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At least no one's life is dependent on these devices..yet. If we started adopting these things carelessly in situations that could endanger lives, we'd be in serious trouble. Perhaps this is the wake up call we've desperately needed.

We already have life critical devices compromised. Remember that the early adopters of the IoT was hospitals, which have been compromised already. http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-...

While this case was not the result of a hacker, but software error, todays radiation dispenser is about 100 percent likely to be attached to the internet. http://ccnr.org/fatal_dose.htm....

And it wouldn't be too surprising if people have been killed already. We just wouldn't hear abou tit, or the operators might not even know.

Commercial light water reactors can't generate weapons grade plutonium without shutting down very early in the cycle (around a month) as the Pu-239 is effectively poisoned by Pu-240, Pu-241. Then separating the plutonium is very challenging as they need to reprocess it. A brief overview of this is here.

If you are referring to tritium producing burnable absorber rods (TPBARS), that is only done in one unit in the United States.

The complications of the molten salt reactors are much more numerous than thorium reactor proponents would suggest, the reactor in Oak Ridge was hardly at commercial scale.

You can't synthesize a general rule from systemic failures? Keep It Simple Shithead.
Planes do fail by software errors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q...
http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
Antilock brakes are very simple systems, and you have a mechanical backup as well. But, for the record, I don't like computer controlled brakes. I drive a mechanical car.
If ABS do fail or malfunction, I doubt anyone is keeping track as to how or when. As no one keeps track, you can't perceive systemic failure as a problem. They'd have to fail massively for anyone to care.
Robots don't operate very much, and frankly I certainly don't want a piece of software cutting on me. It's not outlawed for the same reason automated cars aren't outlawed. Not enough experience to perceive failure, and an unwillingness to acknowledge failure when it does happen. And civilized countries allow voting via computer programs as well - the ultimate in unpercievable failure.
Pacemakers can fail via deliberate malware infestation, or an EMP attack or accident, or a software bug. Just because you don't know of a failure doesn'[t mean it doesn't happen.
Here's some automated software injuries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
http://www.ccnr.org/fatal_dose...

As to your point about a software bug failure on Twitter being different than a software bug in a car running half a billion lines of code:

You make my point for me. Twitter failed from one point. Just one point. Half a million lines of code have damn near an infinite chance of:
1. Failure through complexity. Any real-world programmer knows that hyper-complex systems can have cascading weirdness.
2. Failure through sensor failure, processor failures, bus failures, and similar failures we can't anticipate.
http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...
http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~nachu...
And Google's robot car had to be rebooted twice during its certification run.
3. Failure through an the inability to program a PC to anticipate all the possibilities that a car swarming with other cars in a real world situation. One can't program that.
4. Failure through vulnerability to outside attack. Software on a network is very vulnerable; one hundred percent so. Physically, a high energy radio pulse fired at a car, or a whole highway of cars, would cause carnage. Carnage would be multilation and death, what happens when steel boxes swerve randomly around at 70 mph with no driver.
5. The problem isn't about ALL cars failing. One car can fail and crash the cars around it. For the system to work, all cars have to work 100% perfectly all the time.

An car - driver is eating a sandwich. Car computer failure would crash the car instantly, depending. Carnage.
An airplane - plane is, generally speaking, in the air most of the time. If the computers fail, somehow, the pilot can take control with time enough to avoid contact with other planes or the ground.
Car - failure, milliseconds to react, car may not even let you drive. Plane: seconds or minutes to recover and land.

I'm only pointing out the obvious failure points. Others will happen. I wistfully recall posting on Slashdot about the vulnerability of a NFC card being read without the owner's knowledge; I was mocked as an ignoramus. I just pointed out physics didn't rule out building a concealed reader, or very powerful pulse generator. Both have happened.

I await the stories of failed robot cars in the coming years, and either th

20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium

OK. This is embarrassing. At least use proper units.

500-1000 Ci of tritium (or Curies).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU#Tritium_emissions
http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/readingroom/factsheets/tritium.cfm

and here is more sensetionalist article, but with some numbers to compare,

http://www.ccnr.org/tritium_1.html

COMMENTS ON THE DUMPING OF 3500 CURIES OF TRITIUM INTO THE OTTAWA RIVER FROM THE NPD NUCLEAR POWER REACTOR ON JULY 19 1981

CANDU reactors emit more tritium than the so called massive spill above at Fukushima. Tritium is not very dangerous, especially in water. Even when exposed to tritium, your body has a biological half-life of only about two weeks - you pee it out along with water. Radiological halflife is 12 years so you get the idea.

Today most CANDU start to capture tritium instead of venting it, and then selling it.

Anyway, the story is not a very big story. There is a lot of worse things that could be leaked, like mercury. And mercury tends to poison things for much longer than a few years - just look at the state of oceans today and cry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease

Also, want plutonium for your third world bomb program? CANDU!

There are much more efficient ways to produce plutonium. Furthermore, CANDU is not that great at producing plutonium in the first place as it burns plutonium. CANDU has been used to burn those plutonium stockpiles

http://www.ccnr.org/nas_mox.html#adv

In normal CANDU operations with natural uranium fuel, more than half of the energy is provided by fissioning plutonium produced in the fuel as the reactor operates. As a result, adding plutonium to the initial fuel would represent a smaller change in the physics of the reactor core than in the case of LWRs. Moreover, the structure of the CANDU reactors allows plenty of space for added controls . . . . Thus, relatively few physical modifications would be required to handle substantial quantities of plutonium in CANDU reactors.

So yes, CANDU is "old" and has been improved over the years. It is not the best. It is not the safest. But drawing the "non-proliferation" card is a low blow. CANDU is excellent at burning plutonium, hence it is not a good design to making plutonium. There are much more efficient designs if you want to do that.

Don't forget about CANDU reactors. They use a heavy-water moderator and are able to burn a wide variety of fuels including plutonium, natural uranium, or "spent" fuel from a light-water reactor.

[...}

Nuclear: 0.04

Does this include the slow death because of nuclear contamination when mining Uranium and processing the nuclear waste?
For details see e.g. this article.

If? In the last 15 years 84 incidents happened worldwide.

http://www.ccnr.org/SMA_Radioactive_Scrap.pdf

http://www.epa.gov/radtown/orphan-sources.html

The number one comment is that (new) technology will save us. Ummm. yeah. In Northridge CA, and in SF CA, bridges fell during earthquakes that were built to the (then) latest seismic standards. Bugs occur in control software. Human error (some idiots mixed up two valves at Diablo Nuke plant last year causing a scramble at the plant).

Nuke is clean and cheap is another common Nuke industry talking point parroted by the /. commentators. Nuke power is really the most expensive source of power when you strip away the hidden costs ($0.25 - $0.30/KW/hr). http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf

Worse, the contamination and fossil fuel use in mining uranium is invariably ignored by the pro nuke folks. A study by the Canadian government shows the safety risks: http://www.ccnr.org/bcma.html. Currently, most uranium is enriched using power from burning coal, making nuke power a very carbon heavy source of energy. As we transition away from enriching uranium in centrifuges for nuke plants (we have to, there isn't much uranium left to extract), perhaps this will change, but current nuke energy is far from carbon neutral., but then we have other issues (huge worker safety issues, and still waste issues) as we move to reprocessing fuel.

One guy said the extent of the Chernobyl disaster was 50 people died (as if the only deaths were those in the first weeks of the disaster):

Even the IAEA says that 4000 people will have died http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/Chernobyl/pdfs/pr.pdf And, most literature not affiliated with pro industry groups has extremely high estimates of the total death toll (up to a million, but these groups also have an agenda, so the truth likely falls somewhere in between). Since the IAEA report doesn't include those immediately evacuated into other countries (a significant number), it is probably not even suitable as a lower bound.

Since the disaster contaminated hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of farm land, and only a few thousand square kilometers were excluded from agriculture (indefinitely) the effects will be ongoing for thousands of years. The contamination spread across Europe (western and eastern) and the UK.

One commenter said if meltdown, rods would puddle on the floor, no biggie-- FTA:

According to experts interviewed by The Associated Press, any melted fuel would eat through the bottom of the reactor vessel. Next, it would eat through the floor of the already-damaged containment building. At that point, the uranium and dangerous byproducts would start escaping into the environment.

At some point in the process, the walls of the reactor vessel â" 15 centimetres of stainless steel â" would melt into a lava-like pile, slump into any remaining water on the floor, and potentially cause an explosion much bigger than the one caused by the hydrogen. Such an explosion would enhance the spread of radioactive contaminants.

If the reactor core became exposed to the external environment, officials would likely began pouring cement and sand over the entire facility, as was done at the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Ukraine, Peter Bradford, a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a briefing for reporters.

At that point, Mr. Bradford added, âoemany first responders would die.â

And, of course, we have the waste issue. Currently a few miles from my house, there are dry casks filled with nuclear waste from the Diablo Canyon nuke power plant. There is no place to safely dispose of this waste, so they just collect it on-site-- first submerged in tanks, now in dry casks. The vessels for this waste storage are not built to the standards of the reactor containment.

Finally, Nuke would not exist in the US

Yes... No bugs, thoroughly tested: http://www.ccnr.org/fatal_dose.html

Ford was committing negligent homicide long before GM was found to be evil and incompetent. But the auto industry is lame compared to the chemical industry, like the death and destruction cause by:
cyanide
toxic waste
tranquilizers
dumping nuclear waste into the water supply ... etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc...

Typical normal CT scan dose: 1-2 rem
Faulty CT scan overdose: 8-16 rem
1950s shoe-salesman's fluoroscope: 10 rem
Typical normal Therac-25 dose: 200 rem
Malfunctioning Therac-25 dose: 15-20,000 rem

Come on, seriously people. Yes, this is a mistake that needs to be fixed, but millions of kids in the '50s got their feet nuked with this much radiation and lived to become healthy normal adults with normal feet.

The Therac-25 cooked straight through people, leaving a hole of rotting meat behind. This is not even remotely in the same league.

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/R/Radiation.html
http://chestjournal.chestpubs.org/content/107/1/113.full.pdf
http://www.ccnr.org/fatal_dose.html
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/shoefittingfluor/shoe.htm

I was about to post the same thing..

This link has a little more information. Deadly race condition...

Many studies of irradiated animal feed have been conducted over the years and no negative impact has been found.

Not one study has shown negative impacts of irradiating food?

Falcon

'Just below the plant's control room, two electricians were trying to seal air leaks .. They were using strips of spongy foam rubber to seal the leaks. They were also using candles .. by observing how the flame was affected by escaping air'

Historically, Canada is the only first world country to have given another (in this case, India), the means to create its own nuclear weapons.

Sure, it was 1974 when India first used a nuclear weapon, but that caused Pakistan to panic trying to make their own nuclear weapon. AQ Khan, the chief nuclear scientist of the Pakistani program, admitted himself that he gave nuclear weapons technology to North Korea and Iran. And, of course, we have the mess that we have today with Iran's nuclear program.

So please, don't sit there and tell me that Canada is innocent or responsible. In fact, it is widely acknowledged in the Eastern hemisphere that Canada giving a historically aggressive country like India a nuclear reactor capable of generating nuclear materials for weapons is the single most irresponsible international act since the start of the Cold War.

Well one approach would be to not do anything and live with a reduced yield, i.e. 1kt-3kt (depending on who you believe) rather than 10kt.

http://www.ccnr.org/plute.html

Designing and building an effective nuclear weapon using reactor-grade plutonium is less convenient than using weapon-grade plutonium, for several reasons.

Some nuclear weapons are typically designed so that a pulse of neutrons will start the nuclear chain reaction at the optimum moment for maximum yield; background neutrons from plutonium-240 can set off the reaction prematurely, and with reactor-grade plutonium the probability of such "pre-initiation" is large. Pre-initiation can substantially reduce the explosive yield, since the weapon may blow itself apart and thereby cut short the chain reaction that releases the energy.

Nevertheless, even if pre-initiation occurs at the worst possible moment (when the material first becomes compressed enough to sustain a chain reaction) the explosive yield of even a relatively simple first-generation nuclear device would be of the order of one or a few kilotons. While this yield is referred to as the "fizzle yield," a one-kiloton bomb would still have a radius of destruction roughly one-third that of the Hiroshima weapon, making it a potentially fearsome explosive. Regardless of how high the concentration of troublesome isotopes is, the yield would not be less.

It's possible that the North Koreans did this. In fact they messed up even more because they got less than one kt.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=kims-big-fizzle

Soon after the news broke that North Korea claimed to have conducted a nuclear test, experts realized that the blast had been much smaller than is usual for a first device. Nuclear explosions are measured in kilotons, an energy release equivalent to that of thousands of tons of TNT. Most countries' first tests range from five to 25 kilotons. For example, the U.S.'s 1945 "Trinity" test had a yield of about 20 kilotons. Yet estimates of the North Korean test clustered around half a kiloton. Reportedly, North Korean officials had told China to expect a blast of four kilotons.

Sci am speculates they used reactor grade plutonium and didn't do anything clever or that they got the implosion design wrong. Or maybe both.

Plutonium generated from normal reactors have too high a content of Pu-240 to ever be weapons-grade. It gets bombarded with neutrons for too long, Pu-239 + n -> Pu-240. The containment shell makes it quite cumbersome (to the point of shutting down the reactor for weeks, I believe), so you can't just remove it earlier. So, If you have a containment shell around your reactor, you can't really use it to make weapons grade plutonium.

Not true

Thanks to Jimmy Carter declassifying this

http://www.ccnr.org/plute_bomb.html

The Department of Energy is providing additional information related to a 1962 underground nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site that used reactor-grade plutonium in the nuclear explosive.

SPECIFICALLY:

A successful test was conducted in 1962, which used reactor-grade plutonium in the nuclear explosive in place of weapon-grade plutonium.

Everyone now knows it's possible to use reactor grade plutonium in a bomb.

Canada uses CANDU nuclear reactors, which do not promote nuclear weapons since they use regular unenriched uranium. Canada also has no nuclear weapons. The idea that nuclear power is tied to nuclear weapons is absurd.

This is a little disingenuous. The NRU at Chalk River used to run on high-enriched uranium, and now runs on low-enriched uranium. Source.

Furthermore, the NRU, like the NRX before it, is heavy-water moderated, which is efficient at producing plutonium. Source.

Production of the world's medical isotopes using the NRU is one of the Canadian excuses for being able to produce bombs in a several-month time frame. It's true that Canada has never actually produced a nuclear weapon, but it's also true that some of the programs at Chalk River are "dual use".

your other arguments seam to be wind power can't make this country self sufficient (agreed.) But their are not enough known nuclear material in the US to be self sufficient in nuclear, so it definitely can't (currently) solve the US energy problems either (unless were willing and able to kick South Africa's ass next.)

Wind can provide provide the US with a lot of energy. And an article in Sciam, "A Solar Grand Plan says that by 2050 solar can provide 69% of the US's energy needs. And while I don't like nuclear power, there's no need to go to Africa, Canada has some rich uranium deposits. According to the World Nuclear Association Canada mines more uranium than any other country.

But thats where putting them on buildings sounds smart. IE supplement the power as close to the demand, and knock down one of the big problems of big buildings (they channel wind) at the same time.

I don't know if you saw it but one of the proposals for a new World Trade Center had a wind generator in between two buildings with other proposals also including wind power.

Uranium Miner Cancer (5x Greater than non-miners)

Lung Cancer in Non-Smoking Uranium Miner

Cancer Kills 14 Aboriginal Uranium Workers

Google can find you lots more, just search for uranium miner cancer.

Remember the radon scare? Now just imagine going to work every day where there is a lot of radon present and your boss doesn't give you an air-tank to avoid it.

As far as cleanup, take a gander at the Moab tailings pile left behind from the last time someone made a buck off "cheap, clean nuclear power".

Reprocess it and generate mopre power is tho.

• The West Valley plant was deserted by its owners in 1972, leaving 600,000 gallons of high-level liquid waste and 30,000 gallons of radioactive sludge as a legacy to the State of New York. Solidification of this waste has been estimated by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to cost about $500 million, once they solve the associated technical problems, which (it is estimated) will take a minimum of 14 years.
• Occupational exposures to radiation were very high at West Valley. In 1971, almost 1000 transient workers were hired to keep exposures to the 162 full-time workers down. Nevertheless, over three-quarters of the full-timers were over-exposed.
• Radioactive effluents into the environment from West Valley were very high. Concentrations of strontium-90 in local creeks were from 1000 to 10,000 times higher than projected. Over 65% of all the available Iodine-129 (half-life 17 million years) was released, either as a gas of liquid, showing up in the thyroids of wildlife and in cow's milk.

First link in google.
list of incident at brown ferry (click on candle)

At least their reactor failed to "off" this time...

Schwab

Minimum cost occurs at about 80 feet, with windspeeds of 12.26 mph, producing an average 162.8 kWh/month worth $11.40. The tower at that height costs $2000. Payback time, ignoring interest, is 27.79 years. That's not economical.

A couple of things were left out. One is inflation, excepting maintainance, all of the costs are upfront and once paid for it doesn't need to be paid for again. Power from the grid though always raises. Say you pay $.10 pe kwh now, in ten years you may be paying $1. Okay ten tyme as much may be radical but the point is that if you gemerate your own electricity your energy was paid in the beginning and you don't pay more later but if you get your power from the grid you'll always be paying even when prices rise. The second think overlooked are rebates or tax credits. Governments, both federal and many states offer tax credits. DSIRE lists what is offered in each state in the US.

The biggest thing a person that's thinking of generating the power they use can do though is replacing the things that use power with energy effiecent replacements. Those 75 watt bulbs replace them with 15 watt cfls, compact florescent lights. The old washing machine and dryer or frig, replace them with a new one that has a good Energy Star rating. The idea being you want negawatts, energy conserved and not produced, rather than "new" methods to produce more megawatts of energy.

You're interested in installing a wind genie? Have you checked into Home Power magazine ? Also, though "Solar" is in the name, Solar Today also has some articles on wind genies.

After all, if one is near the bottom of freedom and the other is near the top, it's easier for both to move towards the middle

If it makes you comfortable to believe that there is really that much difference, you're certainly entitled to believe that the US is much freer than China, and admittedly in many ways it still is, but not as much as you might think. However, as my original post was about a "feeling" of freedom, here are a few things to consider:

In the US, if you even speak in a raised voice to your child in public, self-appointed citizen watchdogs may come up and tell you that you are "verbally abusing" your child and that they are going to call the social workers. I have personally seen this happen at a Wal-Mart when a whiny child was insisting she get some candy and her tired mother had had enough of her whining. Heaven forbid if she had decided to spank her child in public. An American-Pakistani friend of mine told me that the every time his family traveled to Pakistan, the first thing the father did was slap him in face for all of the disrespect he had shown him in the past year in the US and he knew he had to behave for the next month until he returned to the US where he could take advantage of the situation, knowing that his father wouldn't risk physically punishing him. There are many well-documented cases of people's children being taken away by state social workers on circumstantial evidence presented by "well-intentioned" neighbors. Children in foster care have a high incidence of abuse and even death. (Google search for "foster care death" gave 16,300,000 results.) The US is the only country I know of that has gone to this extreme and the citizens are the ones who turn their neighbors in, often on flimsy circumstantial evidence.

1,700 Bush protesters and dozens of bystanders in New York City were corralled with orange netting, arrested and held for over 40 hours in an old bus cleaning station with hazardous chemical signs displayed and no access to lawyers.

Mandated vaccines have led to brain damage, autism and death to hundreds of thousands of victims, and yet each year more and more vaccines are introduced, bringing billions of dollars to the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture them and to the medical industry that deals with the adverse affects. Gulf War syndrome is now widely believed to be mainly caused by the many tons of depleted uranium shells used during the campaigns, but the number of experimental vaccines our troops are forced to accept, with or without their complicity, has factored in some cases as well. Patriot Acts 1 & 2 contain clauses which allow for forced vaccine campaigns that call for anyone who refuses to be placed in "quarantine" indefinitely. I'm thankful to those who have fought for our rights to choose NOT to give the shots to our kids (varies by state) but I'm afraid those days are numbered.

There has already been plenty of discussion on Slashdot about the Patriot Acts 1 and 2 and all of the accompanying loss of rights to citizens they entail. As long as you don't question anything, you should be fine. However, if you don't believe there are any political prisoners in the US, I urge you to investigate. It's not hard to find many cases. I for one smell fascism in the air.

Of course, we haven't touched on how US foreign policy has walked all over the freedoms of sovereign nations that have stood in the way of the juggernaut.

Finally, my message is certainly NOT anti-US, but rather against the oligarchy which usurped the US government and the people who are complicit in maintaining those rulers.

even atomic numbers and odd atomic mass numbers lets out Pu238 due to even atomic mass.

This may be just semantics on the definition of fissile but I'm pretty sure all Pu isotopes can be used in a nuclear weapon.

http://www.ccnr.org/reactor_plute.html

pp. 32-33 of Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium

  by the Committee on International Security and Arms Control
  of the National Academy of Sciences (National Academy Press 1994)

With reactor-grade plutonium, the probability of such "pre-initiation" is very large. Pre-initiation can substantially reduce the explosive yield, since the weapon may blow itself apart and thereby cut short the chain reaction that releases energy.

Calculations demonstrate, however, that even if pre-initiation occurs at the worst possible moment (when the material first becomes compressed enough to sustain a chain reaction), the explosive yield of even a relatively simple device similar to the Nagasaki bomb would be of the order of one or a few kilotons.

Dealing with the second problem with reactor-grade plutonium, the heat generated by Pu-238 and Pu-240, requires careful management of the heat in the device. Means to address this problem include providing channels to conduct the heat from the plutonium through the insulating explosive surrounding the core, or delaying assembly of the device until a few minutes before it is to be used.

In short it would be quite possible for a potential proliferator to make a nuclear explosive from reactor-grade plutonium using a simple design that would be assured of having a yield in the range of one to a few kilotons, and more using an advanced design. Theft of separated plutonium, whether weapons-grade or reactor-grade, would pose a grave security risk.

The Pu-240 content even in weapons-grade plutonium is sufficiently large that very rapid assembly is necessary to prevent pre-initiation. Hence the simplest type of nuclear explosive, a "gun type," in which the optimum critical configuration is assembled more slowly than in an "implosion type" device, cannot be made with plutonium, but only with highly enriched uranium, in which spontaneous fission is rare.

Plutonium would work much better.

Or not at all.

It is not very toxic when ingested with food or drink because of its very small probability of passing through the intestine walls into the bloodstream. Pu forms large molecules, which have great difficulty in passing through membranes.

or http://www.ccnr.org/plute_tox.html

Early studies showed that plutonium is poorly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and through the intact skin. From these data, inhalation or penetrating skin wounds were clearly the most important exposure routes for potential human exposure.

Solar is much better than nuclear and has just as great a potential to provide all our energy. Cover all the roofs with solar panels, even in places with lots of clouds, and you'll get all the power we need. Especially combined with wind, tidal, etc.

Nuclear sounds nice until one remembers the real nuclear waste problems: uranium mine tailings and depleted uranium. Don't ever forget that depleted uranium makes up over 98% of the mass of refined uranium ore. Nuclear plants themselves are pretty clean, and they're a lot safer these days, but mining for uranium, and dealing with depleted uranium, are hurdles best not tackled when we have better alternatives.

Real-world powerstations are typically up to 50x as powerful, and (more important) they are typically run for about 8 times as long (i.e., a lifespan of 30-40 years). The scale and scope of the decommission problem is DIRECTLY related to how long the installation was running... that's what determines the radioactivity of the structural materials in the reactor building. And a production reactor also has an enormous volume of radioactive material to deal with-- according to CCNR http://www.ccnr.org/me_worry_2.html, typically about 7000 cubic meters.

They state that Elk River cost only $6 million to build (a pipsqueek; a typical production nuclear site costs $50M+). But they they list a cost of $57 million to dismantle it! This is a success story ???

Another "success story", Shippingport, cost "only $91 million". But that number is fraudulent, because (a) the reactor vessel was shipped intact to Hanford WA, where nearly all of the dismantling work was done for free (i.e., on the TAXPAYERS' dime); (b) the vessel and other disposed materials were disposed in Federal WA and ID facilities at fees far below those of commercial sites like Barnwell; (c) only the "nuclear parts" were dismantled, not the "conventional parts" (they didn't do the whole job!); and (d) like Elk River, Shippingport was a pipsqueek, only 72 MegaWatts.

The only other decommissioned and dismantled reactor in USA history is Shoreham. (I exclude the tiny and irrelevant Sodium-Experimental at Santa Susana.) Shoreham was 100% easy, because it was in 'production' for less than a month: hardly any of the non-nuclear parts had time to develop any radiation at all.

All other USA reactors, AFAIK, are entombed, SAFSTOR, or DECON in progress. Basically, we're waiting several decades for the radiation to "work its way downwards", and inflict the costs on our Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren.

However, it ISmy opinion that this is a great streategy for all of the Nukes which are already built and running (or built, done running, and shut down). Letting all of this hot stuff sit in place for a while, to cool down, is far better than schemes such as packing it while still really hot into "permanent disposal" containers at Yucca Mountain... containers which we might find horribly difficult to dismantle and re-entomb if/when they fail. (Kinda like the Chernyobl concrete entombment failing.)

- - - -

I'd mod gonefishing up... he had a real point of discussion. Dave's post is not "insightful", it's just nasty and thoughtless.

• Dave, you can't PROVE a "there exist none" generalization such as I made, you DISPROVE it by counterexample (as gonefishing does). That's how way logic works. Heard of Aristotle?
• 5000 years of 'civilization': First, it's not one civilization, but many separate civilizations. Historically, none have lasted more than a few hundred years. And yet, you ask me to provide "a reason why such a feat would not be possible". Again, you use childish sophistry... because I won't make a guarantee that it's 100% impossible, you snear that my scenario (failure only 80% likely? 95% likely?) doesn't matter. How many 'lost' languages don't we understand? But for a few dedicated monks in Ireland, we'd be without lots of significant writings from Roman times. And yet, you aren't worried that our maps and lists of where not to go won't be lost? Even in 10,000 years?
• My '60 years experience' point is this: In the history of mankind, no weapon of war has preiously been invented and noteventually used. We have a 60-year old uneasy truce in place on nukes.... but the nuclear power station fuel rod business uses the same technology as the nuclear warhead materials busines

Hmm, it snipped the Brown's Ferry link. Lets try again.

Yeah, since we all know software is foolproof...

As an extreme example, ever heard of a little company called AECL?
http://www.ccnr.org/fatal_dose.html

In the case of U-238 (which constitutes 99.8%+ of depleted uranium) in four and a half billion years, roughly half the atoms in your sample will have ejected an alpha particle and turned into lead. The other half have just been sitting there, doing nothing, being inert, for four and a half billion years.

Completely false information. The decay products from DU are actually more radioactive than DU itself. DU dirty bombs and missiles produce a form of fallout where the contamination continues to get more and more radioactive for thousands of years. See http://www.ccnr.org/decay_U238.html and http://www.wise-uranium.org/rccu.html. There are actually 14 decay steps before a stable isotope is reached, lead-206.

Quite apart from the effects of U238, the depleted uranium that has been used by the US has been seriously contaminated with radioactive wastes from nuclear reactors. This makes it much more radioactive than it would be if it were pure DU, and some of the trans-uranium contaminants also have a significant chemical toxicity as well.

Now, with regard to those alpha particles: they're flying helium nuclei. They're not very good at penetrating things. Like, oh, skin. Paper.

More misleading info, since the main danger is internal and our cell contents and DNA are not protected by a layer of paper. Up to 70% of a weapon's DU is converted to an aerosol of micron-sized particles after impact and conflagration. Dust particles lodge in the lungs (and exposed tissues such as the eyes or open cuts) and can be adsorbed and transported around the body by the bloodstream.

Doctors in Kosovo and Iraq have reported large increases in cancer and numbers of malformed babies following the USA's use of DU radiological weapons in its various wars. To quote from http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/iraq-m10 .shtml:

The rate of birth defects, after increasing ten-fold from 11 per 100,000 births in 1989 to 116 per 100,000 in 2001, is soaring further. Dr Nawar Ali, a medical researcher into birth deformities at Baghdad University, told the UN's Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) last month: "There have been 650 cases [birth deformities] in total since August 2003 reported in government hospitals. That is a 20 percent increase from the previous regime. Private hospitals were not included in the study, so the number could be higher."

The rise in birth defects is matched by a continuing increase in the incidence of childhood cancers. Six years ago, the College of Medicine at Basra University carried out a study into the rate of cancer among children under the age of 15 in southern Iraq from 1976 to 1999. It revealed a horrific change between 1990 and 1999. In the province of Basra, the incidence of cancer of all types rose by 242 percent, while the rate of leukaemia among children rose 100 percent. Children living in the area were falling ill with cancer at the rate of 10.1 per 100,000. In districts where the use of DU had been the most concentrated, the rate rose to 13.2 per 100,000.

too many misstatements, and too many numbers that just don't add up

Well, two if you include the WikiPedia article, which appears to have gotten most of the data from this page which I didn't include in my original post since it appears biased against nuclear power in general, as opposed to this page which appears biased in favour of CANDU reactors in particular (that page is where I found the detailed report I cited because it appeared to be both more factual and more balanced than the others.).

But there are more:
The reactor building was contaminated, as well as an area of the Chalk River site, and millions of gallons of radioactive water accumulated in the reactor basement.
when a nuclear reactor at an experimental installation in Chalk River, Canada, suffered a meltdown and some radioactive material escaped into the atmosphere.
"There was some release of radioactivity"

Regardless of our little game of Google, I think we can agree on that the release (either through the water only or through air and water) was minimal and all reports I have seen agree that among the servicemen and clean-up crew there has been no rise in fatality or even elevated risks for cancer after the accident.

Oh really no idea what I'm talking about eh? Its been known for over half a century that alpha radiation is dangerous. Get a fucking clue and stop posting misinformation and falsehoods as if they were true.

• Iodine gets absorbed into your thyroid (nasty), and if it's radioactive, then you're probably in a bad place
• Caesium exists naturally in sea water
• Strontium is chemically similar to Calcium, and thus ends up in your bones and will probably give you Leuikemia
• Xenon is a noble gas, so trace amounts of radioactive isotopes probably aren't harmful
• Barium is highly reactive, and most of it's isotopes have very short half-lifes. Don't know what the biological consequences are of Barium waste.

Yet, cellphone makers claim that such incidents are too rare to care about.

Some of you may be familiar with the Therac-25 incidents, but those were a perfect examples as to why "occational" mishaps cannot be ignored.

The Therac-25 was an inovative cancer treatment machine that shot electrons at the cancerous area. There were very few machines in the country, and they were quite buggy but over 20,000 treatments were successfully administered before any issues occured.

The machine would usually deliver approximatly 200 rads to a patient. However during an unpredictable malfunction it shot over 15,000 rads at the patient. The first women that had recieved such a large amount of radiation had a hole burned through her chest... It took 2 years, and multiple similar accidents resulting in death, for the machine to be taken out of use.

If we agree that this whole cell phone explosion issue can be disregarded, aren't we allowing for worse things to occur in the future?
If anyone wants to read more about the Therac-25, it can be found here: http://www.ccnr.org/fatal_dose.html

Just one class 9 meltdown .

Each plant operator is only required to carry $300 Million of private liability insurance per plant. In total the nuclear industry carries only 8.5 Billion dollars of insurance, enforced by a form a government socialism. (Post accident levy).

For an estimate of REAL damages [nirs.org].. take a look a Chernobyl catastrophe

"If accident damages exceed that amount, taxpayers will be asked to make up the difference. Compare that to the 1982 Sandia National Laboratories study (CRAC-2 [ccnr.org]), which projected economic damages of up to $300 Billion (in 1982 dollars) resulting from an accident at the Indian Point, NY reactor site. The 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe already has cost Russia, Ukraine and Belarus some $300 Billion, and the costs-from interdicted land, from radioactive waste disposal, from ongoing health effects-mount daily.";

Folks, that's $300 Billion in 1982 dollars!! Care to guess what that number is today?
I'll bet that it's in the Trillion dollar range.

"Moreover, no other hazardous industry has such a subsidized insurance scheme. "

For the time being, I suggest keeping our Nuclear power source a nice safe distance away, one AU is a good number, and embark on a distributed program to harness the energy it bestows to us all (wind, solar).

Just one class 9 meltdown .

Each plant operator is only required to carry $300 Million of private liability insurance per plant. In total the nuclear industry carries only 8.5 Billion dollars of insurance, enforced by a form a government socialism. (Post accident levy).

For an estimate of REAL damages [nirs.org].. take a look a Chernobyl catastrophe

"If accident damages exceed that amount, taxpayers will be asked to make up the difference. Compare that to the 1982 Sandia National Laboratories study (CRAC-2 [ccnr.org]), which projected economic damages of up to $300 Billion (in 1982 dollars) resulting from an accident at the Indian Point, NY reactor site. The 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe already has cost Russia, Ukraine and Belarus some $300 Billion, and the costs-from interdicted land, from radioactive waste disposal, from ongoing health effects-mount daily.";

Folks, that's $300 Billion in 1982 dollars!! Care to guess what that number is today?
I'll bet that it's in the Trillion dollar range.

"Moreover, no other hazardous industry has such a subsidized insurance scheme. "

For the time being, I suggest keeping our Nuclear power source a nice safe distance away, one AU is a good number, and embark on a distributed program to harness the energy it bestows to us all (wind, solar).

1) Nobody has ever successfully managed to create a weapon from reactor grade plutonium.

A completely specious and unproveable assertion. One, it's damn near impossible to prove a negative, and two: then how DID India get plutonium? The hard way by sitting there and carefully irradiating Uranium in a lab, or, did they simply pull the Plutonium generated in their experimental FTBR? Hmmmm? Also: the other countries that have Breeders already have nuclear weapons, except for Japan.

NEXT!

Commercial reactors (that don't get shutdown every month or two) create reactor grade, not weapons grade plutonium. This is useless for weapons.

Bullshit. Proof is HERE

NEXT!

2) Dirty bombs.

I didn't say ANYTHING about dirty bombs.
NEXT!

Basically, the truth is this. Breeders don't make anything of significant value as a weapon.

Patently false as the above link notes.

The claim that they do has been repeated so many times by the ignorant anti-nukes that everyone accepts it as reality now.

I don't see the DOE as a bunch of ignorant anti-nukes.

In any case, nobody proposes allowing Pakistan to build breeder reactors.

But therein lies the rub. EVERYONE uses energy, therefore any permanent energy slution needs to be universal. Everyone wants more energy, especially as people continue to breed like viruses. The energy has to come from somewhere.Carbon based energy sources are not good, and most alternative sources are inadequte to the task. Fission nukes come in two varieties, one of which (breeders) is politically inadvisible. The other fission system relies on a finite resource of Uranium. Permanent solutions require universality and permanence, and fission reactors provide neither.

Reactors constructed in the US pose zero proliferation risk, or weren't you aware that the US is already a nuclear power?

No such thing as zero proliferation. 150 years ago, Prussia was an important and powerful military state. Now, it's eastern Poland... the USA is just another country. We are not special, and eventually we too will crumble and disappear. If we crumble and disappear with thousands of tons of Plutonium sitting around, life could get messy.

Also, I am NOT anti-nuke - not by any stretch. Note: we need nuclear power, and will need it for some time to come. It's just that it's not a panacea. I see it as part of a temporary bridge to a more permanent solution, such as lunar He3 mining for fusion (power for 25,000 years at present consumption rates) and more localised and cleaner alternative system for local needs (wind, solar, geothermal, etc) and a reduction in population, which would drive down need for power.

Read the whole thing and think before you post.

RS

These other isotopes create some difficulties for design and fabrication of nuclear weapons.

* First and most important, plutonium-240 has a high rate of spontaneous fission, meaning that the plutonium in the device will continually produce many background neutrons, which have the potential to reduce weapon yield by starting the chain reaction prematurely.

* Second, the isotope plutonium-238 decays relatively rapidly, thereby significantly increasing the rate of heat generation in the material.

* Third, the isotope americium-241 (which results from the 14-year half-life decay of plutonium-241 and hence builds up in reactor-grade plutonium over time) emits highly penetrating gamma rays, increasing the radioactive exposure of any personnel handling the material.

Hyper-focus? I have no idea what you mean. I simply made note of apparent misunderstanding on your part and then used that to question the validity of your conclusion. Perhaps you're being a little hyper-sensative?

By the way, just to be clear. After much study and thought I have found that there is no perfectly safe, or even acceptably safe method of building nuclear power plants on earth.

I do agree designs are better. Are they perfect? Hardly. Every engineer will tell you there's no such thing as a perfect system. For example, the nuclear power industry tried quite hard from the get go to build "safe" reactors, Here is the result:

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/hitimeline/nwa/index.h tml
http://www.ieer.org/reports/accident.html
http://www.ccnr.org/CANDU_Safety.html
http://www.lbl.gov/nsd/education/ABC/wallchart/cha pters/15/7.html
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/cndscot/trisaf/ch4.ht m
http://www.clemson.edu/ep/radiat3.htm
http://www.sea-us.org.au/no2reactor/rr-oops.html

Once you've read through as many studies on operator error in control rooms as I have, then we can talk. In the interm, perhaps you should trust me when I say, it can't safely be done.

As well, the economics are not as good as you've been led to believe. See:

Nuclear Power is Uneconomical

Since its beginning, nuclear power has cost this country over $492,000,000,000 -- nearly twice the cost of the Viet Nam War and the Apollo Moon Missions combined. In return for this investment, we have an energy source that, until the mid-1980's, gave us less energy in this country than did the burning of firewood! In the U.S., nuclear power contributes only 20-22% of our electricity, and only 8-10% of our total energy consumption. In Illinois these percentages are much greater due to Commonwealth Edison's over-reliance on nuclear power.

Since 1950, nuclear power has received over $97,000,000,000 in direct and indirect subsidies from the federal government, such as deferred taxes, artificially low limits on liability in case of nuclear accidents, and fuel fabrication write-offs. No other industry has enjoyed such privilege.

According to a recent study conducted by the Citizens Utility Board, Commonwealth Edison's customers now pay the highest electric bills in the Midwest, due primarily to the over-reliance on nuclear power plants.

Many costs for nuclear power have been deliberately underestimated by government and industry such as the costs for the permanent disposal of nuclear wastes, the "decommissioning" (shutting-down and cleaning-up) of retired nuclear power plants, and nuclear accident consequences. In January, 1994, Commonwealth Edison acknowledged that it had to nearly double its estimate for reactor decommissioning -- from $2.3 billion to as much as $4.1 billion!
http://www.neis.org/literature/Brochures/npfacts.h tm

It would be nice it you got your facts straight... Most of your statements are outright lies !!

"The Price-Andersen Act simply allows the government to act as an insurance broker for nuclear power plants. The plants PAY for the insurance, and it only covers small accidents-- maximum liability for the government is something like $10 million. Furthermore, the act allows for private companies to step in to take over the insurance after a period of some years-- something that private companies have indeed done. (The PA Act has actually made taxpayers money, as plants have paid out more than they have received, just like any successful insurance company. So it doesn't count as subsidy at all.)"

Wow.. talk about deception.... Time for a dose of the truth and here.

"NRC's procedures for ensuring that licensees comply with Price-Anderson Act liability insurance provisions include requirements that licensees provide proof of primary and secondary insurance coverage. NRC requires each licensee to show proof that it has liability insurance that includes the $300 million of primary insurance coverage per site required by the Price Anderson Act. NRC and the licensee also sign an indemnity agreement that requires the licensee to maintain an insurance policy in this amount. This agreement is in effect as long as the owner is licensed to operate the plant."

Note: This is a per plant policy.

"in the event of a nuclear incident causing damages exceeding $300 million, would be collected from each nuclear power plant licensee at a rate of up to $10 million per year and up to a maximum of $95.8 million per incident for each nuclear power plant."

Or roughly 8.5 Billion dollars in total, enforced by a form a government socialism. (Post accident levy).

As for maximum liability.. it goes into the Tragedy of the commons category..
"The key to the tragedy of the commons is when individuals use a public good, they do not bear the entire cost of their several actions."

As for estimate of REAL damages.. take a look a Chernobyl catastrophe

"If accident damages exceed that amount, taxpayers will be asked to make up the difference. Compare that to the 1982 Sandia National Laboratories study (CRAC-2), which projected economic damages of up to $300 Billion (in 1982 dollars) resulting from an accident at the Indian Point, NY reactor site. The 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe already has cost Russia, Ukraine and Belarus some $300 Billion, and the costs-from interdicted land, from radioactive waste disposal, from ongoing health effects-mount daily."

"Moreover, no other hazardous industry has such a subsidized insurance scheme. "

Yes, the Feds and ultimately the Taxpayers are on the hook for unlimited liability, since no company has that type of resources to pay the real cost of a catastrophe, and someone will have to pay for the damages.

Furthermore.. "The Price Anderson Act directs DOE to fully indemnify its contractors for any and all public liability in connection with nuclear activities - even with accidents resulting from a contractor's bad faith, reckless behavior, gross negligence, or willful misconduct."

From the Business Week article, it looks like they're making stronger vessels to hold the liquids at very high pressures:
"Since ordinary sonoluminescence delivers so much energy at pressures of only one or two atmospheres," he says, "you could hope that at 1,000 atmospheres, you'd be in fusion territory -- if the temperature also scaled up. But that's a really big 'if."'

I'm also surprised that this isn't on the main page of Slashdot. When reading the previous article on the discovery, there was a lot of "let's wait for confirmation" messages. Now we have it and it seems an appropriate time to get excited.

The coolest part about all of this is that it's relatively cheap, with the possibility of inexpensive and clean energy. The scary aspect that I haven't seen mentioned is that it could be an good source of neutrons used to enrich uranium and make weapons-grade material.

Assuming the plant detonates. This kind of reactor doesn't. Although a water cooled one of this type would be better (shutting off the cooling shuts off the reactor in this type).

"Just like I can tolerate only a certain amount of stupidity."

I wouldn't make comments like that if I were you.

"Plutonium, did you know that Marie Curie died in agony of multiple debilitating cancers"

Try reading sometime.

"How are you even able to post on Slashdot?"

Sure, he was wrong, but that question applies even more to you. You accused him of inaccuracy and didn't even fact-check... Are you implying that Nagasaki wasn't bombed by plutonium or that the thousands of deaths from a power plant melting downis more than the amount of deaths caused by a nuke?

"You can't "shut down" the process of radioactive decay"

No, but you can shut down what powers a nuclear plant, the chain reaction.

"It's all the peacenik's fault that we have nuclear waste"

Your reading comprehension sucks. Try reading what he says. Let me rephrase to make it easier on you. "If we recycle the waste, less of it will be in dumps, and the anti-nuke people make this impossible, even though it can be safe." And before you get stupid on me again, note that not all of it would be safe, etc. But some, if not most, of that can be recycled, but that option is blocked by paranoia.

"What does this have to do with a lot of outrageous misinformation regarding radioactivity and nuclear waste?"

He was explaining and giving examples of why he would be considered 'green'. This is called an informal version of 'establishing credentials". He has. You haven't. I have... at the least, I've shown I know how to use google, which you have failed to do.

"You've got a long way to go yourself, pal"

Pot, stop talking to the kettle, you're giving me a headache.

"What the hell does this have to do with nuclear waste?"

I don't know, sewage vs. nuke waste, seems a fairly decent analogy to me. Maybe I'm just smarter than you.

Board certified engineers who wish to put their name on a project are required by law to carry (in most cases quite expensive) liability insurrency. I'm currently a CE major getting ready to graduate. If there was a test I could take to earn a stamp that I could use to affix my name to a project, I'd be all for it. Yes, the insurrence would be a pain, but by having a person personally responsible for a project just seems to lend that much more credibility. Impropperly designed HVAC can lead to deaths as discussed in the article just as a collapsing bridge or improperly designed roadway can; so what about computer engineers? Poorly designed hardware/software has lead to deaths as well. I would feel better if computer engineers are certified just like the MechEs and CivilEs.

I'd take the CCNR stuff with a grain of salt; they are an advocacy organization. Going through their main web page, I find a lot of stuff which practically screams "NO NUKES!", such as opposition to any site selection for disposal of nuclear waste.

Thanks, that's interesting. Of course, it conflicts with a lot of what I've read, but a lot of what I've read conflicts, too. :)

My understanding from many sources is that a breeder can produce material of 20-30% Pu. Yes, it "can breed more fissionable fuel than it burns" but that new fuel is (as I understand it) exactly the Pu-239 we fear. All Pu comes from reactors, anyway, it's just a question of technique, esp. removing the material after a brief bombardment by appropriate-speed neutrons.

Bombarded Pu-rich reactor fuel is not the only problem, there's also the fuel-grade Pu after reprocessing. I've seen a couple of accounts of fuel-grade Pu bombs detonated, and I assume if one had the facilities to purify the fuel it would be even easier.

There are serious technical hurdles to engineering the actual bomb, but here we want to deny them even the fuel. Plenty of countries have surmounted the techincal end, anyway, such as Pakistan. Even a sloppy detonation would be bad enough. BTW, I'm not thinking about terrorists, unless they somehow stole a complete weapon. They'd take the surer low-tech path of a dirty bomb or flying a plane into a building, etc. Terrorists with nukes are a Hollywood thing for now.

On policy, here is a rather different account of why we don't reprocess -- economics. According to this account, Reagan vacated the Carter order in 1981. Truth?

India pretty much stole its nuclear tech from Canada.. they managed to trick our Atomic Energy Commission to supply them with reactors and their designs in the 60s and 70s, and then surprise surprise! they blew up a bomb in 1974. I quote "India explodes its first atomic bomb using weapons-grade plutonium produced in the Canadian-supplied CIRUS reactor. The explosion takes place at the Pokhran site in the Rajasthan desert near the border with Pakistan." The full link is here And their rocket and aircraft programs are based on Russian tech. What exactly is there to be proud of here?

You can also read about Project Orion in John McPhee's book The Curve of Binding Energy . This book is mostly a long conversation between McPhee and Ted Taylor, (more) a physicist and ex- nuclear weopons engineer. In the early 70's Taylor becomes worried about how easy it is to build a fission bomb. Taylor and McPhee drive around and survey the security of nuclear materials while Taylor talks bomb theory and practice. The title comes from the curve on this page.