FORA.tv strives to connect smart, passionate audiences to brilliant ideas that are expressed everyday. Each week, our newsletter features a provocative and compelling Big Question, inviting discourse and debate from our community.
This week’s Big Question:
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – Nuclear Waste?
The tragic news from Japan regarding radiation leaks from three nuclear power plants has the rest of the world reconsidering the safety of this energy source. This week, as we ask ourselves whether nuclear energy can ever be made safe, we offer two programs describing innovations around this technology. Barry Brook, Director of Climate Science at The University of Adelaide Environment Institute, discusses the potential impact of fast nuclear reactors. He explains that by recycling and reusing nuclear waste, these plants are capable of turning a golf ball-sized piece of uranium into a lifetime’s worth of energy. “The U.S. has mined enough uranium already, to power all of its energy needs for about a thousand years,” explains Brook. Meanwhile, author and futurist Stewart Brand addresses worries about nuclear energy concerning proliferation of material and waste disposal. He describes a recycling program that converts old nuclear warheads into energy and a facility designed to safely bury spent nuclear fuel.
Watch and share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
TWO VIEWS: Barry Brook and Stewart Brand
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