one of the greatest benefits of fission power plants is the low toxicity
of the radioactive waste per unit energy produced. this is especially true
of reprocessed waste, even more so for waste reprocessed from the fast
breeder reactor. unprocessed waste from power reactors presents no
immediate proliferation risk. processed waste has no proliferation risk
ever.

in any case, the fundamental driving these resource issues is the
exploding united states and world populations. in fact, we are probably
lucky that there is no magic well that gushes forever with free oil, else
humankind would use the energy windfall to continue its growth until an
even bigger catastrophe came about. note (i) at its present growth rate of
1.4%/y, world population will grow by 300 million, roughly the present
united states population, in just 3 y and (ii) until recently, that magic
well actually existed, something like a breeder reactor for oil, because
the energy from one barrel of oil was enough to discover and produce many
new barrels of oil.

dlk

>I don't feel like I can support nuclear power until we figure out what
>to do with the waste.  It's looking increasingly unlikely that we'll be
>able to shove it all down Nevada's throat.  Meanwhile it's stacking up
>in "temporary" storage at nuclear plants, most of which are near
>critical fresh water sources...
>
>--
>
>David Brodbeck, N8SRE
>'82 VW Diesel Westfalia
>'86 Volvo 240DL wagon