New nukes for Minnesota?

• As appealing as reprocessing sounds; there's always a cost associated with recycling. And there's probably still byproducts as with any other reaction. I don't know if reprocessing kills the economics of nuclear power, but at least it's renewable and eliminates a nuclear waste-stream which is potentially vulnerable to environmental release and/or malicious use. Of course, the uranium mining industry will be displeased. (There's thorium reactors, but that's an aside..)

• Breeder reactors can reprocess waste. If you engineer your reactor-types, input fuel and waste throughput you can produce a theoretically closed cycle when it comes to nuclear material. I'm sure there's tradeoffs, so I defer to any nuclear power engineers. Alternatively I will dust off a few references...

• Yeah, we need to look at nuclear plants again in Minnesota. I'm all for solar and wind energy, but nuclear plants can produce such massive amounts of power that they need to be included in the equation. As Stephanie said, reprocessing needs to be examined -- not just to deal with the leftovers, but also to keep the fuel supply available as long as possible. If we keep using uranium in the way we have been, it'll run out in the next several decades. Unfortunately, there appears to be a federal ban on reprocessing in the U.S., so we should work on a (hopefully interim) state storage facility to get the casks at Prairie Island and Monticello moved away from the river. Unlike Yucca Mountain, there is very low risk of earthquakes in Minnesota. I'm not sure if our state's geology is exactly conducive to nuclear fuel storage, but I'm optimistic that we could find someplace in the state to deal with it, and get rid of the need to rely on the federal storage facility.

• There is a ban in this state on even DISCUSSING/PLANNING FOR the option of nuclear power. This must be repealed. Typical strategy of the left to ban speech they do not like. These bills will do nothing to approve new power plants. If you want the cleanest burning power plant that is reliable and DISPATCHABLE (on-demand) than nuclear is the way to go. Much of the time the wind does not blow nor does the sun always shine. New nuclear power plants and new renewable plants are not mutually exclusive. If you build more wind/sun plants, you need reliable green backup for when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. Which is the majority of the time.

• Every heard of nuclear fuel reprocessing? A little ol' company called Areva, out of France does it with virtually all of France's nuclear waste. It's a technology which lead one expert to say "there actually is no such thing as nuclear waste." He meant because so much of this "waste" is really just fuel that hasn't been squeezed again for a second or third use. Once you're done squeezing, years later, there's very little left. France stores the waste from 30 years of powering its country under the floor of one room. Now China, India and who-knows-who-else is jumping on the reprocessing bandwagon. Maybe you should dig just a wee bit further into the issue before blathering about Yucca mountain et al. Nuclear plus reprocessing sure beats trying to power your country on coal, gas, wind or solar.

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