>The experience at Pearl Harbor also weighed heavily into the Navy's desire
>to have a solution for capital ships that would provide short start-up times
>and would not leave them possibly fuel starved. If the fleet had been warned
>of the approach of the Japanese at the earliest reasonable time based on the
>technology of the time, they would have had about seven hours. It takes
>longer than that to reliably fire up a boiler propulsion system

Atomic ("nuclear")-powered ships use steam as well, though they will
heat much faster than a combustion/boiler setup.

>Part of the cost-effectiveness equation is liability. Do some research on
>the effects of the Chernobyl incident.

The Chernobyl reactor was Russian, and so an example of how NOT to do
it. Atomic plants are the way to go at preesent (until nuclear fusion
becomes workable), and it is imperative that NO corners are cut to
satisfy the beancounters.

>As for the Yucca Mt. foolishness, I think that any program that has even the
>slightest possibility of poisoning the entire American Southwest, Mexico and
>the western coastal waters of the Americas should be an obvious no-go.
>I've often wondered why they don't put the waste back in the spent mines
>where they got the ore in the first place; the land is already ruined and
>the Indians have already been thoroughly f**cked over, so why not?

"Spent" fission fuels are far from waste, and it is well past time
that it stopped being regarded as such. The Japanese know this, and
thet's why they buy it and bring it in by the shipload.

>Vitrified (mixed with molted glass) waste doesn't leach out, so it CAN'T
>poison the "entire American Southwest". A 5-ton blob of glass buried under a
>mountain is far safer than the NATURAL radon gas leaking into basements all
>across the country.

Glass breaks down. It is not stable over long periods of time.
--
Regards
Andrew