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It looks like the main reason this recourse has lain neglected so long is that it is such an easy, low-cost way both to generate power and to handle the wastes. It's not "cutting-edge." The romantic frontiers of technology have long gone far beyond it so no one is looking there to make an exciting career or to cut exciting research grant proposals. It's about as exciting as burning garbage for powerwhich in fact it is! But what it could do for our power needs colliding with our environmental needs colliding with our political needs colliding with the needs of people living near where those teeming-over wastes are being storedNow that does look pretty exciting.... And whatever the economics were then; and whatever the economics may be now, there is a very simple, direct and easy way to change those economics for the better:
Tax such income at half rates for the decade following and at normal rates thereafter. To take advantage of the tax break, all sorts of uses will come out of the woodwork to use up such "wastes." Any foregone tax revenues during that interval would be many, many times made up for by what we would otherwise have to spend in protecting and restoring our livingspace from those dangerous wastes, and our absolute societal and global costs saved would be many times more even than that! (Our apologies to all "flat-taxers!" But would you flat-taxers prefer to see the government continue to be the main means by which these various desperate methods are addressed?Or would you rather see taking care of this situation the private sector, which private sector has hitherto found it uneconomic to address it on its own? Those are your only two options unless you'd rather let those desperately dangerous wastes continue to build!...) Until World War II, a major part of the history of the industrial revolution was a matter of each generation's finding commercial uses for the waste by-products and overlooked resources of the previous generation. Since then we appear to have let matters in this regard get away from us. The proposedtax incentive would bring us back in line with this historical precedent and, further, would be very much in line with current social efforts to reclaim and recycle specific wastes such as plastic and aluminum. ![]() Conclusion We should immediately proceed to study the feasibility and simple design of secondary thermal recovery power plants using some of our radioactive wastes. The wastes we are so anxious (and unable) to control now should be made available to commerce under appropriately controlled and well-understood conditions. We should also begin immediately to determine how best to define and apply the proposed tax incentive to encourage the commercial using-up of all sorts of toxic and dangerous substances with which we've let our world become overrun. If you have criticism of this solution, please send it to me together with permission for me to publish it in a future Winsights column and/or website. Such criticism, if it's good, I very well might so publish and thank you! ![]() Comments to Win Wenger |
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