Obma kills nuclear storage, thereby killing nuclear energy

If Reid, Obama Kill Yucca Mountain, Where Will Nuclear Waste Go? Think Fusion
Harry Reid declares Nevada nuclear containment facility dead. Now what? Try fusion
By Robert Bryce
Posted June 24, 2009

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Using the fusion process to destroy high-level radioactive waste has at least three advantages: The most dangerous bomb-making materials, like plutonium, are burned rather than stored, thereby minimizing the proliferation risk; the process dramatically reduces (by 90% or more) the volume of waste produced by fission reactors, thereby shrinking the size (and thus, the cost) of any long-term repository; and finally, it cuts the amount of time that the final waste products are dangerously radioactive from millennia to decades.

However, even if the U.S. pursues fusion-fission hybrids, results are at least a decade away. And regardless of whether it works or fails, the U.S. is going to need a secure location for the long-term storage of its nuclear waste. Chu's now talking about the need for "several regional areas" to take the waste. Of course, identifying and licensing those repositories will likely take a decade or more. And the fight over them will surely take even longer—just ask Harry Reid.

Meanwhile the worls turns to nucleae nerergy. Another great example of how Obma will make us a second rate nation
Asia turns to nuclear energy to fight power shortages
by Andrew Taylor
DESIGNERS and developers of nuclear power stations seeking career opportunities at the beginning of the 21st century are looking to Asia.
Given its dynamic economic growth, the region offers the only potential large market for new reactors, with China and India offering the greatest opportunities.
The big nuclear building programmes which dominated western Europe and North America in the second half of the last century have ground to a halt as growth in electricity demand has levelled out and public concerns over safety, high development costs and decommissioning liabilities have risen.
That does not apply to Asia's emerging economies, where demand for electricity often outstrips supply. China and India, which rely heavily on coal for their power generation, also are turning to nuclear to combat growing pollution.
Renewable electricity is an option, but fails to provide the big hits or the prestige that governments believe will come from competing with the nuclear power of the west.
Wealthier nations like Japan and South Korea, which lack their own natural resources and have already developed large nuclear industries, are more concerned about their potential vulnerability to world oil and gas markets. Already some 39 per cent of electricity, in both countries, is generated from 54 reactors in Japan and 19 in South Korea.
Still, both governments have plans to build more nuclear plants. The outcome is less clear in Japan where public opposition has risen, following several accidents at power plants in the 1990s and the falsification of safety reports at Tokyo Electric Power Company, which led to the temporary closure of many of its reactors.
These concerns have not deterred other regional governments. According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), east and south Asia currently has "about 100 nuclear reactors in operation, 20 under construction and plans to build about a further 40". In western Europe, by contrast, only Finland has firm plans to develop one new reactor, while the US is merely working on tentative proposals to develop a new generation of nuclear reactors.
China offers the greatest potential for new development, says the WNA. The country currently has nine reactors with a combined capacity of 6,500 megawatts, supplying just under 2.0 per cent of electricity. It proposes to invite international tenders before the end of this year for four further reactors, each of about 1,000 megawatts and costing about $1.5bn. This would be in addition to two 1,000-megawatt VVER Russian reactors under construction at Taiwan.
The power stations form part of a longer-term plan to raise China's nuclear capacity to just under 40,000 megawatts by 2020. "The $30bn development programme will require the construction of about two reactors a year", says the WNA, "similar in scale to the large French nuclear construction programme undertaken in the 1980s".