Mr Burns seeks curb-appeal

Extreme Makeover: Nuclear Power Plant Edition

As the world seeks low-carbon forms of energy production to reduce the emissions blamed for global warming, the champions of nuclear power have been re-branding the industry as one of the world’s greenest.

Last month, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency said “nuclear energy is virtually carbon-free” across its life cycle and “the only carbon-mitigating technology with a proven track record on the scale required.”

Now, more than two decades after accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, some people in the industry are backing a makeover for nuclear power stations in an effort to transform the industry from an industrial pariah to an environmental savior.

My suggestion - granite counter tops and home theater rooms. Perhaps radiant floor heating if you really want to go top end.

But those small tweaks aside, I think a lot of their work is done, since people aren't so terrified of nuclear weapons that they are digging bomb shelters in their back yards, and the hype about nuclear-powered everything that went on during the fifties is also gone, so that there aren't unrealistic expectations either.

Of course, long term radioactive waste is still a problem. Currently, Europe handles this through breeder reactors, which works fine if you are able to secure the high weapons grade residue. I was talking with a friend who works in a laser fusion lab, and he mentioned that one of the proposals going forward, from the NIF team I think, is to use high powered lasers to burn and process radiative waste through inertial confinement. So the goal wouldn't be net-positive gain fusion, but just the disposal of waste material from fusion plants. Which is a much more feasible task. There would still be end products, but they would have radioactive half-life's of a hundred years or so, which is a lot more managable than the hundred thousand years of the original waste. It's hard to plan on time-scales that will experience geological change.