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Chi Meson
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seycyrus said:If you've got some dates, please give them. I don't mean to sound hostile, but I'm not at my home computer, and I don't have my references. of course, 40 years is not the correct number.
Edit: It might be correct acutally. the first plant went online in '57. 50 years ago.
I'm talking about plans being drawn up and ground broken for a new plant, not finishing up construction that was started earlier.
No you are not correct, and yes you are sounding hostile. I did misspeak, before: the first plant went online in the late fifties, but the oldest plant currently working went online in 1969. So ALL of the currently operating plants have been built in the last forty years. The five newest plants were built in the 90's, with the most recent online in 1996.
http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/nuclear_statistics/usnuclearpowerplants/
Currently there are designs in the works to build new plants (with bipartisan support). The delay has to do with the very delicate processing required for recycling spent fuel. As most people know only 20--25% of the energy is taken from the fuel during the first fission process. Our current waste WILL BE tomorrow's fuel. But the processing looks a lot like production of nuclear weapons. The new designs are part of a multinational cooperative effort to assure that reprocessing is for fuel only.
This is interesting; even Greenpeace's co-founder Patrick Moore has come around on nuclear energy:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html
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