Future Energy Production Should Include Mostly Nuclear, with some Renewables and Storage Techniques

The link for source 1 does not seem to be working for me currently There have been many fast breeders built, much more than three. I stated that there are three reactors usable as waste burner reactors, not fast breeders. I also stated that there are currently many more than three under development, I believe the number is about ten. These are experimental reactors of modular design, so their developers are hoping to build more reactors that have this capability in the future heavily based on the prototypes. I do not understand why this is not a solution to you. It reduced the life span of the waste so that it is only radioactive for 300 years. We don't need any more underground storage if we only need to hold them in storage sites for 300 years, much better than the previous 100,000 years. Once they are no longer radioactive, any historically significant samples can be kept in museums, the rest can go to landfill or the bottom of the ocean. During the 300 years, underground storage tanks at the reactor site or casks can store the waste. Once they are safe, why does it matter where they go? I would also despute your claim as to the intended purpose of nuclear reactors being about weapons, as reactors have powered naval ships which can carry out long extended missions without refueling and bypass the issues caused by subsurface internal combustion in submarines. Also, when most American reactors were built, it was because the oil crisis had just begun and oil prices inflated by about ten times, creating a big demand for nuclear reactors at the time. Unwarranted fears of nuclear have prevented this from continuing. I will now explain why the three most serious types of nuclear accident are not possible in these new designs Scenario 1 Meltdown (TMI, EBR1, Chernobyl, Fukushima Daichi) Where solid fuel is not sufficiently cooled by the coolant and subsequently melts, loses form thus destroying the reactor and potentially causes further issues. The 2 solutions put forward in the new reactors are either use fuel in molten form (e.g dissolved in a salt - what is molten cannot be melted further) or design the reactor such that thermal expansion makes nuclear fission impossible at the melting point of the fuel (this can be achieved by adjusting neutron speed or changes to the fuel itself) Scenario 2 Pressure explosion (Chernobyl) Pressure in the system increases, usually during a meltdown as pressurized water turns into steam and the water level in the system drops. This bursts the pipe or pressure vessel causing all the remaining water flashes to steam. The volume of the steam expands massively, for example, 400 times greater than the volume in the pipe could be expected in a PWR. This subsequently causes the whole containment structure and reactor building to burst, releasing radiation. In the new generation of reactors the coolant is not pressurized, so a burst pipe or containment vessel can only occur due to corrosion, which would be monitored. Any leak that does occur would be a potential bio hazard within the plant, but would not be in gaseous form and would not expand. The bio hazard could be dealt with by workers wearing PPE and no workers would need to be near the source of the leak. In some designs, the leaking coolant would quickly lose temperature during a leak, thus freezing and plugging the leak with no human intervention. Scenario 3 Hydrogen-oxygen explosion (Fukushima Daichi) The steam from a reactor in a meltdown reactors with the zirconium surrounding the fuel. The oxygen atom from the water is released from the water molecule creating zirconium oxide. The hydrogen atoms escape the pressure vessel and react with oxygen in the air, causing a huge energy release and subsequent explosion New designs that are water cooled use a fuel surround that does not react with water, or a different coolant is used, such as helium, lead, lead bismuth, molten fluoride salts, molten chloride salts, sodium or NaK. Tidal is essentially the same as hydroelectric, but the flow speed is not so well controlled and is normally lower so it is less efficient. The time of high and low flow is also hard to control and the structures required contribute to coastal erosion. I prefer normal hydroelectric systems used on rivers. Infact, if large, fast flowing rivers were more common, I would suggest hydroelectric should be the main focus of our energy future due to it's fantastic efficiency, but it is limited. I do however believe it has a role to play, especially in storage in the form of pumped storage. Solar PV has shown to have catastrophically low efficiency, although it has somewhat improved, is still poor. The waste it produces is 300 times and numerous as nuclear for the same output and is not so well contained, meaning that unlike nuclear waste, solar waste is currently affecting all environments in which solar panels are manufactured. Much of the solar waste is being dumped in rivers. Above 45 degrees north or south in latitude. Solar PV produces DC electricity, which needs to be converted to AC to work with the grid, which is a process which consumes power. Solar PV has proven to be a poor option for most countries. Solar thermal is killing birds which fly into their vicinity by literally setting them on fire and has not been tested in high latitudes, it is not likely to consistently be able to keep the medium it heats warm enough for a significant time. Much less information is available on solar thermal. Wind has shown itself to be a good option near the sea where the wind is strong, however, this does not cover much area. It has seen more success where it has been implemented than solar however. The maintenance work, especially for offshore wind has proven to be a maintenance challenge for the operators of wind power too. Due to the massive storage requirements and the need to provide multiple times the maximum capacity to provide 24/7 power, the cost of renewables without baseload power would increase, to ensure you have enough energy put into storage when the systems do not produce power and to operate, maintain and eventually replace the storage systems. You describe these sources as being clean, but the quantity of waste in most renewable energy sources is greater than the quantity of waste from nuclear. These systems often having moving parts which require lubrication, which is bad for the environment. Avoiding nuclear would also mean we cannot take advantage of the uses of nuclear waste I have previously mentioned. We are running out of Plutonium for RTG due to not running fast breeders, which would affect space missions. This would limit scientific advancements are reduce job creation. These jobs rely on the nuclear industry, but are not normally attribute to the nuclear industry. Furthermore, studies have shown that nuclear is responsible for the least deaths per unit of energy produced compared to any other fuel source. Unlike renewables, nuclear also offers a complete solution to global warming as it can be used in propulsion of large vehicles. My storage ideal would be would involve compressed gas, flywheels and pumped storage, the latter of these is infact commonly used. However it is basically a closed off hydroelectric system, so there are limits to its implementation. I do not have enough remaining characters to explain the issues with all of the obstacles of all forms of storage, however, I believe that flywheels and pumped storage can offer the best efficiency in storage as they have the lowest losses of all the current possible technologies for storing energy. The forms I do not think are ready or capable yet include battery storage, liquid air, hydrogen, ammonia, superconducting magnetic loops and thermal storage.