How many nuclear power plants would we need to get us to 100%

[Altair_IV]

28. That's such a phoney argument

The nuclear proliferation argument is really such a phoney argument when you think about it.

We are considering what the USA should do. Just because the USA can / does do something, that doesn't mean that we have to enable the rest of the world to be able to do the same thing. I know that sounds elitist or hypocritical to some whose mindset doesn't recognize national borders and consider us all one big human community.

We enrich Uranium to 3% to 4% for use in our reactors; that doesn't mean we have to provide enrichment technology to the rest of the world....and we do *not* just because of the proliferation problems. That distinguishes the USA from some other "environmentally sensitive" countries like "go solar" Germany. It was Germany's Siemens Corporation that furnished the enrichment centrifuges to Iran. The real villains in the proliferation problem isn't the US nuclear industry, but the "environmentally sensitive" (choke) Germans.

But I digress. Just as the USA doesn't furnish enrichment technology to less than trustworthy countries, neither does the USA furnish reprocessing technology to other countries. We can keep it for ourselves, and use it ourselves for our own advantages.

So if the USA uses reprocessing technology, is that going to lead to a proliferation problem? That question is so silly, it hardly requires an answer. The only reprocessing plants that are currently in the USA are those that are owned by the US Government for the US nuclear weapon program. In the early days of nuclear power, the Government owns / operated the enrichment plants. Today, the Government *still* owns the enrichment plants; but contracts the operation to a semi-governmental / semi-commercial firm, the US Enrichment Co.

We could do the same with reprocessing. The same Government that we trust to make Plutonium for nuclear weapons without giving it to the North Koreans or the Iranians; that same Government could do the reprocessing for commercial reactors, just as it once did all the enrichment for commercial reactors.

It really is a foolish argument to wave the "proliferation flag" - whether it makes sense or not; but I expect that from Holdren; the man stopped being a real scientist years ago, and is currently no better than any other politician when it comes to telling the truth.

Altair_IV