Are you referring to my 3:12PM comment or my 3:21PM comment or just stuff in general ? It would help if you could give us an example or two of what might cause the rude awakening that you seem sure I will experience .

P/S....sorry it took me so long to react to your comment. I had to mow the lawn between showers.

have any of your jokers ever worked in the Protected area of a nuclear plant???

I doubt it.

I have, they're safer than coal plants and they don't put out any atmosphere warming greenhouse gases.

Nuclear Power is the only viable alternative. You'd have to put up over 1000 wind turbines to produce the same amount of electricity as one nuclear power plant turbine.

And guess what, the wind doesn't blow all the time, so where's the reliability.

I'll be upgrading another nuclear plant in the spring with 3 more to follow. Nuclear power is already making a quiet comeback and has been for about 5 years. Large scale nuclear construction will be taking place within the next 5 years.

Problem is we can't keep up with the demand for electricity, as soon as the windies and the greens have a rolling blackout for a few days they'll be signing build permits with their eyes closed. It's coming and nobody can stop it. Thank God.

Idiots. We still don't know what to do with the waste generated from Maine Yankee.

Freedomfighter

Yes we do, it's called Yucca Mountian.

All the feds have to do is open it up. It'll happen right after the rolling blackouts.

Mark my words.