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I had not heard of the politician's blunder at Fukushima. Not surprising in my experience. When a disaster strikes, technical decisions are made by lawyers and business types. The engineers are not even in the room.

I'm trying to imagine what might cause a molten-salt reactor to release radiation outside of its silo. Maybe an accident during loading or unloading? Do we need a buffer zone, if there is no possibility of a release? When a used reactor is pulled out of its silo, what is the radiation level 10 meters away?

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In the sub-chapter on buffer zones in your book, you mention the buffer zone could be farmland.

In a cold climate I like the idea of putting greenhouses in the buffer zone where they could get very cheap heat from the cooling water that would otherwise just go into the lake river or sea, the water came out of before providing the cold sink for the heat engine.

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Worth exploring. This very low grade 32C heat is not worth much, and I know nothing about the economics of green house farming, but this may be an application where it might make sense. But even if this is the case, the effect on the overall economics of nuclear power will be nearly negligible. We need to focus on the elephant in the room.

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