ALL, repeat...ALL methods of energy production are 'ugly'.  It just depends on whose agenda it is to say so.

People protest against the construction of Hydro dams.  People protest against the 'aesthetics' of Wind Farms.

People protest against open cut coal mining.  People protest against man's dependence on non-renewable energy sources of all varieties.

Heck...they even protest against the construction of desal plants - in the second driest country on the planet.  [the driest is Antarctica...which has a population probably in the hundreds at best so doesn't really count].

Of course people protest against Nuclear.  It's all just something for the great unwashed to do while they queue for the dole....

I suppose you got it from here.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Uranium-Resources/Supply-of-Uranium/#.Ulul7538I-U

It mentions that consumption is 68,000 tons/year. The reserves are enough for about 80 years of production. However, only a small percentage of the total energy production is supplied by nuclear reactors, therefore those reserves cannot supply the total world energy requirement for a very long time...

This is more interesting.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last

It mentions breeder reactors, which make better use of uranium. Unfortunately they are not so cool in terms of nuclear weapons and waste products.

It mentions seawater... an often-used (and imho a pathetic) analogy of using the ocean as an infinite supply for metals. If the prices are high enough then it will become economically viable blablabla... but at those prices it'll just be too expensive compared to other energy sources.

You're probably refering to breeder reactors.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/are_fast-breeder_reactors_a_nuclear_power_panacea/2557/

It says (among other things): "Fast reactors can be run in different ways, either to destroy plutonium, to maximise energy production, or to produce new plutonium."

I wouldn't like breeder reactors everywhere on the world that are using plutonium as a fuel source (or produce plutonium as its own fuel source) because the plutonium can be used to produce nuclear weapons.

I'd prefer to spend some more resources on less risky ways of producting energy, than to replace one risk (runaway global warming) with another risk (nuclear apocalypse) just because it's "more economical".

Because if such a thing were to become mainstream technology, any country like North Korea could build a dozen of those breeder reactors to supply it with both cheap energy and a steady stream of fissile material to create hundreds of nuclear weapons. Imagine every country doing that... it would be a runaway nuclear race, a total nightmare.

I'm not sure, but I think that's a breeder reactor too.

EDIT:  Just to clarify, there can be molten salt breeder reactors and there can be thorium molten salt reactors as well.  The one that Transatomic wants to build they specifically call a "Waste Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor" because it uses its fuel to very high efficiency and leaves very little waste behind.  Most light water reactors consume very little of the fuel before it must be replaced and becomes considered waste.

I just did an edit before I saw your response up .... it is dirty in that you wouldn't want it to spring a leak anymore than any other nuclear reactor, but considering we could operate them on existing waste for probably a century, it is really doing us a favor.  A solution like this gives us a lot of time to figure out the next step.

Yeah.....ummm.... I was thinking we would just use the 100's of thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste sitting around in spent rod storage pools.  Not the stuff that was dumped in the ocean 20 years ago.  I don't think anyone is doing much ocean dumping these days.  There really isn't any additional risk with a waste processing reactor, not anymore than already exists....I would think you'd be happy to use a reactor that burns up existing waste rather than create more.  Anyhow, I can't decide if you are trolling me, or if you really have a problem with every possible idea.

Nothing I've read indicates it would be used as a breeder reactor, but it certainly isn't impossible.  There are different ways to make breeder reactors, so it might be possible to use or modify a Transatomic reactor for this purpose.  I don't know, someone would have to ask them.  We've already got nuclear reactors all over the place so I'm not sure where you consider the line crossed into opening Pandora's box.

Well... currently there are not nuclear reactors everywhere... they are expensive and they are built usually with the express intent of making nuclear weapons. It's a choice that a country has to make and it's sometimes an expensive and difficult choice.

If we would build cheap reactors everywhere, it won't be a choice anymore, but an additonal option and that makes it so much easier to cross the line... you've to make sure that cannot happen.

Well... I dunno, maybe I'm a bit too gloomy about this. But I'm old enough to remember the cold war, I wouldn't like to go back to that just because a few African dictators decide to start a new nuclear arms race with cheap, readily available fissile material.

I just know that so far, most of the nations with nuclear power plants have nuclear weapons. The ones that don't, are capable of making nukes if they decide to in the future. If a new dictator would emerge in Germany for example, it'd be very tempting for him to start producting nukes.

Nuclear weapons are expensive.  Using valuable materials inefficiently to make nukes would be a silly thing to do, economically.

The guys that are after nukes are going to get them anyway, we're a world full of spineless shits without the will to act anyway so what does it matter?  We didn't stop North Korea, and that was literally a country run by a nut job.  We wont stop Iran, and supposedly they're a bunch of crazy fundamentalists that will nuke us if they get one.

Since you remember the cold war, you should also remember that despite the extreme paranoia on both sides, and the USSR's penchant for conquest and interference in other countries even beyond our own, nobody got nuked.  If Iran ever turns up in the hands of 12'vers, we be fucked, short of that kind of insanity I don't see why you should worry about some two bit dictator getting nukes in Africa.  All they'd be for is so they can butcher their own people with impunity.  Once everyone has nukes, no one rational would ever partake in aggression.

The current leader of North Korea executed an ex and her family because his wife was jealous of her career.

Nukes are expensive.  Every two bit dictator wont get them, the worst already has.