Hi,
FYI two nuclear articles copied below – about Gen IV fast reactors and supporting film called Pandora’s Promise.So, the nuclear technology promoted by G. Monbiot and M. Lynas (Pandora’s Promise film) over the last few years, the SFR (sodium-cooled fast reactor), out of the six or so fast -reactor / Gen IV concepts studied by professional well-funded pro-nuclear French institution (IRSN) is :the only one of the various nuclear systems considered by GIF to have reached a degree of maturity compatible with the construction of a Generation IV reactor prototype during the first half of the 21st century; such a realization, however, requires the completion of studies and technological developments mostly already identified.
That’s hardly a ringing endorsement, let alone anything like a quickly deployable climate solution – ie the SFR is the best possibility depending on further studies leading to a prototype before 2050 !Well, let the world build renewables to 2050 and we can then have an informed public debate about whatever they come up with in 2050 ….. DECC estimated prototype results by 2035-40 in their 2013 Pathways report but still donkeys years away considering the threat timescale.Yet Monbiot / Lynas et al are promoting unproven, half-built (and in some cases half-baked) conventional PWR technology, on the basis that these new fast reactors are just around the corner and will burn all their waste and worries (and terrorists) away.Perhaps Lynas meant in his book that the world will have warmed by 6 degrees before his proposed silver-bullet, sorry, climate and energy solution, is ready for global deployment – possibly.Promises, promises, Pandora.Neil