Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments. To the extent that there are two distinct sides to these issues, Spot Cool Stuff sees and appreciates both.

I do think that, when it comes to energy issues, the key is to compare options rather than look at any one in a vacuum. And to start with the present reality of the situation. Your argument seems to be against nuclear waste in general. We agree with much of what you said. But we are where we are. The planet already has a lot of nuclear waste. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle. Even if all 4,000 HPGs are deployed the amount of nuclear waste they would add to the system would be minuscule as a percentage of the total. And something has to be said for the fact that a primary goal of an HPG is to provide inexpensive electricity to people who don’t currently have it, electricity that potentially brings with it jobs, medical clinics, clean drinking water, etc. And this electricity is produced without creating greenhouse gasses which also have human life destroying capabilities.

So the question is: Do the benefits of the HPG outweigh the relatively small (we’d argue) additional amount of nuclear waste? Perhaps you don’t think so, which we’d totally understand.

I’m glad you brought up other developments in alternative energy. We promise to highlight a few of them in future Spot Cool Stuff posts.

Presently, there is NO absolutely certain/safe method of handling the waste. Some has been hurled into space, with people holding their breath until the launch was successfully far enough away that if anything went wrong it wouldn’t come back to haunt us. Some is buried in the hopes that the containers don’t corrode or develop leaks or be broken open by an unexpected earthquake or some such. This aside from the outside possibility of some suicidal maniac trying to access the stuff to do something that his voices told him to do.

There are other developments which do not have such a hugely catastrophic risk factor which could supply the energy needs for a sustainable society -
such as interesting work being done with acousticly generated electricity or with vortex tubes or sterling engines.(aside from work on solar wind geothermal etc.) Read up on Tesla and what he managed to do that we STILL can’t figure out. I suppose that isn’t as sexy as nuclear power.

As a species it seems we don’t wish to deny ourselves anything in the short term and to hell with the long term. Remember the Titanic? Couldn’t sink, they said. Nuclear power? Sure it’s safe. Just as safe as the Titanic was..if NOBODY ever makes an error. Care to lay odds? Oh, never mind…you won’t be alive to pay and nobody else will be alive to collect….

Still, every form of energy generation has its downsides. If Hyperion manages to ramp up production of these you can count on an updated post here.

The politicans are idiots would not know answer if it hit them in the ass.