Yes. It is -much- more practical, and safer, than earlier reactor designs.
And if it were not for a lot of crackpot lobbyists fighting hard against it, we could have a LOT more of them.
France of all places uses nuclear power for 100% of their electricity generation.
Why don't we?
A combination of factors:
* Coal & oil industry lobbying
* Lots of media playing on the fears of people regarding "atomic anything == BADSCARYWRONGDANGEROUS!!!!!!111111!!!!"
* Eco-friendly lobbyists pushing other alternatives, like wind and solar, that are fine on small scale but do not scale up well
* The genuine issue of what to do with spent fuel elements
Speaking of that last point, the military has been reprocessing them into new ones for decades. A breeder reactor is more expensive than a traditional pile, true, but it can get as much as 6000% of the energy from the same quantity of fuel. Unfortunately it was banned for civilian use under Jimmy Carter and the fledgeling industry fell apart. Reagan tried rather half-heartedly to get it going again and failed miserably, and no one's really touched it since.
* And let us not forget the specter of Chernobyl and Fukushima, neither of which would have been nearly as bad if they'd happened to the more modern reactor designs.
Random thought: Coal contains notable, if small, quantities of uranium and thorium. This becomes concentrated when you burn the coal, because it doesn't combust or get vaporized. The US burned 850 million tons of coal in 2009... which left almost 4000 tons of radioactive material among the ash. Radioactivity measurements taken at coal plant ashpiles have made Three Mile Island look like a day in the park.
China is actually building factories to recover the uranium from coal ash to use as nuclear fuel. South Africa and Australia are also exploring it.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
And if it were not for a lot of crackpot lobbyists fighting hard against it, we could have a LOT more of them.
France of all places uses nuclear power for 100% of their electricity generation.
Why don't we?
A combination of factors:
* Coal & oil industry lobbying
* Lots of media playing on the fears of people regarding "atomic anything == BADSCARYWRONGDANGEROUS!!!!!!111111!!!!"
* Eco-friendly lobbyists pushing other alternatives, like wind and solar, that are fine on small scale but do not scale up well
* The genuine issue of what to do with spent fuel elements
Speaking of that last point, the military has been reprocessing them into new ones for decades. A breeder reactor is more expensive than a traditional pile, true, but it can get as much as 6000% of the energy from the same quantity of fuel. Unfortunately it was banned for civilian use under Jimmy Carter and the fledgeling industry fell apart. Reagan tried rather half-heartedly to get it going again and failed miserably, and no one's really touched it since.
* And let us not forget the specter of Chernobyl and Fukushima, neither of which would have been nearly as bad if they'd happened to the more modern reactor designs.
Random thought: Coal contains notable, if small, quantities of uranium and thorium. This becomes concentrated when you burn the coal, because it doesn't combust or get vaporized. The US burned 850 million tons of coal in 2009... which left almost 4000 tons of radioactive material among the ash. Radioactivity measurements taken at coal plant ashpiles have made Three Mile Island look like a day in the park.
China is actually building factories to recover the uranium from coal ash to use as nuclear fuel. South Africa and Australia are also exploring it.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.