Future's So Bright

Slashdot and Gizmodo are carrying a Santa Fe Reporter article on a compact self-stabilizing nuclear power source and Hyperion Power Generation, the New Mexico company formed to manufacture it. This is a fine time to point out why nuclear power is not the bogeyman; it's not nuclear power itself we need to worry about, it's shoddy worksmanship, lax regulation, and sacrificing safety for the bottom line that we need to worry about.

The idea of burying possibly dangerous power sources is not entirely new; I read an article in Wired a while back about turbine generators that proposed sealing a honking huge turbine in concrete and burying it 20' down so that if (or rather, when) it broke up, the shards of screaming metal would only bury themselves deeper in the ground. Now, if Dr. Peterson can build a device that would, AT WORST, permanently seal itself up so that we can dig it up later and dispose of it, then I say, sure, no problem, plug that sucker in (though, um, not near my aquifer, please). The danger, of course, is, well... let's just just hope it doesn't come to that.