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[alway]

Uranium and other nuclear fuels are rarer than oil is. However, people seem to forget that hey, it's still giving off huge amounts of energy. Why is it only good for fuel for such a short amount of time? Why not process the spent fuel into new fuel until it isn't dangerously radioactive anymore?

Because spent fuel is just that, spent. It is no longer fit for nuclear fission, but still emmits gamma radiation. Thus, the danger they pose. While it could be possible to garner energy from just that, you would be spending more energy in the collection then what you get out of it. We can't make spent fuel new, we can only wait untill it reaches enough half-lives to decay back into the background radiation. The entire universe is slowly decaying, and eventualy there won't be any nuclear fuel left. Anywhere.

You can make spent fuel usable for reactors again through reprocessing, but that is more or less just a purification process which seperates the truely spent and the still useful stuff. As for the entire universe decaying, new heavy elements are created during supernovae, so the only case which would result in a lack of said heavy elements would be a universal heat-death. In which case a lack of nuclear fuel would be the least of our problems. The majority of nuclear materials are in extremely low concentrations as well as being chemically bonded to other elements. Hence the reason for Earth still having relatively large quantities of uranium despite said uranium having formed hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years before the solar system even began to form.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Although, really, once the heat-death of the universe is upon us, humans will either be all dead or trancendent godlike beings. So, it dosen't matter. If the universe can actualy reach heat-death at all, that is.

[Duuvian]

My most effective plan is to complain on these forums and add my disappointed voice to the others calling for the company's green blood.

As for boycotting BP, the local station that carries BP gas has it's symbol in a prominent place. Also there are three gas stations in my town and the other ones are cheaper usually anyways and at this point a couple cents wouldn't matter. If my small town newspaper hadn't suddenly turned super conservative in the last year than I'd probably ask them to suggest a boycott.

[Nikov]

If my small town newspaper hadn't suddenly turned super conservative in the last year than I'd probably ask them to suggest a boycott.

Proposing a boycott to a Liberal Newspaper:
"We are citizens and entitled to rights and protections from capitalist moneygrubbers like BP! This vile multinational corporation makes obscene and undeserved profits while spewing foul toxic waste into delicate wetlands enviroments. We must join hands for social justice in a boycott of its services!"

Proposing a boycott to a Conservative Newspaper:
"As consumers in a free market society we may use our buying power to influence the behaviour of others. I wish to publicly suggest a boycott of BP's goods and services to bring market forces, in addition to preexisting legal forces, into their decisionmaking processes regarding the cleanup of this enviromental, and economic, disaster."

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Talking about something that's going to happen in a million or a billion years is kind of silly in relation to problems that are coming to a head in several dozen years, and that might actually affect us (us as people not us as humanity).

But ah, whatever.

[redacted123]

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[Nikov]

You know, taking any action against BP won't help at all, nor will it prove a point. BP have only accepted responsibility for the clean up and any damage incurred. However, it wasn't really their fault, they leased the oil rig from Transocean Ltd who were those responsible for employing those operating the rig and they are also the people who erected it in the first place. They are the people who are truly at fault here. The only involvement on the part of BP was that they leased the rig, they paid for the oil it produced. It would have been exactly the same situation no matter the oil company. If people start taking action against BP, all they will achieve is to make it harder for them to clean up.

Which leads me to wonder why everyone is going after them.

[Nonsapient]

You know, taking any action against BP won't help at all, nor will it prove a point. BP have only accepted responsibility for the clean up and any damage incurred. However, it wasn't really their fault, they leased the oil rig from Transocean Ltd who were those responsible for employing those operating the rig and they are also the people who erected it in the first place. They are the people who are truly at fault here. The only involvement on the part of BP was that they leased the rig, they paid for the oil it produced. It would have been exactly the same situation no matter the oil company. If people start taking action against BP, all they will achieve is to make it harder for them to clean up.

The producer of the well is held liable.  In this case it is BP.  Transocean acted as an employee of BP for this;  BP even has an executive on board the rig at all times,  the 'company man'.

With that said,  I really think that this is a systemic failure of our oil industry,  as opposed to an isolated incident.  The number of times I have seen similar "push it a little farther" situations is ghastly;  especially when you consider how many peoples' lives could be taken from a screw up.

I know this will sound wrong,  but I'm honestly a little glad that it has 'hit home' this time.  Now people can understand how risky our methods are.

[Rotten]

Uranium and other nuclear fuels are rarer than oil is. However, people seem to forget that hey, it's still giving off huge amounts of energy. Why is it only good for fuel for such a short amount of time? Why not process the spent fuel into new fuel until it isn't dangerously radioactive anymore?

Because spent fuel is just that, spent. It is no longer fit for nuclear fission, but still emmits gamma radiation. Thus, the danger they pose. While it could be possible to garner energy from just that, you would be spending more energy in the collection then what you get out of it. We can't make spent fuel new, we can only wait untill it reaches enough half-lives to decay back into the background radiation. The entire universe is slowly decaying, and eventualy there won't be any nuclear fuel left. Anywhere.

They've developed fusion reactors that can use spent nuclear waste to create more energy than traditional nuclear fusion, but it's going to take at least 20 years to get them into the market (testing, perfecting, fearmongering, etc).

[redacted123]

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[Sensei]

Bear in mind Hydrogen is a just a medium -and a 40-60% efficient one at that- for energy that comes from other sources. In iceland, that's geothermal energy, which is really what makes it green. If the power for fission is still coming from coal plants that's not any cleaner.

Also, we have enough nuclear material to last us well longer than oil, probably. Maybe in the few million years before that runs out we can build our giant solar space station or something.

[Realmfighter]

DYSON SPHERE FOREVER.

[Nonsapient]

Bear in mind Hydrogen is a just a medium -and a 40-60% efficient one at that- for energy that comes from other sources. In iceland, that's geothermal energy, which is really what makes it green. If the power for fission is still coming from coal plants that's not any cleaner.

Also, we have enough nuclear material to last us well longer than oil, probably. Maybe in the few million years before that runs out we can build our giant solar space station or something.

Hydrogen != fission.

Also, the greatest source for hydrogen at the moment is actually natural gas(can be done as both the source of Hydrogen and the source of the energy).  This is also where all of our helium comes from;  radioactive decay that is captured with the natural gas.

[PTTG??]

As long as it's decaying "hot" enough to boil something, then you can get energy out of it. And using static reflectors and good insulation, you could pretty much use glow-in-the-dark wristwatches for energy.
 
Here's a thought: use some energy to keep the fuel molten and in a tray over the water supply. The water takes some heat from the bottom of the tray and uses that for power. While that's happening, the fission products, being lighter, float to the top of the tray and are skimmed off, while the remaining useful fuel is denser (having not split) and remains at the bottom of the tray.
 
Also, when people talk about hydrogen for fuel, they're talking about fuel cells, not fusion. Fusion is almost certainly not possible yet. Superconductors may make it possible.
 
The best power source I know of is one we can already do: A huge solar power station at each of the Earth-sun lagrange points (well, the stable ones, at least), beaming power by microwave. Solar in space has none of the restrictions that earth-bound solar has, never gets night, never gets snowed on...
 
They're already planning merely geostationary solar at this very minute. It has 75 minutes of night per year. If we set up 6999 of these satelights, we'd have percisely one in the shadow at all times, so there'd be no fluxuation, just constant solar power, and a hour or so for down time per year.
 
And don't tell me you played Sim City and your cities always got microwaved when you built those, because that is the first thing anyone says, so can't you think of any real reason that this wouldn't work?

[Footkerchief]

They've developed fusion reactors that can use spent nuclear waste to create more energy than traditional nuclear fusion, but it's going to take at least 20 years to get them into the market (testing, perfecting, fearmongering, etc).

What? That's not true. Fusion and Fission use two very different fuels to produce energy. Fission uses heavy, unstable isotopes of Uranium because they're the easiest to split. Fusion uses the absolute lightest isotopes of elements like Hydrogen for fusion because the lightest ones are easiest to fuse. Spent nuclear fuel is not in any way, shape or form suitable for net energy producing fusion power. Also, would this nuclear waste turn back into nuclear fuel? Which you then split for more energy? Since that's a violation of conservation of energy.

I think he was talking about nuclear reprocessing, which is of course for fission (it's easy to get the words mixed up I guess).