PV Gap

Mildred Said:

Is nuclear power really the solution?

We Answered:

A lot of the problems associated with nuclear power come as a result of poor decisions by the atomic power industry during the 1950's and 1960's, which in turn led to somewhat onerous regulations being enacted in the 1970's.

In a lot of ways, the nuclear industry needs a 'clean slate' of both regulation, but also of design, operating and design practices.

In the early days, we were building the 'next generation' of bigger power plants before we had time to learn lessons from those we had just built. Lots of mistakes were perpetuated.

Modern nuclear reactors can be and are very safe. The newest designs fail safe- the process of approaching meltdown by definition prevents a meltdown. Given our design and safety practices (dated though they are), a Chernobyl type incident is impossible here, and Three Mile Island was an aberration because of a host of factors.

New reactors (probably on a smaller scale than the last generation of super-stations from the 70's) can be a cost effective way of generating power, provided that regulations are changed to eliminate a host of outdated or unwise provisions (and strengthened in some areas).

The other controversial bit is fuel reprocessing. Reprocessing spent fuel to use again reduces the half life of nuclear waste from hundreds of thousands of years to less than 300 years, and there are some interesting prospects to go even further. The problem is, of course, that reprocessing gives you nuclear bomb material (though you've got to have VERY precise manufacturing do anything useful with it). Given our good security record, and the fact that we can divert money from litigating about long term storage to further security, we can generate power without the kind of long-term problems old reactors create. The French do this and they don't have any problems.

Nuclear power is of course not appropriate to every application, but it definitely has a place in meeting our future needs.

Veronica Said:

physics questionsssssssss?

We Answered:

That's all the questions in your take home quiz. Why not open the textbook and read on it? You'll actually learn better than just getting answers from the Y!A.

With the amount of time it took you to type this up, you would've probably found a couple of the answers by skimming through the book.

Tracy Said:

PLEASE..SMART PEOPLE ONLY!..SERIOUSLY?

We Answered:

1 a
2a
3t
4b
5d
6c
7a
8b
9d
10f
11a
sorry ran out of time tellyou later

Wanda Said:

more science question you'l never get.........?

We Answered:

1.) THERMAL

2.) TURBINE

3.) WASTE

Dave Said:

PLEASE NEED HELP FAST SCIENCE QUESTIONS!!!!!???

We Answered:

cba too long