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The nuclear establishment never fails to disappoint. When it comes to spent nuclear fuel, the stupidest thing we can do is argue for deep geologic disposal. This is trebly idiotic. 1) It puts already mined, valuable material in place whence it is difficult to impossible to recover. 2) It is a horrendous waste of resources. By making nuclear more expensive, we guarantee there will be less nuclear. Less nuclear means more fossil, more pollution, and more CO2. 3) It convinces everybody that aged spent fuel is uniquely dangerous. Why else would you spend billions of our money in this manner? […]

Despite all the claims, no one knows what the social cost of CO2 is. Any honest person should admit there is a wide rage of possible outcomes associated with global warming from reasonably benign to catastrophic. If this is the case how can we make any decisions relating to CO2 emissions? This piece suggests a way.

In 2015, Mark Jacobson published a paper claiming that a low cost, all wind/solar/hydro grid for the US was possible. The papers was debunked in a 2017 analysis by Clack et al. In response, Jacobson sued Clack, violating just about every rule for scientific inquiry in the book. Jacobson eventually lost that suit, but his paper has been enormously influential. The Clack response in phrased in academic terms and not an easy read. Here’s a simple analysis that addresses just one of Jacobson’s implausible assumptions.

The GKN is a firm believer in competition, most importantly among nuclear vendors. Let a 1000 flowers bloom. As such we avoid commenting on specific technologies. We want the market to decide. But the market is not deciding. Desk potentates (deskpots for short) are and they are deciding it with our money. The DOE recently announced it is doubling down on NuScale. It is time for Congress put a halt to this dead-end, taxpayer ripoff.

What’s the fattest pork, the biggest most outrageous boondoggle you have never heard of? Consider the Hanford clean up program.

In this piece, we delve into the GKG Grid Model’s results for Germany in a bit more detail. One revelation is that the bastards pushing expensive nuclear are smarter than you might think.

For practical purposes, used nuclear fuel remains radioactive forever. However, the penetrating form of radiation is essentially gone in about 500 years. After that, the used fuel must be swallowed to be harmful. But that would require eating rocks. Bacon is probably more dangerous than aged nuclear fuel. You are much more likely to swallow that carcinogen.

Our current nuclear regulatory system is resulting in millions of premature deaths and effectively halting any progress on global warming. It must be changed. But to what? The GKG proposes that nuclear power be regulated by a variant of the same system by which we regulate other hazardous but beneficial activities. We call that system Underwriter Certification (UCert). This slide deck is the second of two part presentation on UCert. It outlines how Underwriter Certification would be implemented; and explains why it is feasible. All it takes is the political will.