Currently Skimming:
TO SUPPLY ENERGY: BREEDER REACTORS
TO SUPPLY ENERGY: BREEDER REACTORS
Pages 23-36
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From page 23... ...
In any case, we believe that the decisions facing our society as we move from the fossil-fuel era to the era of renewable resources transcend cost considerations. Far more important are the implications of our choice of an energy system for the availability of energy, social stability, individual freedom, and relations of the 23
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From page 24... ...
Major investments will be required by our society so that we can avoid substantial dislocations as we move to other energy forms. Coal and nonbreeder nuclear power are the prime candidates usually considered for bridging the gap.
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From page 25... ...
Produced to 1973 (293 billion barrels) 1973-2000 Cumulative oil production at 7.5% growth rate 1973-2000 per year Cumulative oil 1973-2000 production at 5% Cumulative growth rate oil production per year at 2.5% growth rate per year Produced to 1973 Produced to 1973 Produced to 1973 Reserves and Production to 1973 Predicted Production of Oil at Alternative World Oil Growth Rates to 2000: Figure 1 Cumulative world oil production to 2000 (Moody and Geiger)
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From page 26... ...
In this chapter, we examine some of the social effects likely to follow a major commitment to nuclear breeder reactors. Chapter 4 focuses on ways in which alternative value systems might lead to an energy-supply system that is based on renewable resources and is capable, if necessary, of meeting high-energy requirements but uses predominantly solar-energy technologies.
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From page 27... ...
The inflationary effects of huge simultaneous bond issues, federally appropriated moneys, private loans, projected rising fuel costs, and proliferating custodial and police costs will give a major and perhaps unwelcome jolt to the economy. Capital-intensive systems are usually lightly manned.
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From page 28... ...
The federal government contains many agencies that spend so much time and money on internal communication, internal accounting, and internal administration that they find it increasingly expensive to attend to the external duties that are their reasons for existence. The nuclear regulatory agency that a national commitment to breederreactor power would require would unquestionably be large and unwieldly.
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From page 29... ...
Legal Effects of Safety Considerations Much recent discussion has centered on the effect of nuclear safety considerations on the civil rights and civil liberties of individuals. The dangers of theft from, or sabotage of, a plutonium facility are so great
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From page 30... ...
police use of plutonium safety considerations to justify extraordinary investigative, arrest, and regulatory measures for suspected nonnuclear crimes and disapproved behavior; and (4) some increase in central, federal direction of local law enforcement, although not necessarily with an equal increase in federal accountability by local levels of those authorities.
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From page 31... ...
Only when the total amount of fissionable material everywhere is relatively limited can a country persuade itself that, at least for the moment, it is safer to avoid the whole issue of nuclear fission. Energy and Social Structure Anthropologists have observed that those who control scarce but necessary resources control the society that depends on those resources.
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From page 32... ...
BREEDER REACTORS AND SOLAR-ENERGY SYSTEMS: SOME CONTRASTS Breeder reactors appear particularly well suited to the production of electricity. Under certain circumstances they could provide industrial process heat, but the large size of proposed breeder systems makes it unlikely that there will be more than a limited number of nonelectric applications.
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From page 33... ...
The breeder systems will require highly trained workers and an institutional structure capable of operating flawlessly for generations. It is possible to imagine a steady-state society operating on longterm energy forms in which electrical energy is produced by breeder reactors while virtually all other forms of energy derive from solar systems.
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From page 34... ...
4. A centralization of political power, attendant on the centralized capitalization and operation of facilities, custodial care, and guarding of spent hulks and fuel and waste systems may well result in massive political disaffection at the grass-roots level.
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From page 35... ...
Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 10(2)
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From page 36... ...
1975. A National Plan for Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration: Creating Energy Choices for the Future.
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