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1) What is the "best" method of generating electricity from nuclear reactions? Dont they use pebble beds now? Whats that all about?
A few use pebble bed designs, which are supposed to be unable to sustain a catastrophic accident due to their design. These are theoretically "best," but they're still considered experimental. Most new and existing ones are light water reactors.
2) Is uranium the only fuel for a nuclear power plant?
No, there are alternative fuel cycles. But for the majority of light-water reactors that we use, uranium is the primary choice.
3) In general, how much does a new nuke plant cost and how long does it take to set up?
That depends on a lot of things, including where you want to set up, if you're going from scratch, the capacity of the reactor, etcetera. It's cheaper and faster to add a new reactor to an existing facility than it is to build a completely new plant. However, you could safely say that numbers are in the range of 1 to 5 billion dollars, and 3.5 to 4 years to construct.
4) How much radioactive waste is produced? Is it just spent fuel rods and radioactive cooling water? Where should we put it?
Currently, it's something like 30 tons per plant, per year. We could get that done to about 1.5 tons if we reprocessed the waste to remove the still usable uranium, but this isn't currently done because it's not considered neccessary. The mass of the waste is primarily the spent fuel rods. As for storage, a deep underground site is pretty much ideal. Even if the material were to escape the packaging we put it in (unlikely), sites like the natural nuclear reactions at Oklo have shown that the fission byproducts won't move very far through the soil.
5) Is fusion worth the effort or is it just a pipe dream?
It's absolutely worth the effort. One of the leading minds in the field thinks that he and his team have developed a viable energy-positive reactor, and that they can build a 100 megawatt plant for $200 million.
6) Besides the previously mentioned sources of renewable energy (wind, solar, geo, hydro dams, wave & tidal, biomass (incl. ethanol & biodiesel) hydrogen) are there any others that I dont know about?
Not really, at least nothing that's practicable.
7) Given current trends, how long do we have until the planet turns into a total ****hole and humanity fights for its life? Im guessing 50 years. (OPINION QUESTION - feel free to spout off!)
I personally don't think it's going to happen. We humans are good at averting catastrophe.
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