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One of my friends thinks that thorium reactors are what we should use for power gereration. He wants to present info about them to Mayor Kenoi.
Anyone out there who can speak with authority about these things?
Lee Eisenstein
http://members.cruzio.com/~lionel/event
"Be kinder than necessary, as everyone you meet is engaged in some kind of strudel."
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no matter how good a technology it might be, with all the anti-everything but dope protesters around it would be political suicide to support anything with the word " reactor " in it
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium
Interesting idea! But as Seeb says, the anti-science crowd will stop it.
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Interesting take I ran into a few weeks back....
http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2010/0...lunch.html
Cheers,
Kirt
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One of the biggest problems to overcome here is that most people & the NRC really frown on building reactors in earthquake prone areas, & most of this county is in the highly probable area for earthquakes....
another issue is the fact that the economics of a reactor build (esp. evolving tech like thorium) are a tad off for this island...most current technology reactors are built for an economic population base & industrial base that are big city scaled. Until the SSTAR reactor prototypes are functional on a production scale, the reactors are not on the power scale of our island (around 100MW) - most would also question bringing the SSTAR tech here, when we do have much more established technology potentials that are under-utilized here (geo-therm, solar/wind integrated & high-head-run-of -stream hydro)
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There is a Hawaii County ordinance making the Big Island a nuclear free zone.The ordinance has been on the books since 1981.
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Mahalo, all.
Very interesting, Carey.
Ok, how about this?
C'mon, who wouldn't want to be seen, driving one of these babies?**S**
<http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20100035-48/is-a-nuclear-powered-car-in-our-future/>
CNET
Reviews
The Car Tech blog
"Is a nuclear-powered car in our future?
Thorium is being explored as a less toxic and more plentiful element than uranium to use in nuclear reactors--but could it also be used to power vehicles?"
Lee Eisenstein
http://members.cruzio.com/~lionel/event
"Be kinder than necessary, as everyone you meet is engaged in some kind of strudel."
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quote:
Originally posted by Obie
There is a Hawaii County ordinance making the Big Island a nuclear free zone.The ordinance has been on the books since 1981.
That may be the Hawaii State Constitution you are referring to instead of a Hawaii County Ordinance.
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Lee, I would recommend that you have your friend check out the Kohala Center.... although I do not think that they have really looked into reactors (because of their funding emphasis), they have sponsored quite a bit of research on energy here, emphasis on sustainable.... (The SSTAR I heard from an old dive buddy who did some of the research on the reactor design... so I am limited on what I know....it is a cool prototype....just too early to tell)
I do remember from some of the Kohala research that a big limiting factor one this island is our aging infrastructure & the ability of our power lines to handle much more.... unfortunately the upgrade will most likely hit us all in the pockets... anyhoo, a link for your friend:
http://www.kohalacenter.org/research.html
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Don't know about the state but here is the section from the Hawaii County Code.
Section 14-48. Nuclear energy facilities, prohibited.
It shall be unlawful for any person to locate or build a nuclear energy facility which utilizes nuclear
material for the production of energy within the County.
(1981, Ord. No. 665, sec. 1.)14-48
