However; when the same person needs to find a reason (technically a substitute in this case) as to why we shouldn't build a coal-to-liquids plant, electricity generation from renewables is top of the list.

I suppose there was a big new breakthrough today where solar panels and windmills are now producing sweet, sweet crude. Or could it be that there just might be a link between electricity and transport?

According to this website one cannot call themselves an environmentalist if they support nuclear power among other things, but I always find myself wondering if one of the requirements for being an environmentalist is having a three word answer for every question:

Solar/Wind/Efficiency

Because that is all I hear from "the movement" and not at all the impression I get from outside.

No...the reason nuclear power isn't a good tool is because:

A) It takes an enormous amount of material (like concrete and steel) to actually construct a nuclear power plant...so much so that it will usually take a nuclear power plant at least 5 years to offset the greenhouse gasses emitted durin' it's own construction.

B) Nuclear fuel is a non-renewable fuel, which means sooner or later supplies are gonna dwindle and we'll haveta switch to renewables anyway.

C) Nuclear fuel still has to be mined from the ground...and as usual, mining typically leaves the landscape devastated.

D) Nuclear plants require vast amounts of water to operate...and water is becoming increasing scarce.

E) Let's not forget 'bout all the nasty 'lil waste byproducts.

is having a three word answer for every question:

Solar/Wind/Efficiency

That's 'cause that's all that's needed.

Maybe geothermal, wave, micro-hydro, and landfill/waste gas as well.

As to your points:

A) Wondering where exactly you got this figure from, a ~1.4 GW NPP is producing a lot of CO2 free electricity every year. And while they use a lot of raw materials I find five years to be very hard to believe. A ballpark estimate of how much it might offset over 5 years would be 33 million metric tons of CO2.

B) Reprocessing, thorium. Moving on.

C) You have to mine to produce solar/wind also, we could debate which is worse but they all have some impact in this area. I have definitely seen some indications that solar can be particularly nasty in this regard.

D) I'm sure some cooling water will be freed up once we close all those coal-fired plants.

E) Again I see it as a resource, once we (the US, the rest of the world is alreadt doing it) can reprocess it will have some value.

Without major breakthroughs in energy storage technology, there is just no way the big three and their distant cousins will be all we need.

The ones I'm aware of who have announced expansion plans are countries that are already heavily powered by nuclear (mostly the U.K.).

In actual comparison, most European countries plan to expand the total percentage that renewables contribute far more than the percentage gained from new nuclear.

For that matter, if nuclear is the answer, then why are countries still buildin' coal plants?

It's geo-politics, more than anythin'.  Unfortunately, just because they build somethin', that doesn't mean that they're buildin' what's best.

Wondering where exactly you got this figure from

Oxford Research Group:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070207022344/http://www.oxfo ...

The Storm-Smith Report: http://www.stormsmith.nl/report20050803/Chap_1.pdf

Oxford Research Group (this time under a different team):http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefi ...

B) Reprocessing, thorium. Moving on.

And just how many of the currently operating or even the proposed plants use that?

And even if it was used on a massive scale, reprocessin' has it's limits.  The fuel can only go through it so much before it still has to be discarded.  True it's better than traditional nuclear plants, but new fuel is still needed eventually.

It's like recyclin' paper.  It's better than just chunkin' it, but it can only be recycled so many times before new pulp has to be added in.

It can't be done forever, and thus it's still a non-renewable resource.

I'm sure some cooling water will be freed up once we close all those coal-fired plants.

Nuclear plants typically use more water than coal-fired plants do.

Even so, we'd free up alot more water by abandonin' both nuclear and coal (along with gas) and switch to renewables.

Again I see it as a resource, once we (the US, the rest of the world is alreadt doing it) can reprocess it will have some value.

Last I checked, very little waste from nuclear plants had been reprocessed for other purposes.

Please list examples of countries doin' this on a large scale, since "everyone else" is doin' it.

In actual comparison, most European countries plan to expand the total percentage that renewables contribute far more than the percentage gained from new nuclear.

Following the link below to see all of the other countries and their plans:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf17.html

Ah the classic point about percentage based growth in renewables.

I'm in the business of generating electricity not percentage points, so that isn't very convincing to me. Nor am I trying to argue that we don't need renewables, I think we need lots more. And in terms of actual generation Europe has a long way to go, see:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/RecentElectrici ...

Countries will continue to build coal because it is the cheapest hands-down, nuclear becomes a more attractive option with a price on CO2 emissions and becomes more attractive as this price rises.

Looking through those links the impression that I got was that the time frame you quoted in your post was perhapsreasonable if we are assuming the lowest quality ores possible were used and go worst case on a few others as well. The calculations from Storm and Smith may be accurate but even the Wikipedia page raised questions about inconsistencies between their assumptions about energy inputs in U mining and actual operations data.

It can't be done forever, and thus it's still a non-renewable resource.

Yes but reprocessing can provide us with fuel for thousands of years, which if we're going to believe in technology saving us in the next 50-100 years I'm pretty sure thousands will work out.

Nuclear plants typically use more water than coal-fired plants do.

Nuclear plants are also typically larger than coal fired power plants, so what we should be interested in is water used per unit of energy produced. Again you are retreating to the territority of name plate capacities, percentages and away from actually producing energy which is the fundamental point. Nuclear performs quite well on a per unit produced basis, which I would contend is what really matters.

Please list examples of countries doin' this on a large scale, since "everyone else" is doin' it.

I'm not really talking about reprocessing the fuel for other purposes, just to make more electricity. Although I've heard anecdotal evidence of there being further uses for it in the future.

This link is a good starting point for reprocessing capacity:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf69.html

In short, almost 90,000 of the 270,000 total T of U discharged by nuclear power has been reprocessed. Roughly one-third is not what I call very litte, reprocessing capacity stands at roughly 5,500 T/year and this number looks like it will increase in the near future.

I'm all for reprocessin', but once again, very few of the existing plants, or even the proposed plants, utilize that technology.

The timespan of several thousand years grows increasingly smaller with the amount of nuclear fuel bein' used in conventional plants, which, once processed, cannot currently be reprocessed, even for use in plants that do use reprocessin'.

So the more plants that use traditional processin' (as most current and planned plants do), the less fuel left for reprocessin'.

Back to the paper example.  If ya take all the paper waste in the world, and say we can go for years without havin' to log trees for more paper by recyclin' the waste, that great!  But if ya burn most of that waste off, what's left to be recycled won't be very much, and won't last nearly as long.

Countries will continue to build coal because it is the cheapest hands-down, nuclear becomes a more attractive option with a price on CO2 emissions and becomes more attractive as this price rises.

Actually, given similar recent price increases in commodities such as steel and concrete, and the cost of buildin' wind towers in comparison to nuclear plants for equivalent power generation, the wind turbines are a more atrractive option economically, 'specvially given the more immediate returns and relatively quick construction period for a wind farm compared to a nuclear facility.

Nuclear plants are also typically larger than coal fired power plants, so what we should be interested in is water used per unit of energy produced.

But renewables use less water per capita than either nuclear or coal.

The Italian-American auto-expert brothers from New England are a bit too light-hearted for poor Joseph's taste, with the result that he did not want to play along for too long.

Anyway, surely most of us are on board at least with "Coal is one of a number of pretty mean enemies of the human race," such that we look to a future when "e-cars" will not involve coal at all.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.