This would have been fine if they didn't get power hungry. It's going to be their downfall I'm afraid.

Thanks for the article. I'll check it out.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31727978/ns/politics-more_politics/

Why is this on Salon? You aren't better than this?

I hope that is the case but I highly doubt it. We need to have a major social upheaval and I don't think this economic situation will do it. Our lifestyle isn't something most people consider something in need of change unless you ponder such things regularly.

American's have lived for far too long without accepting that there are consequences to our lifestyle of consumerism. The problem is though that when a responsible leader, which I believe Obama could be, comes out and tells people what they really need to hear - they get skewered for it. I only hope we can come to some sort of change in the American way of life, but that way of life will prevent anything from changing drastically. Maybe we need another economic downturn to wake up?

Few replies to your post:

Water: The cooling systems require vast quantities of water (not to mention additional energy to move that water around). Our water tables are dropping rapidly, our growing population needs drinkable fresh water, and we are already experiencing prolonged and more frequent droughts due to climate change. Water will simply not be available for these uses.

Nuclear power plants do not use ground water to cool, they usually use sea water or water from a river. It depends on the reactor type but I'm not sure how water is going to become unusable due to climate change as long as rivers continue to flow and oceans exist. Perhaps droughts would be an issue, but I don't get from your post you understand how reactors work.

Security Part I: The countries with large uranium resources are not bastions of good governance. We shouldn't transfer our energy dependence from autocratic, corrupt, petroleum producing regions to autocratic, corrupt, uranium producing regions. (Not that all petrol or uranium producing regions are unstable, but the track record is grim.)

The largest uranium reserves are in Australia and Canada, #1 and #2 respectively and both are heavily active in export with Canada in the #1 spot. The US also has significant reserves.

Security Part II: Do we really want to increase the quantity of processed fuel available for terrorists to pursue? Because they are hell bent on acquiring it.

Fuel processed for use in reactors is 3-5% U-235, the fissionable isotope of uranium. Fuel used in nuclear weapons is 95% or greater U-235. If you are speaking of plutonium, the US does not reprocess spent fuel in reactors so due to the radiation of spent fuel, the chance that a terrorist could separate plutonium from a spent fuel rod is almost zero. Increasing the quantity of fuel for reactors will have little to no effect on security.

Nuclear power has potential but it does have its problems, as does all power generation. There is no panacea for world energy production. I wish more would realize this, then we could have an honest debate and discussion on how to eliminate coal power, which is the largest and most detrimental to our environment. Instead we seem to continue to kick nuclear some more as if that's going to change anything.

The cooling issue is of concern in some instances, however I am not convinced it is as big as problem as some may believe. I also believe the sources you have there are heavily biased against nuclear power (NRDC in particular), so I question their objectivity. I am aware and accept of some issues with cooling and the associated problems of water supply though.

As far as security, the Uranium we buy from Russia is likely part of reducing the amount of weapons grade nuclear fuel they have in stock. I don't have a link with numbers but we buy a large amount of their HEU for this purpose. The title name for this is megatons to megawatts but has a more official project name. There is also a similar program for downblending plutonium for use as MOX (mixed oxide) fuel for reactors. I believe they broke ground on one in South Carolina recently. Uranium supply though, is largely from Canada and Australia as you've noted, which is not a security concern.

On your second point, yes, we don't reprocess so it's not an issue. There is no security concern until we start to reprocess again. Yucca will eventually open, or something like it, and as long as uranium prices remain low, there will be no incentive to reprocess spent fuel. France and Japan have extensive reprocessing programs currently with no security issues. I'll reiterate again though, that theft of spent fuel rods, which contain plutonium, is almost impossibly difficult to do. When I say difficult, I mean you would literally die in less than a minute if you were to pick one up without serious protection. You would need equipment that a terrorist or anyone else is very unlikely to come across. Not to mention the security of these sites preclude diversion already.

There is an extremely low probability that someone would steal spent fuel and an even lower probability that they would be able to reprocess it to extract the plutonium (forgetting for a moment that it's not even the right type of plutonium), then even more unlikely that they could make a weapon out of it.

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate you having researched such a complex topic for discussion. Seems to be rare when people talk about nuclear power.