<div>Nuclear fusion to help solve energy problems (fossil fuel depletion and pollution, anthropogenic climate warming) is a long way off, if it ever becomes practical, affordable and safe. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>But what I have read about fourth generation fast fission reactors, seems too good to be true: they can help solve the nuclear waste problem by burning existing nuclear waste stockpiles as fuel, generating less nuclear waste, and generate tremendous amounts of energy without further uranium mining. Safety can also be improved over older reactor designs, with fortifications to thwart terror attacks.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The anti-nuclear and/or environmental movement might consider that by blocking nuclear energy development and deployment, they are likely forcing the world's economies to use more fossil fuels, thus increasing anthropogenic climate warming. The development of fourth generation fast reactors was hampered in the US by what seems like anti-nuclear hysteria, when the facts about the harms and hazards from nuclear power (not nuclear weapons development) are examined. </div>
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<div>Coal power plants have been/are far more harmful to the environment and human health, than the record of nuclear power indicates. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Russia just made a deal to build 16 nuclear reactors for India, as the news story at the website below indicates. Putin claims their reactors can withstand a hit from an aircraft, to address worries about nuclear power and terrorism: </div>
<div><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8561365.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8561365.stm</a></div>
<div> </div>
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<div>NASA climate scientist James Hansen is advocating development of fourth generation fast nuclear reactors, to address lowering fossil fuel emissions:</div>
<div> <a href="http://www.stormsofmygrandchildren.com/climate_catastrophe_solutions.html">http://www.stormsofmygrandchildren.com/climate_catastrophe_solutions.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>From website above:</div>
<div>
<p>"The bottom line seems to be that it is not feasible in the foreseeable future to phase out coal unless nuclear power is included in the energy mix."</p>
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<p>From website above:</p></div>
<div>Energy efficiency and renewable energy rate first priority in the suite of technologies needed to phase out carbon emissions. But in most countries, phase-out of coal emissions requires also <strong>a carbon-free source of baseload electric power</strong> that is competitive in price with coal. Until we have another way to meet 21<sup>st</sup> century energy needs while eliminating coal and carbon emissions, nuclear power appears to be the only option. </div>
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<div>The (“3<sup>rd</sup> generation”) nuclear technology ready to replace the aging 2<sup>nd</sup> generation reactors in the United States and other counties is inherently safer than existing nuclear power, which already has an exemplary safety record – however, it still burns less than one percent of the nuclear fuel and leaves a long-lived nuclear waste pile. Hansen recommends initiating urgent development of a<strong> fourth-generation nuclear power plant</strong>. These “fast” nuclear reactors utilize more than 99 percent of the fuel and can “burn” nuclear waste, thus solving the nuclear waste problem that concerns so many.</div>
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<div>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/11/10, <b class="gmail_sendername">Ron Force</b> <<a href="mailto:rforce2003@yahoo.com">rforce2003@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
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<div style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,new york,times,serif">
<div>The old joke: "Fusion is the energy source of the future...and always will be."<br><br>Ron Force<br>Moscow ID USA<br> </div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,new york,times,serif"><br>
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<b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</span></b> Ted Moffett <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com" target="_blank">starbliss@gmail.com</a>><br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</span></b> Moscow Vision 2020 <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision2020@moscow.com</a>><br>
<b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</span></b> Thu, March 11, 2010 4:22:42 PM<br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</span></b> [Vision2020] Fusion Delayed: ITER Start Date Moved Again<br></font>
<div><span class="e" id="q_12750d7606c56504_1"><br>
<div>Practical affordable large scale global roll out of power from nuclear fusion can't happen fast enough... But I wonder if it ever will be the promised land of energy salvation some think it could be... Won't the world's fossil fuel corporations oppose this?</div>
<div> </div>
<div><span><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/03/fusion-delayed-iter-startdate-mo.html" target="_blank">http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/03/fusion-delayed-iter-startdate-mo.html</a></span></div>
<div>
<h1>Fusion Delayed: ITER Start Date Moved Again</h1>
<div><span>by <span>Daniel Clery</span></span> on March 11, 2010 6:20 AM </div>
<div><span>
<p>The scheduled start-up date for the ITER fusion reactor project looks set to slip again by 10 months to November 2019. The new date comes less than a year after the start-up was shifted from 2016 to 2018. William Brinkman, director of the Department of Energy's Office of Science, <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://aries.ucsd.edu/fpa/fpn10-19.shtml" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">said at a meeting</a> of fusion energy advisers on Monday that the schedule was changed at a meeting of ITER heads of delegations in Paris in late February. </p>
<p><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.iter.org/default.aspx" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">ITER</a>, an enormous research fusion reactor which is shortly due to begin construction in France, is a collaboration between China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States and is due to cost somewhere between €5 billion and €10 billion. (The cost is a current bone of contention.) Over the past couple of years, the funding partners have become alarmed about the rapidly escalating cost estimates and delays in getting the project moving. The ITER council ordered reviews of the costing system and the project management. Sources say that the European Union, which, as host, is shouldering 45% of the construction cost, <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/11/iter-fusion-rea.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">has been calling</a> for more construction time because of concern that pushing ahead too fast could lead to unacceptable technical risks. Although Brinkman does not name the E.U., he says that a delay until 2020 was requested but after objections the meeting settled on a start date of late in 2019. </p>
<p>Brinkman also said that the review of the ITER management structure was "very negative." Researchers close to the project told <i>Science </i>that when the project was officially created in 2006, too much power was given to the seven Domestic Agencies, the bodies in each partner that procure parts for the reactor from industry, and not enough to the central organization, which consequently cannot manage the project properly. Brinkman says this issue is now being addressed and told the committee, in less than kind words, what he'd like to do to the person who designed the current management structure. </p>
<p>The ITER management is now adjusting cost estimates and construction schedules to take account of the new completion date. Those documents and the reactor's detailed design must be approved by the full ITER council, which is due to meet next in June but could call a meeting sooner.</p>
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<p>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</p></span></div></div></span></div></div></div></div><br> </div></blockquote></div><br>