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Portable Nuclear Battery in the Development Stages
Xight writes "The Santa Fe Reporter has up an article about a portable nuclear reactor, about the size of a hot tub. Despite it's 'small' size the company that is planning to develop the product (Hyperion Power Generation), claims it could power up to 25,000 homes. 'Though it would produce 27 megawatts worth of thermal energy, Hyperion doesn't like to think of its product as a reactor. It's self-contained, involves no moving parts and, therefore, doesn't require a human operator. "In fact, we prefer to call it a 'drive' or a 'battery' or a 'module' in that it's so safe," Hyperion spokeswoman Deborah Blackwell says. "Like you don't open a double-A battery, you just plug [the reactor] in and it does its chemical thing inside of it. You don't ever open it or mess with it."' If all goes according to plan, Hyperion could have a factory in New Mexico by late 2012, and begin producing 4,000 of these
reactors."
I have some clients from the Middle East with a suitable truck. Where can I purchase this thing?
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Dr. Venture already did this. And his was attached to a force field.
ACME?
Enjoy your visit from Homeland Security dude.
How we know is more important than what we know.
... You aren't supposed to open double A batteies?
(on the other hand though, the quadruple-A's found inside 9 volts make good subsitutes if you don't have a double or triple A handy.)(do need a conductor to fill the space though)
Maybe a large construction firm with strong Republican, and institutional connections like say the Bin Laden Group?
Though it would produce 27 megawatts worth of thermal energy, Hyperion doesn't like to think of its product as a "reactor."
"In fact, we prefer to call it a 'drive' or a 'battery' or a 'module' in that it's so safe," Hyperion spokeswoman Deborah Blackwell says.
Uh, yeah, except it is a reactor. If they want to emphasize how safe it is, that's great, but renaming products to get rid of words people don't like is just dumb. "Digital Consumer Enablement," anyone?
"This whole idea is loony and not worthy of too much attention," Los Alamos Study Group Executive Director Greg Mello says. "Of course, factoring in enough cronyism, corruption and official ignorance and boosterism, it's possible the principals could make some money during the initial stages, before the crows come home to roost."
Great. Don't even consider the actual design of the thing. Not a word about what, if any problems, it might create -- just dismiss it as "loony" and chalk up anything good anyone says about it to cronyism and corruption.
Does anyone have any information about the Hyperion reactor that isn't either corporate PR or wacko fearmongering? Because it sounds interesting, and I'd like to learn more about it, but not from either of these folks, thanks.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
.cx
We've come to a low point in the world if that's really under HS's jurisdiction.
Let's just hope he doesn't get tased!
"Like you don't open a double-A battery, you just plug [the reactor] in and it does its chemical thing inside of it. You don't ever open it or mess with it."
Uh huh... Nuclear reactions are not chemical in nature... spokesperson without a clue.
But on a side note, am I the only one who thought of Asimov's Foundation series, when the Foundationers had nuclear reactors the size of walnuts???
Seriously, though I remember something similar made in Japan that would power a remote city in Alaska for 30 years without pollution.
Yay! Go Nukular!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
it does its chemical thing
I didn't think that radioactive decay was classed as "chemical."
Let's hope this spokewoman is PR and not Engineering.
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
Stargate Command has been using these things for the better part of a decade!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naqahdah_generator
Actually I think it's pretty interesting, and forward thinking - what about having something like this to power always-on equipment? Eg data centres etc in major tech hubs?
The first thing I thought of though was straight out of Stephen King's Dark Tower series (which I'm reading atm) - atomic slugs powering random pieces of equipment all over the place... North Central Positronics anyone?
(And yeah, terrorism and those issues really suck ass, I hate that ideas like this are inherently a security risk not by design but by ASSHOLES).
Anyone else find this quote troubling: "Like you don't open a double-A battery, you just plug [the reactor] in and it does its chemical thing inside of it. You don't ever open it or mess with it."'
A chemical reaction is not a nuclear reaction. I think that any company that doesn't understand this difference shouldn't really be in the business of making portable nuclear reactors.
I'm sure people here will have any number of criticisms to the idea of a portable nuclear reactor, but it's actually a very old concept. The arctic early-warning radar systems back in the cold war days had truck-sized nuclear reactors developed for them.
The sentence "it would produce 27 megawatts worth of thermal energy" doesn't parse. Does it produce 27 megawatts for 1 ns? It seems most people are good at making distinctions between speed and distance. Why is power vs. energy so hard?
Jeez, what an obvious fake. This is yet another one of those pie-in-the-sky flying car type projects. Some guy just has an idea and he's trolling for investors with more money than brains. No idea why Slashdot helps these types.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I hope they keep tabs on who buys these things. And the summary is so full of radioactive nonsense that it makes you wonder if this is on the level. Radio-isotope generators are nothing new. Voyager was powered by one, iirc. But what with the potential for high level mischief using the component parts in there let's hope that they don't hit 'mainstream' any time soon.
http://rndpic.com/
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Why don't they make one that's much smaller and could power a single home, then sell them to homeowners. I'd love to live off the grid and have my power not dependent on a system of under-maintained wires.
If you can get 25,000 homes off a hot-tub sized unit, how about one the size of my electric meter box for one family? Remove electric meter, hook up reactor "battery" where it was. Easy and uncomplicated installation.
you clicked a .cx link? that's just asking for it.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
So the hot-tub sized device cranks out many MW of thermal power. How big is the turbine/generator set that makes this into electricity? Not much point in just half a system.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I'm pretty sure the person editing this made a big cockup when they changed "Like you don't open a double-A battery, you just plug it in and it does its chemical thing inside of it. You don't ever open it or mess with it." The "it" obviously refers to the Double-A battery, and whoever edited the copy got it wrong.
27 MW of power and not dependent on any external cooling system???
This seems to be the perfect (and cool) vulcano generator as it most likely would turn its immidiate surroundings into molten rock if not cooled by external means.
Break the sound barrier - bring the noise.
I call "Fear mongering crap."
It is exactly this attitude that has Americans cowering in their homes while their country is being raped from inside.
Why exactly should "we" hope that these are not mainstream? Becuase "we" fear that there are all those "evil" people out there (somehwere?) to get us and try and kill us? That attitude is fabricated crap, generated from the kind of attitude present in text like this. What exactly do you mean by "high level mischief"? Please explain. Are YOU implying some specific person would/will take out the radioactive material and use it to harm people? That's a catchy implication, but not real. Who? Show me all these boogymen. Show me there are hoardes of people out there sharpening their knives to destroy civilized society. It's a bullshit lie. To me, flippant fear mongering like that is most of the problem here, not some boogyman called from thin air to support the fear-based attitude you're spreading.
here in germany politicians don't get tired to tell us the story about the dangers of dirty bombs. I'm pretty sure american politicians don't get tired either.
Could these very same politicians please tell me why on earth we should agree to distribute 4000 of these modules all over the country?
Portable nuclear batteries? Rad!!! Oh, wait...
Wierd. First, it's not a "nuclear battery". Those have been around since the 1950s, and they typically have quite modest power output, from a few watts to a few hundred watts. They're just some radioactive material decaying at its normal rate; they don't use a chain reaction. If this thing is supposed to produce 27MW, it has to be a real nuclear reactor.
And it is. Here's the patent application, out of Los Alamos National Laboratory. The basic idea is this: "This present invention achieves control by utilizing the properties of a fissile metal hydride as a self-contained nuclear fuel and neutron energy moderator. If the physical size, fissile metal content and enrichment are appropriately selected, the metal will absorb ambient hydrogen, which moderates the neutron energies so that nuclear fission criticality is achieved. The temperature will then be increased by the fission reactions until the dissociation pressure of the hydrogen for that temperature is greater than the ambient pressure of the hydrogen, at which point the hydrogen dissociates from the hydride and the source becomes sub-critical." So that's the way it self-regulates. It's supposed to operate at a constant temperature; if you remove heat with a working fluid, it produces more heat; if you don't, it stabilizes at its normal operating temperature. It's a uranium reactor, using 5% enriched uranium. Runs at 350C to 800C. Uses heat pipes to get the heat out to a working fluid, probably water, used to make steam and drive a turbine.
It's not clear if this is a workable design. There's no prototype. But it's at least plausible. It's not a totally new idea; the TRIGA reactors are self-regulating in a somewhat similar fashion.
The "Los Alamos Study Group" that made critical comments has nothing to do with Los Alamos National Laboratories. Their director "worked as a transportation planner, natural foods manufacturing entrepreneur, high school teacher, hazardous waste investigator, and contaminant hydrologist."
Amen, brotha!
There is literally a 1 page website setup for the company at HyperionPowerGeneration.com.
"Invented at Los Alamos: Patent Pending".
Uh huh. I'm totally looking forward to placing my order.
BTW: I see no mention of hot-tub sizes on the website... though, I didn't read too carefully. They claim to be about 30% cheaper than current liquid moderated reactors.
Strangelove: I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. It would be quite easy...heh, heh...(He rolls his wheelchair forward into the light) at the bottom of ah...some of our deeper mineshafts. Radioactivity would never penetrate a mine some thousands of feet deep, and in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in drilling space could easily be provided.
President: How long would you have to stay down there?
Strangelove:
President: Well, I, I would hate to have to decide...who stays up and...who goes down.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
What could possibly go wrong?
Damn thing had a pink bunny beating a bass drum on the side!!!???
It's nothing more than a nuclear pile. Where's the invention? Inject water around mass of uranium, produces steam=power. It's a neighborhood uranium based nuke plant. The concept has been around in one form or another for decades just no one was stupid enough to build a bunch of them and scatter them across the country. It's hard enough to keep track of nuclear material as it is.
So now you do not have to smuggle a nuclear bomb in a vending machine. Instead, just detonate a small conventional explosive next to this bath tub and you will probably render all 27000 homes powered by this thing unlivable. You can even set a second charge to fashion a kind of thermobaric bomb that detonates hydrogen from the reactor to ensure proper dispersal of radioactive waste.
Ah, the good 'ol tactic of plugging 9-11 whenever someone says "show me this enemy."
i give you all of my hypothetical mod points
How is this thing going to dissipate its waste heat?
Put it in a bathtub?
paintball
There were nice plans of a pretty safe reactor: a core that is too subcritical to sustain the reaction by itself, plus a mirror shield lowered around it, reflecting neutrons back into the core, increasing their density to sustain the reaction. How deep the shield is lowered decides upon how much power is drawn, raising it stops the reaction, and if raising mechanism was to fail for any reason, the first thing to melt would be said shield (made from material of melting temperature much lower than the core), stopping the reaction by ceasing to reflect neutrons back into the core.
In case of this thing, if the turbine stops, if the coolant circuit goes empty for any reason, I can't see how this could be stopped if it starts melting.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Let me try to make it simple for you: the prospect of a dirty bomb going off in some major city does not look good to me. If I can think of it so can any asshole with the funds and the determination to pull it off. And one of the assholes will get lucky. There are several thousand people dead already who would disagree with your 'fear mongering crap' observation. I'm the last to get panicked, I just think that radioactivity is not meant for 'mass distribution'. There are plenty of better ways to make electricity that do not involve half lives in the decades. And to be hit over the head with a solar panel is probably lethal as well but I think that the chances of any 'badass' taking that route are quite limited.
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For me, the sad thing about alternative energy is the way that all the technologies compete instead of cooperating. Different parts of the world demand different approaches and different mixes. For instance, as a thermal generator this reactor could usefully complement thermal solar arrays, so that (simplifying) the array heats the fluid in the day and the reactor heats it at night. A conventional nuclear reactor would not work like that because it has to be too big, i.e. it is out of scale compared to the solar source. If the waste heat could be used for area heating, it would work well in far Northern latitudes where heating demand is greater than power demand.
I can't help but think that this is one case where serious joined up thinking is required. If the US Government can spend 0.6% of the Federal budget on NASA, which is speculative research, isn't it worth spending 0.6% on safe alternative nuclear reactors rather than driving up the price of corn? Rather than try and substitute oil with uneconomic ethanol, why not try to substitute oil used for heating with heat from nuclear sources? The effect would be the same. A policy that oil should only be used for transportation, and that vehicle efficiency should be progressively increased, would reduce dependence on the Middle East just as quickly, or quicker, than pork barrel farm ethanol projects, and would have more long term sustainability.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I highly doubt they are going to sell these to power "25,000" homes. It's more likely they will be purchased by city governments, military, or large corporations that require continuous power. Just imagine if instead of having to install a massive diesel generator you could just have your critical systems powered continuously from this nuclear device and still have the grid power available if you need it.
Ahh, the ubiquitous 9/11 homage. Within MINUTES! A bit off topic, but OK...
Specific to your point, who did paid them? Really. Go find out. Please, post it here - becuase to date, no one has tracked it down, at least that I have found. The non money trail is a big gaping hole in the investigation that didn't happen.
More to the point, who gives a shit? Let's put things into perspective:
2.4 Million people die in the US every year.
120K die in accidents
600K die of heart disease
10 times as many people die, every single year from Septicemia. Ever hear of it?
Let's not even start with numbers of civilian deaths at the hands of US troops abroad, before and after 9/11.
Fasts:
There are crazy people.
Carzy people will kill other people.
You can't stop the crazy people without becoming a totalitarian police state and taking away freedoms from everyone.
9/11 was a big deal, mostly becuase it was blown way way out of proportion. It was like 20 people. Hardly a hoarde. Hardly even a blip in the mortality of the US. It was the media and opportunistic politicians that made 9/11.
What those people did on 9/11 is exactly why fear mongering about nuclear material is so ridiculous. They did a low-tech thing, designed as a symbol, and over the next 6 years US citizens did all the rest. The vast majority of the damage caused to the US after 9/11 and because of the "9/11 mentality" happened because of Americans who were susceptible to fear and control - NOT from those people who flew the planes.
You ought to go actually read the military commisions act. See what the US has come to.
Then think hard about infant mortality in the US and compare what happens with dying infants each year to the 9/11 attack.
Ok, so these first, well designed from top notch materials, ones are fairly safe.
:P
What happens when companies start mass-producing these, ala lithium ion and lithium polymer batteries. How much more dense is the stored power in these if something cheap breaks and decides to let it out...
So, can I take one on a plane?
...
Do you put your PC in a bathtub to dissipate its waste heat? Given the lack of technical information in both the article and the Hyperion site, I'm just speculating, but with the small size of the reactor it may be feasible to dissipate the heat through the air. The image in the article shows what looks to be a heat sink (finned material) between the inner core and the outer casing. Perhaps that filled with mineral oil or antifreeze would be enough to spread the sufficiently heat to the outer stainless steel casing for dispersal through the air?
This sounds like a terribly inefficient and wasteful use of nuclear fuel; there are far more efficient nuclear reactors.
This is just in; Outahere, a small suburb between Middle and Nowhere, have mysteriously vanished from the face of the Earth...
Please don't patronize, it's unattractive.
You wrote: If I can think of it so can any asshole with the funds and the determination to pull it off. And one of the assholes will get lucky.
This is the core fallacy of fear mongering: Taking a rare or non-existent threat and treating it as credible. It turns out there are thousands of really cheap ways for small groups to cripple modern society. Criminals are really good at coming up with them, and so are think tanks the government pays to research such things. Guess what: there is no way to prevent them! But - amazingly, none of these scenarios are happening. There is a lot more to it than "I can think of it so it must be scary."
I believe radioactivity is a great way to generate electricity. The French figured this out long ago, and have the safest and cleanest energy on the planet. If engineered and maintained well, nuclear plants are safer and more environmentally friendly than any other mass power generation system.
It seems to me there are enormous, global industries working on "better ways to make electricity" that you refer to - so please enlighten us all, what are these ways you refer to? How should human society safely and efficiently produce power for all 6 Billion of us?
Perhaps, the US might start working on ways to have fewer (asshole) people in the world angry at them and wanting to blow up their cities with dirty bombs? That might be a good place to start.
what happens after 5 years of operation in a neighborhood, or otherwise, environment? declining available power aside, did they reserve a table at yucca? perhaps an offshore recycling program in the works, secondary markets and whatnot?
i like the idea of available power, but this seems a shortsighted scheme.
Huh? You asked who would want to blow up these reactors. Al Qaeda would. You don't think the membership of Al Qaeda constitutes a horde??? Why does it matter how many of them were needed for 9/11?
What exactly do you think mortality has to do with anything? Everybody dies. Not everybody is murdered. Murder is a big deal under any sane moral or legal system. Death is neutral.
And what the hell is wrong with the Military Commissions Act? It's the codification of the same Law of War that has been used by every common law nation in the last 500 years!
quick, better rip out all your smoke alarms least the terrorists get them!
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
One would have assumed that people from the nation with the biggest arsenal of nukes, would have a clue. Guess not.
What makes you think any government(USA or otherwise) would *ever* allow any significant quantities of radioactive material to be sold to just any random civilian individuals??? Are you really that retarded?
First of all, the massive oil cartel that owns the USA government(and George Bush's soul), ensures that any nuclear energy alternative gets associated with things going ka-boom without rhyme or reason.
Which is silly when you consider, that for a Chernobyl, you also have a Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster, proving that accidents are possible in any scenario if proper care is not taken. And funnily enough, the protest groups to the glee(or perhaps with sponsorship of) oil cartels, have no problems with nukes being stored in locations close by(because if they protest *that*, they will be hauled off as traitors and shipped off to Guantanamo) but if the same material is used to *help* people and provide a cheap alternative to oil, that is a big no-no.
This product, *if* it is safe enough and actually works as advertised, could have been sold to cities or even to governments(and not truck ramming terrorists) providing cheap energy alternative, but it is safe to bet that even so, the oil cartel would ensure by lobbying and controlling media, that it is never accepted by the public.
"Who? Show me all these boogymen. Show me there are hoardes of people out there sharpening their knives to destroy civilized society. It's a bullshit lie."
"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2767252.ece
Books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain's leading mosques, according to research seen by The Times.
One book, Fatawa Islamiyah, which urges the execution of apostates, was found in bookshops at Regent's Park mosque and at the huge East London mosque in Whitechapel.
The researchers found hardline material at a quarter of the 100 mosques visited during the project.
"
Of course, I have no illusion that this will in any way change your opinion. The racist and fearmongering Times conjurs illusions to scare people and spread hatred.
> I believe radioactivity is a great way to generate electricity.
And I don't. It's as simple as that. Spreading out radioactive materials all over the globe in an attempt to generate power when power is available in much less dangerous forms to me seems like a stupid thing to do. The sun puts about 1KW / square metre on the ground at full illumination, wind power is available in vast quantities. And yes, there are literally 100's of thousands of people involved in industries today to make power generated by these renewable sources cheaper, more reliable and more plentiful.
The French have a lot of nuclear power, that is true. They also have a pretty serious nuclear waste problem.
To take any objection against nuclear power as 'fear mongering' is a cheap way of stifling debate. If my neighbour had a baby nuclear generator in his basement I'd move. No matter how 'safe' it was said to be. Nuclear power is not 'safe' by any stretch of the (my?) imagination. Anything that needs a containment vessel with lots of shielding is not safe, period. And that's a different kind of 'not safe' than say an LPG tank. Sure, the LPG tank can go *boom* just the same, but after it does that the remainder is inert, not much more dangerous than the original tank.
Terrorism is mostly a media affair, it's a love triangle between the media, the terrorists and the politicians. Fear mongering is to artificially exaggerate the risks associated with a certain technology, and as far as I'm concerned there are serious risks associated with nuclear technology. Spreading it far and wide will give at least one of the three parties in the above mentioned triangle a hard to resist temptation. That is not a very good thing either.
One the one hand you have fear mongering, the Ostriches (sp?) are on the other end of the spectrum. To completely deny the risks of nuclear tech is not a realistic point of view, neither is a total panic about it. Somewhere in the middle lies realism, if a technology has inherent dangers or risks associated with it then you try to control it as much as you can to minimize those risks & dangers.
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Al Qaeda? Show me Al Qaeda. Not the US-Government spun version - but actually who they are.
Yes, I do not think Al Quaeda constitutes a horde. I'm willing to be proven wrong by independently verifiable facts.
To get into the question of murder, one has to dig deeply in international policy and the Geneva Convention - which are not very sane or moral. The Geneva Convention says that if you're a big country, you can divide your people up into fighting and non-fighting groups - and when the fighting groups kill people, it's not murder. That system only works for the big countries, and the smaller groups don't buy it. Death is death, killing is killing.
If you want to go down the line of "morality" and talk about who has killed whom, the US loses that argument quickly. Do you think what the US has done in Iraq is sane?
The military commissions act makes it possible for the US government to designate ANY PERSON an enemy combatant for terrorists acts or (more importantly) aiding or interacting with any other person who acts against the interests of the US. SIC. Once designated, that person basically loses their rights, and enters a kangaroo court system that can include secret evidence, prosecutors talking privately with the judge, sealed testimony from anonymous accusers, etc etc etc. A big black fuck-you box.
As I said, you have to go read it, carefully.
"Total annihilation of earth"
It keeps glowing and glowing and glowing and glowing...
KeS
Solar and wind power are fine to augment an exisiting energy policy but half the time it's dark and the wind is unpredictable and can drop to a small breeze incapable of powering the turbine. In particular global warming could well effect the world wind patterns to the extent that wind farms are no longer in windy areas and more or less useless.
The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
It sounds to me as though you have an irrational fear of nuclear power which is a shame because we're going to be seeing it utilised a lot more often now that governments are realising there simply is no other alternative.
Neither are portable reactors. In fact I find it hard to believe that an isotope generator can deliver 20MW+. No way. It will have to be fuelled with something so short lived and nasty that there is no way in hell it can be contained in a "bathtub" size unit. In fact modern tech will not be able to manufacture its guts.
As far as portable reactors are concerned there are some on the market.
Russians are in the process of productising the reactor which is currently fitted to Arktika class icebreakers into a mobile powerplant. You just float it into a suitable bay anywhere and run cables to the ground. Bingo - a 340 MW at your disposal. They even have pending options (not firm orders AFAIK) from various small island states in the Pacific. By the way - if I have to chose between a reactor on land and this, the mini-ship definitely sounds like a better option. It is cheaper, better and easier to dispose of the waste.
They Russians also had a the portable nuclear reactor proof-of-concept as far back as 1980-es. The thing was mounted on an "octopus" truck like those used for ICBM launch. The details are still classified so I have no idea what they used. The pictures I have seen said that it used a fast neutron reactor which is something I find hard to believe in. None the less, the system existed and AFAIK several prototypes were manufactured.
Nothing new here, move along.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
0. You need to go learn a lot more about physics, radioactivity, power generation, the biological effects of radiation, logic, risk assessment, and terrorism before continuing to make assertions that are based on false assumptions.
Here are a few corrections to your thinking:
1 - It is not possible, even with super efficient technology solutions, to generate power density level high enough for industrial purposes from solar or wind power. Making cars and cranes from solar panels simply will not work. Cf. statement 0.
2 - Your imagination regarding the safety of nuclear power and the rational conclusions about the safety of such systems based on the historical record and the facts are not congruous.
3 - The rational process of assessing risk and making choices about how to safely run a society is not a democratic process, and it should depend in no way on assuaging the fears of individuals, or the assertions from the lay public.
You should write a book. Seriously. That's exactly what's wrong with post-9/11 America.
You're assuming that I have smoke alarms, which I don't, but I get your point. :)
Lots of stuff is radio active, but the amount of radioactive material in a smoke alarm is fairly small compared to the amount that would go in to a thermal radio-isotope generator in the 10's of megawatt range. (or even one that would only do a couple of kilowatts). Which makes me wonder if you would put in an order for several 10's of thousands of smoke alarms if that would trigger a red flag somewhere
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..or trains. Since sometimes they crash and spill the contents all over the place.
Camping on quad since 1996.
> 0. You need to go learn a lot more about physics, radioactivity, power generation, the biological effects of radiation, logic, risk assessment, and terrorism before continuing to make assertions that are based on false assumptions.
please don't patronize, it's unattractive.
ad. 1, I disagree, so does the German government, at present there is > 20,000 MW of installed
wind power in Germany and the plans are to increase that substantially in the near future.
ad. 2, my personal view on these matters are not very relevant, but the facts that you state exist but do not support in any way are that nuclear radiation is not safe. If you disagree with that then I suggest you sleep with a large block of uranium under your pillow for a couple of months to prove me wrong. All the shielding and safety precautions in nuclear installations is of course just window dressing to keep the 'uninformed' like myself happy.
ad. 3, I see, you know better. Tell you what, I am not too impressed with democracy either but for now it seems to be the best we've got. To say that if people disagree with you they should lose their voice shows that you are not willing to have it any way but your way.
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While you are correct that terrorist threats are over stated there are other good reasons for hoping that these batteries are not widely used, looking at past events can show why. The use of radioisotopes to power thermoelectric generators is not a new idea. During the 1960s to the 1980s the former Soviet union used Radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG) to power lighthouses and other remote equipment along the Russian northern coastline. These worked well for the most part during their service life, however the Soviet union collapsed and most of the RTG's in place were forgotten. Since then these devices have posed a considerable pollution risk to the environment as their casings degrade over time. They have also been associated with several deaths as people unaware of the dangers they contain have come into contact with them in remote areas. Many old RTG's are still in the environment today long past their design life. The Environmental Foundation Bellona has an informative article about old Soviet RTG's.
It will be interesting to see if future American companies and governments are as keen to clean up old RTG's from the environment as the current Russian government are today. I think that apathy is by far the greater danger than the terrorist.
Solar power and wind power combined with a viable short term storage medium (superconducting coils or something to that effect) would work just fine, you'd need a substantial amount of overcapacity though.
The only reason there is no alternative for fossil fuels is because we've wasted the better part of 30 years to create a viable and non-polluting alternative. If all the money that has gone in to the 'oil wars' (and those that are probably still to come) had been invested into r&d then I'm pretty sure we'd have had a real long term solution by now.
Pellet reactors are a new development, and if they're as safe as they are purported to be (which only time will tell, 'normal' nuclear reactors were supposed to be safe as well when they were first introduced) then they have my vote as a short term solution. Small scale, city sized thermal nuclear reactors definitely do *not* have my vote, and there is nothing irrational about that, it simply seems to me to be asking for trouble.
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10 times as many people die, every single year from Septicemia. Ever hear of it?
Nitpick: I think septicemia is a bad example. I'm no doctor, but I have worked with them and iirc septicemia is the technical term for 'got fucked up real bad by some kind of infection'. It's a triumph of modern medicine that so few people die from it. I think you were looking for an example of a rarely heard of illness, but using the technical name for 'an infection' is as misleading as talking about how few people know about fatal hypothermia compared to those who know about 'freezing to death'.
.evom ton seod gis eht
Localized power generation is definitely the way to go for power generation - along with things like portable pebble bed reactors for higher capacity installations.
No need for big power grids, along with all the inefficiencies and expense they entail.
Only one problem: It has the word "nuclear" in its name so it'll never be accepted by the ignorant hippies, the cold-war-contitioned public or the politicians. Even though coal power is much worse on all levels (but the hippies can hold a lump of coal and feel how natural it is...)
It could be used in places like India or China to prevent them from destroying the planet via fossil fuels. I for one sincerely hope it is. China is already messing about with pebble bed reactors, this is the next logical step for them to reduce their dependence on oil.
No sig today...
You said: "I can't see how this could be stopped if it starts melting."
... stopping the reaction"
But earlier you said: "the first thing to melt would be said shield
No sig today...
Meanwhile.... Germany is still the 3rd dirtiest country in Europe according to gCO2/kWh(el).
"Atomausstieg" and Windpower are just lame excuses for the 4 big concerns to keep burning cheap coal all around the place, and for a looooonnnnggg time.
Real "Öko-guys" should be fighting a bit more for a better energy mix, which would imply keeping some of nukes up and running.
> Al Qaeda? Show me Al Qaeda. Not the US-Government spun version - but actually who they are.
At present, Al Qaeda is whoever says they're associated with Al Qaeda. I know that sounds like a cop-out but these guys don't exactly keep a public membership roster. It is estimated that world wide at least serveral tens of thousands of people subscribe to the basic tenets of this 'organization', which are that they need to try to take this world back to where we were centuries ago, and failing that to kill as many people as they can get away with. It's hard to try to get into the mind-set of a person that can subscribe to this, but there are enough gullible idiots in this world that we have a real problem here. The label Al Qaeda is as much a media invention as anything else, it exists because we like to label things for convenience, otherwise you have nothing to talk about. Again, there are only facts, no fear mongering or sticking your head in the sand is going to change those facts. The dis-enfranchised muslim youths in western europe are prime target for recruitment into these loose aggregations of dissatisfied people. They are unhappy with the prospects that life is offering them and these organizations give them a way to vent their anger.
For the record, I'm Dutch, and have lived all over the world, I've seen up close what religious hatred can make people do and I'm seriously impressed with the kind of idiocy people are prepared to subscribe to in the name of their religion. And that - again for the record - includes all religions.
What the US is doing in Iraq is despicable, I have no other words for it. It is a false flag operation so large and so totally ruthlessly sold to the public that it makes me wonder about what we are going to have to do to ever get the world back on an even footing after this. America has lost each and every bit of goodwill that it had in the rest of the world because of it (except maybe in Poland). Time will tell if there is a way out of the hole that has been dug there but from where I'm sitting I can't see it ending in on a positive note.
The fact that the US can now designate anybody a US enemy combatant and that habeas corpus is effectively disbanded is a very scary development, it is a harbinger of the world to come and it is something that the American public should react against until the issue gets solved.
However, given the fact that the superbowl, britney's latest album and reality tv are more on the radar than what is happening to the foundations of society almost guarantee that not enough people are going to wake up to do something about it until it is way too late.
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What is MOST CONCERNING: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_hydride_bomb
.... even heat exchangers can do eventually leak...
"Even with these apparent problems, the great physicist Edward Teller pursued the work and detonated two of these bombs, giving off only a power of 200 tons of TNT. This was a great disappointment and discouraged further work."
(Suppose any terrorist group would be content with 200 tons of (radioactive) explosive potential and they would likely engage into research of this bomb type.
NOTE: The 1995 Oklahoma City, OK Federal Building bombing was caused by roughly 2.5 tons of explosives.)
The link FTA and two quoted paragraphs: http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
"Safer and Self Contained
Often referred to as a "cartridge" reactor or "nuclear battery," the Hyperion hydride reactor is self- regulating with no moving parts to break down or corrode. The inherent properties of uranium hydride serve as both fuel and moderator providing unparalleled safety among nuclear reactors.
Sealed at the factory, the module is not opened until it is time for the unit to be "refueled," approximately every five years or so by the manufacturer. This containment, along with the strategy of completely burying the module at the operating site, protects against the possibility of human incompetence, or hostile tampering and proliferation...
Hyperion is Cleaner
Because of the inherent properties of uranium hydride, Hyperion is "cleaner," producing only a tiny fraction of the waste produced by other types of reactors. Water is not used in the process, so there is no danger of pollution to local water bodies. And certainly, operation of the Hyperion reactor does not produce any greenhouse gases and allows for a cleaner atmosphere. The energy per module generated is 27 MW."
IF Water is NOT used, what is this "Steam Generation" thing mentioned?
This device appears to be a "Sealed" 'Uranium Hydride' Nuclear Reactor with a 'Deuterium Hydrogen Isotope' moderator or partial 'Nuclear Poison' to control the spontaneous fission reaction rate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_poison
The stoichiometric chemical equation for Uranium Hydride is noteworthy: (2)UH3 = U + (3)H2
Hydrogen is Extremely Flammable in our atmosphere (Deuterium is isotopic form of Hydrogen) and so is Uranium Hydride (UH3):
"Uranium hydride is a brownish-black or brownish-gray, pyrophoric powder." http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguidelines/uraniuminsolublecompounds/recognition.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophoric
The flammability of UH3 and fuel-air detonation potential of chemically-decomposing UH3 and the Hydrogen generated was enough of a concern that the US Department Of Energy (Oak Ridge, TN) published a detailed study of the handling of UH3 in "glove box" conditions: http://www1.y12.doe.gov/search/library/documents/pdf/ydz-2351.pdf
It is possible that Hyperion Power Generation's PR "Spin" of its 'sealed portable 27 Million-Watt Nuclear Reactor' as being as safe as a common 'sealed AA battery' is incorrect.
Also, the suggestion that these devices SHOULD be used in third world countries is of great concern.
As suggested on Hyperion's web page, the use of these reactors for remote steam and electrical generation for oil extraction from Bitumen Sands IS cost-effective and DOES reduce greenhouse gases emissions for that process.
(It's a good thing that most of the Tar Sands are located in Canada and not the Middle East or Africa.) http://en.wikipedia.org/
'Reason'
if there was ever a post to be rated +6 insightful, this is it.
Im Glad your not in charge of Nuclear Material Legislation
You make a good point, in fact that 20 GW is only about 6% of the total energy produced in Germany. A big part of the problem here is that Germany is one of the most industrial nations in Europe, the infamous 'Ruhr' area is host to so much industry that it's probably easier to talk about smog quality than air quality there :)
The coal burning plants are really bad, they cause tons of trouble downstream, but with the scrubbers in place at least the particulate pollution is a little better than it was in the past.
Due to the pressure of time nuclear power is probably the only viable short term solution, but the waste problem is still a very big issue, small scale nuclear power should definitely be off the table imho (see postings above), and we should spend massive funds on R&D to get us out of this dependency problem and move towards a truely sustainable future.
That may mean cutting down on energy consumption quite drastically, it's a fact that conservation is a lot cheaper and easier to achieve than generation. Heatpumps instead of natural gas burning for domestic heating would help a lot as well by the way.
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"but half the time it's dark"
So? Build a fleet of 747s carrying solar panels to fly around the world in sunlight 24/7.
Cheap, non-polluting, free energy for all!
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
Do you put your PC in a bathtub to dissipate its waste heat? Given the lack of technical information in both the article and the Hyperion site, I'm just speculating, but with the small size of the reactor it may be feasible to dissipate the heat through the air.
How much airflow are you going to need to deal with 27 thousand million joules per second?
The French figured this out long ago, and have the safest and cleanest energy on the planet.
Perhaps, the US might start working on ways to have fewer (asshole) people in the world angry at them and wanting to blow up their cities with dirty bombs? That might be a good place to start.
Uh... You wouldn't happen be European would you?
Either that, or you've clearly never been there. France has more than its fair share of assholes (and dirty cities).
There's an unattributed story here, which seems quite relevant to your attitude:
It a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying "Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?"
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: "Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?"
The Ghostbusters had a nuclear reactor that was the size of a backpack!!!!
Actually, no, they are much bigger than a horde. Simply put, they are a political faction that wants the west to leave the middle eastern countries alone. America is right to wipe out the top leaders of them. The real problem is that we have not been trying to do that. In fact, since W's invasion AND occupation of Iraq, we have built up AQ, and quit spending time on tracking down the real AQ leaders. After all, how many real AQ leader in Afghanastan have we caught in the last 4 years? Just the slow and weak ones.
As to the total of your postings, I agree with you. I think that America has slide way off the edge. It is time that we start acting like we have a pair. The fact that we so easily accepted the US PATRIOT act as well as allow W. to spy on us via a number of illegal means, says that we have lost our way. What bothers me more, is that I believe the dems will ignore W's illegal actions after the next election. That indicates that we have lost our morality as well.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Let's say there was a group of private companies who operated with ideologically motivated internal kill squads. Let's say that every now and then these groups deliberately went out and killed people, although the number of people that were killed were only in the range of a few hundred a year and hence statistically far below the number of people killed by, say, pool accidents.
It is clear that everyone who now ridicules preventive actions against fundamentalist muslims on the basis of statistics would consider such a situation an unimaginable horror and do everything in their power against it.
It is therefore also clear that they should be considered a bunch of idiots and hypocrits with whom no debate has any point.
This is the core fallacy of fear mongering: Taking a rare or non-existent threat and treating it as credible.
Also known as "movie plot threats", some of which wouldn't even make a decent movie.
It turns out there are thousands of really cheap ways for small groups to cripple modern society. Criminals are really good at coming up with them, and so are think tanks the government pays to research such things.
Indeed anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together can probably think of a few.
Guess what: there is no way to prevent them! But - amazingly, none of these scenarios are happening. There is a lot more to it than "I can think of it so it must be scary."
You also need people prepared to do them, of which there dosn't appear to be that many...
it's more like a -6 strawman by the looks of it.
How about sleeping in your house for a couple of months with the gas on and the pilot lights out? Or maybe just one night with a little carbon monoxide in your room? Or maybe just pull all of the insulation off your electrical cords?
There are plenty of things that are "not safe" if improperly used or handled. Which just proved... nothing.
Besides, don't you think some people might notice relatively quickly when 25,000 homeowners call in to report that their power's out? That, if implemented, there just might be one or two, or even three safeguards involved? Perhaps you should see what we already do to safeguard the nuclear materials that are already used around you from day to day? (Material structure analysis, cancer radiation therapy, and so on.)
Also, when discussing radioactivity there's also a few little facts that need to be considered, like how much radioactivity? And what type? Some things are highly radioactive, generating a tremendous amount of alpha particles that you need... an entire sheet of paper to block. I live in Denver, the mile high city, where you can pickup a nice dose, relatively speaking, just by spending the day in the park.
So I agree with, "You need to go learn a lot more about physics, radioactivity, power generation, the biological effects of radiation, logic, risk assessment, and terrorism before continuing to make assertions that are based on false assumptions." Especially since you seem to be in the all-risk-is-unacceptable any-radiation-whatsoever-is-bad camp.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
... it will have a warning label on it saying:
"May explode if disposed of in fire"
Although, I suppose whether it's a warning label or a usage guide depends on your political views.
Every technology has it's fanboys. My guess is that DrDugan somehow makes his money in nuclear power.
he might even be this dr. Dugan:
http://www.nre.ufl.edu/department/perspages/dugan.php
but I'm sure that if he is then he would have put his bias on the line before getting his 'pro nuclear' message out there just so we would know who we are dealing with here.
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The AQ (and other new group that decides to popup ) who can obtain uranium elsewhere, or the CO2 and pollution from coal and our high price of energy? Offhand, I believe that the later threatens us more. If we want a future, then we have to obtain cheap clean energy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
it's true that there are plenty of things that are unsafe when not properly handled, but some things are less safe than others. We don't have safety procedures for handling lots of stuff in place for nothing.
I'm not from the 'all risks are unacceptable' camp, and some radiation exposure is inevitable (and quite possibly one of the driving forces behind mutations in evolution).
I do think that there are good arguments pro nuclear power, but there are also plenty of arguments against. The biggest of these are:
- waste
- safety
- containment in case the 'safety' bit fails
And the proponents of nuclear tech are very quick to gloss over these as if they don't exist, the detractors are just as quick to magnify them beyond proportion, the truth (as usual) is somewhere in the middle and before we start spreading this stuff far and wide we will need to take a long hard look at what the long term effects will be. We are really only borrowing this planet from our children and grand children after all.
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The power can be generated and then the waste heat can still be used for heating. In fact, this might make more sense in cities where the steam pipes are already in place. HVAC alone, consumes something like 50-60% of our energy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I disagree, so does the German government, at present there is > 20,000 MW of installed
wind power in Germany and the plans are to increase that substantially in the near future.
It does sound like quite a bit but that figure is "installed capacity" which when reffering to the renewables other than dam based hydro is a eupherism for what it will generate under ideal conditions which may or may not line up with your peak load.
Such reneables make a nice supplement to an already stable grid and help to appease the greens but they will not replace fossil fuel based or nuclear power.
P.S. I concider dam based hydro seperately from other renewables because it is a much more practical source of power as it generates on the operators schedule not it's own but there are very few sites availible for new installations that aren't otherwise occupied.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
There are crazy people.
Carzy people will kill other people.
You can't stop the crazy people without becoming a totalitarian police state and taking away freedoms from everyone.
Which isn't actually possible. If freedoms were taken away from eveyone there'd be no police and indeed no rulers... In any real world totalitarian police state said "crazy people" are likely to wind up joining the police force...
We talk about going to the moon, but to develop 27MW worth of power will take a while. OTH, something like this will enable us to develop a base REAL quick. In addition, for those that hate the idea of sending uranium up, well, the moon has it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Consider the proof of the rejoicing moment the three major faith have taken to explain hurricane Kathrina: Cristians - Jews - Muslins. To be fair we need to add a +2 modifier for religious zealotry for the muslins cause they manage already to "manifest" aganist the USA and still claim peacefulness. To be extra fair I'd leave a -1 modifier to the cristians for their inconsistent line about the event wich doesnt surprise me much (being inconsistent).
Now if you give to a blessed by any god zealot the tool for a mass murder you'd likely to get problems. My conclusion is that since you can't clean radioactivity I say that prevention is mandatory. This has nothing to do with FUD unless you are a zealot yourself among those that pretend the WTC was taken down by a couple of UFOs disguised as Planes controlled by the illuminati. In that case I'd reccomend you to take a tour of saudi arabia, bible in hand, and dressed like a rabin, it's all FUD anyway so why to be scared? Suggestions: Take a look at this brilliant man actually is suggest you take a look at all of his videos and prove him wrong
Thank you.
It really is satisfying to read such an insightful comment.
May I ask you where you're from?
Maybe, but you have to consider some *very* bad weather you can have at sea, so a ship with nuclear reactor wouldn't be quite a safe option.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
OK, so how did building 7 fall down at free fall speed? I buy the rest of your argument, and I am not a structural engineer, but it IS odd that the BBC reported that the building fell down 20 minutes before it actually fell, and that the owner, Larry Silverstein has been quoted as saying, "We made the decision to pull, and then we watched the building come down." Also, I have questions about the molten steel that was left over in both towers. Can you explain how jet fuel created giant quantities of molten steel? Thanks in advance.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
> Also known as "movie plot threats", some of which wouldn't even make a decent movie.
such as flying airplanes into sky scrapers ? it'd sure be a shitty movie.
> Indeed anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together can probably think of a few.
A couple of years ago on a trip through the US I was sitting around in the evening with a bunch of friends and we were wondering out loud what you could do if you were a terrorist with a $200 budget and plenty of time. The amount of ideas and the ease with which they were implementable was just staggering, but all of them lacked one crucial ingredient for a terrorist, they were not 'mediagenic', in other words they were not sexy enough. But each and every one of them would cripple a large part of society. So, a good terrorist device has to have several conditions satisified, but body count is probably quite low on the list of features.
> You also need people prepared to do them, of which there dosn't appear to be that many..
let's hope you are right on that front. What has happened already has so far exceeded my imagination.
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I won't be interested until these things can generate at least 1.21 gigawatts.
When you hear people saying something about "nuclear", "hot-tub" and "sell" in the same sentence you know something is wrong somewhere.
Please mod parent up for being apparently the first to reference the "shipstone" device described in Heinlein's novel "Friday". When I read "size of a hot tub", that was exactly what came to mind. The shipstone was a device about that size which provided all power for an entire large house for several years, making each home self-sufficient, at least for electrical power. It was a totally enclosed maintenance-free device, remarkably similar to this nuclear battery. Fascinating.
It's odd how many things are happening these days that make one think that maybe this really is the future after all (despite the lack of flying cars in actual production). When that novel was written just a couple of decades ago, the shipstone concept seemed like something that might be over a century away in the real world. Now we're looking at less than a decade, if it doesn't turn out to be vaporware. Very, very interesting.
The terrorists won long ago. The US is full of terror.
And exactly what "preventive" (guess you mean preventative) measures are you going to take? How are you going to decide who is 'fundamentalist'. Private companies probably do directly cause the death of hundreds of people each year anyway, if you believe that some people will do anything for money/power - and some people would. It doesn't always come down to fundamentalist muslims, history has shown that you always get religious or political groups that are willing to take life to get themselves noticed, or to further their own cause, whatever it may be. America have always been far from the line of fire in geographical terms, at least when considering european and middle eastern factions, but as soon as you are subject to one external terrorist attack (well there have been others, but mostly they have been from internal troublemakers) you go out and start fucking up as many muslims as you can. If all countries reacted like that then we'd be having world wars constantly..
And the saddest thing of all is that that attack was done with nothing more than plastic knives or somesuch.. and you guys are still acting like you need a nuclear reactor to do serious damage. You don't, you just need to look for ways of using conventional things in unconventional ways. You're all obsessed with guns and nukes, and you got fucked over by a bunch of guys with plastic knives.. okay that's my rant over for today. Get some perspective people -.-
which is totally what she said
"half the time it's dark"...
This has to be the dumbest argument against solar power ever. Just design a system to produce all the energy you need for 24 hours during daylight hours and then store it overnight.
While I am a supporter of nuclear power, I do have some misgivings about this device.
For example, you know those large canisters they use to ship nuclear material in? The kind they repeatedly test by hitting them with high-speed freight trains? How much nuclear material do they hold? Compare that to how much material these "hot tub" sized units hold. Are they at least as strong?
The description of the device seems to sidestep around the issue of regulating the nuclear reaction between the manufacturing and installation times. I assume they aren't going to build them until they're ordered, but it would still be several days at best before it's hooked up and I see nothing preventing the nuclear reaction from running during that time.
Can someone explain to me how using uranium hydride makes it "cleaner, producing only a tiny fraction of the waste produced by other types of reactors" ? I'm not a nuclear scientist, but fission products are fission products any way you slice it...
The site specifically says it doesn't use water. What does it use? How do you get the energy out of this thing? I'm assuming it only produces thermal energy, and converting it to mechanical/electrical power is a problem for the client. That's fine, but how does one effectively extract heat from this unit?
Also, naming the device after a book set in a dystopian future which describes the destruction of Earth from a botched scientific experiment strikes me as a tad disingenuous...
=Smidge=
The two alternatives you mention; a viable short term storage system and a new non polluting and effective energy production system don't actually exist right now so they're not viable alternatives. The only real option we have to fuel burning power stations is the nuclear option which is tried and tested technology which we know works and can provide for all our energy needs.
Personally I think the whole nuclear danger angle is wildly overblown and basically panic and scaremongering, yes there are dangers but then every single method of generating power has associated problems:
Wind farms, take up large areas and look unsightly, can kill birds, can affect local weather patterns
Solar power, takes up large areas, expensive, not all that environmentally friendly to produce
Tidal power, can cause major disruption to environment and sea life
Hydro-electric, requires massive changes to land dislodging wildlife, people etc and associated large impact on the environment
Coal/Oil, contribute to global warming, air pollution
Nuclear, difficult to deal with waste, expensive to build and maintain
Speaking from the point of view of a resident of the UK we need to make our choice right now, it won't be long before most of our existing nuclear reactors are de-commisionned, our natural gas has ran out and a lot of our oil/coal power stations are also reaching the end of their life span. Wind, hydro, and solar are not going to provide the power we need so we need either more coal, oil or gas power stations or more nuclear. Of the two nuclear is the most environmentally friendly and the most efficient option open to us.
No! No! No! This sucker's electrical.
I just needed a nuclear reaction to generate the one point twenty one gigawatts of electricity.
WHATDIDIJUSTSAY???!
No! No! No! This sucker's electrical.
I just needed a nuclear reaction to generate the one point twenty one gigawatts of electricity.
ONE POINT TWENTY ONE GIGA VVATTS?!?!?!
Also, I would bet the reactor is, at *best*, 25% efficient. If there are no moving parts, then it's probably much, much worse than this. In any case, I would like to see how something the size of a bathtub can reject 20 MW of heat.
If the average bathtub is 3 cubic meters, that's almost 70 kw/liter of heat generation. That requires some serious flow rates of water to cool it.
"Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound
Doc: I'm sure that in 2085, plutonium is available at every corner drug store, but in 2007, it's a little hard to come by. Marty, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're stuck here.
Marty: Whoa, whoa Doc, stuck here, I can't be stuck here, I got a life in 2007. I got a girl.
Doc: Is she pretty?
Do regular batteries leak?
Oh - that's okay then....
Doesn't matter whether it's a nuclear reaction (which it appears to be) or otherwise, what happens when those pipes for the cooling liquid are broken? It doesn't seem like a very self-contained electricity generation system. The actual electricity is generated outside this unit. So, let me ask a different question. Something bad happens to your connections to the "nuclear battery". Control lines and water-cooling cut. Does the reaction just magically stop? Forgive me, I stopped taking physics after my freshman year. Forget for a moment the unlikely acts of terrorists (whether they be evil ferinners and godless heathen or God fearing, tax paying, white folk out to topple the corrupt regime) and think about big-ass storms, seismic events, wildfires or neighbourhood industrial accidents.
Steel looses structural integrity at around 500degC - well within the range produced by an 'ordinary' fire. The melting point of steel is about 1300degC, easily achieved by a liquid fuel fire. Can't address your other points though.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
I agree that short term probably nuclear is the only way to go, but I really do think that the waste and safety issues are not 'overblown'. Especially waste will take a lot of work to be solved in such a way that we don't simply push the cost of cleanup in to the future.
And the smaller the devices the bigger the safety issues. It's a simple function of the number of of devices (possible targets), even if the damage done per incident goes down the chances of an incident will go up.
Whether wind farms are 'unsightly' is a matter of taste, the same argument was made in the 1600's in the Netherlands and people are still coming here from all over the world to look at the windmills. A good part of that comes from people who are against any form of change, no matter what. I'd certainly be rather looking out my window at a bunch of windmills than at a nuclear dome.
Hydro electric dams can be constructed in such a way that they do minimal damage, especially if they do not create a large basin but are in an area where there is plenty of flow, Sweden has a lot of experience with this. For the UK that would not work however.
And yes, time is running out and something needs to be done.
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you have large bath tubs !
I thought they were about 300 liters at best.
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Man that is the best marking garbage I've heard for ages. No wonder those guys get paid so much... To lie with a straight face!
"People.....Let's not argue about who killed who......This is supposed to be a happy occasion......." I can try to purchse my own personal Nuclear "Battery" to power my house and 4000 of my closest friends. I do like the possibility that private power companies could start up using these "Batteries" and break the monopoly of the AEP's of the world that seem to raise rates on a whim. Let's keep an eye on this and make sure that our government does it's job as described in the Constitution -"...Provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty...." Thanks to this press release I realize that I don't like to be called fat. I prefer to be called a storehouse of potential energy. Which works out well since I have never realized the unlimited potential I have.
Most ppl here are pushing solar and wind, but there ARE other altnerative energies. In particular, Tidal and Wave machines. But I think even better than that is geo-thermal. It is a constant source for where available. The advantage is that it is VERY clean, and very solid, with very little chance of causing environmental impacts (assuming that you do not use up the local water i.e. a re-injected binary system is pretty much required).
With that said, I am also a fan of nukes. Something like this battery would be great for cities. Imagine if downtown chicago/LA/New York/Dallas had a couple of these. Not only would it generate their electricity, but it could provide the HVAC systems (most of these buildings have steam systems) by using the waste heat from the reactor.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Short term, the actions of the United States government do suck, but I don't worry about it long term. The cost of funding all these operations are draining the treasury and killing the U.S. economy. Long term, the very foundations of scientific inquiry are being undermined in the US which means the technological means to continue warfare will be eroded. Basically, if the United States does not stop this campaign of terror against the world, we will crumble from the inside.
I'm the last to get panicked, I just think that radioactivity is not meant for 'mass distribution'.
Then you should be seriously pissed about coal-fired electric generation. Do some reading before jerking your knee.
You're breathing radioactive waste right now, and it didn't come from a nuke plant.
So no worries there.
We USED to have a lot of time off in the winter because we didn't have any light. The industrial revolution removed most of the ordinary person's free time by giving light and making work possible.
Yeah... that PhD would make him a fanboy, and not someone who REALLY understands what he is talking about.
Pick it Up!!
...has that little crossed-out-wheelie-bin logo on the underside indicating "please do not dispose of this product with your ordinary household waste". :)
This still does not mean that a bunch of well prepared lunatics cannot do a serious damage in a single act of violent stupidity. These do not have to be low tech (although flying an aeroplane is not exactly low tech) actions and even if they were then the result counts.
This however has nothing to do with the infant mortality though even if it is a bad thing too.
The major difference being that it was in a submarine. Sealed and cooled by a form of liquified lead.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
... the on/off switch is on these things? Self-contained? No moving parts? Just hook up steam piping and you can run a turbine?
... wtf - how high were they when they came up with that idea? Obviously the leaders of our nations don't give a fuck what damage they do around the world, as long as the interests of the wealthy get fulfilled. More nuclear waste? Sure - let's make money, the risk assessment says the amount of money we'll pay out in any sort of lawsuit will be far less than the profit we'll make otherwise. If the nuke boat sinks, at least it'll be in the middle of no where. What, me worry? Seems like a lot of moral nihilism to me.
I hope these people hire the best welders they can find, and invest heavily in leak/crack detection.
I love how hydrogen is a bastardly small atom, and likes to embed itself in all sorts of shit, and loves leaks. And things like hydrogen damage just make this even more fun. Sputtering is fun too, I'm not too sure how much of an issue that would be though.
I take it when these reactors get transported they'll have a multi-vehicle escort with a hazmat crew? I really hope they plan on using some expensive concrete, like DUCRETE for this thing.
In the end, my issue with nuclear power is the toxicity of uranium tailings, and how it just loves to find it's way into groundwater, especially in areas where there's considerable precipitation... like Canada. I remember looking at this book on Uranium mining and mineralogy, and there's this little fact about 300 million tonnes of waste uranium tailings by 2000. We need to do something useful with that, instead of it just leeching into our water supplies.
And with the Russian icebreaker/reactor
I'm not smart though, so you can just ignore all the above. Felt like I had to share my opinion though.
> 0. You need to go learn a lot more about physics, radioactivity, power generation, the biological effects of radiation, logic, risk assessment, and terrorism before continuing to make assertions that are based on false assumptions.
rule one of arguing, if you lose the argument attack your opponent in person, try to make them seem stupid.
it also helps if you prefix your name with something impressive like 'doctor' so that others will immediately give you the upper hand when it comes to judging intellect.
IED? Is that really all Americans think about these days? How sad...
PS: Presumably they won't just put at the side of a backwoods road and leave it. I'll be under several feet of concrete, it'll have a fence, a little building, maybe even an armed guard - just like all the other power installations in the USA - even the ones without "dirty" material.
No sig today...
The only money trail leads straight to the big US arms manufacturers and the owners of the WTC with their big insurance policy taken out just beforehand. The best thing about suicide bombers is that you don't have to pay them.
Like 3 million other people, I was on the Tube on the morning of the London bombings. 54/3,000,000 = 0.000018. If the same number of people were killed every day I could expect to survive for 3,000,000/54/365 = 152 years.
Yes, the concept that having professional qualifications in a field disqualifies one from commenting on the field is odd to say the least. It's part of the systematic undermining of the very concept of "authority" that has brought our society so very far since my grade-school days.
--
phunctor
"Who? Show me all these boogymen."
:)
How about 3,500,000 of them?
You say you want nuclear batteries? Well, I want internment camps.
When I get mine, we can safely have yours
You should consider how unsafe oil is. The dollars you spend on oil are funding those whack jobs you fear.
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
coal fired electrical generation is indeed very much polluting and I'm well aware of it.
In case it wasn't clear from the rest of my postings above, I am not in any way afraid of 'low level dose' exposure in the long term, we are all going to die sooner or later anyway.
I just wished that the proponents of any technology would be able to see the ups AND the downs of the tech so that we can come to some kind of a reasonable debate. To simply ignore the dangers of any technology (GM food, clones, nuclear power and so on) is not wise, then you will find out about the dangers through avoidable incidents. Anything that can generate electricity from radioactive isotopes at the levels quoted in the original article is going to be inherently unsafe. Even at relatively high efficiencies (say on the order of 80%, which in practice probably won't be achieved) you are looking at a massive cooling problem and quite probably a serious risk in the case of breaching the containment vessel.
That is something we have learned to deal with to a large extent at the upper end of the scale when looking at nuclear power, specifically the new breed of reactors (pebble bed). But on a small scale (say in the 10 KW to 20 MW range) the number of required reactors would be so large that incidents would be a certainty. It's a bit like air travel, people are scared of air travel more than they are of travelling by road because they perceive the risk as being larger where in fact it is smaller. This mostly due to the fact that there are many more individual movements of vehicles on the road than there are of aircraft, and a single airplane (usually) holds more people than a car does.
My point is (and it is very possibly a wrong one but I have yet to see a single argument that really held water) is that if you spread nuclear technology around where say every town with > 5000 residents could have their own nuclear reactor (and the device mentioned in the article definitely qualifies as a reactor, even if they would like to suggest that it is not) that we would see a dramatic rise in the number of nuclear incidents, not to mention the security headaches this would bring along as well.
MP3 Search Engine
Where's the plan for a Chrysalis Highwayman? I've got some spare Fusion Cells lying around.
Actually it is not possible to generate enough electricity to run the industrial world sustainably with *any* power source. Nuclear just gives us a few more decades before uranium peaks. Coal gives us a few centuries but of course we have to sacrifice most of the planet along the way due to climate change.
The only way I can see is to reduce our energy demands, stop buying all that shit that we don't need and rewrite the economic text books and get over "growth forever". Either we realise this or it's forced upon us by economic reality (read sickness and death as the market adapts).
As for decentralised nuclear, interesting idea, but I wonder where all that radioactive waste goes; afterall each reactor may create less waste but we'll need at least one reactor per 20000 people that must be refeulled every 5 years.
Bruse Schneier calls this "movie plot" security - you imagine up some scenario which would make a good movie and spend a fortune defending against it.
a) These reactors will be tightly controlled - like Military jets, etc. (which are also on sale to the public yet could make a complete mess of a city, or even attack a power station!)
b) There's much easier and more effective ways to cripple the USA, I can sit here all day and invent them. Look at how much damage the anthrax guy caused (and he was never caught but for some reason the neocons aren't milking that one to brainwash the public - maybe because it's not "movie-like" enough for them).
No sig today...
Science, like everything else can be used for good or for bad.
Another nice example is genetically modified foods, and I think that before we push any technology on the world at large we need to make a serious study of the impact in the longer term, not just the short term benefits.
To give the creators of any technology the final say over its deployment or perceived safety is irresponsible at best.
Technology affects *ALL* of us, not just the people with the PhD's and other degrees that can come up with it, we all have to live with the consequences as well.
To simply take the word of a scientist with a vested interest in any technology about its safety is not good stewardship. Science has a fairly long history of being driven by the fascination with technology, not with it's responsible application.
How else would you explain such things as bio weapons, nuclear bombs and so on ?
I'd expect slashdot to have a larger than average percentage of viewers that are in some way or other involved in scientific research. I also sincerely hope that they look further than their desks or lab benches to look at the consequences of their research and to help make sure that it is applied in a responsible way.
Propaganda is the tool of choice for anybody pushing a certain viewpoint or technology down our collective throats, and to me it doesn't matter if some guy in a white lab coat is trying to ram the latest brand of toothpaste down my throat or nuclear power. It is our collective responsibility to use science as a tool, which means that we, all of us are supposed to be in control and not the people who create the tool.
If we don't do that then we'll have problems bigger than the scientists can solve. The tool will control us instead of the other way around.
MP3 Search Engine
What do you mean by non-existent threat? Were the bomb attacks on the Madrid and London transport systems non-existent? Were they only credible after they'd happened?
The key word being or. He said rare or non-existant.
The fact that you can mention the bombings with a location, and we know of the SINGLE instance that you are referring to suggests that it is pretty damned rare.
Want an example of something that isn't rare?
Remember that time on I-95 there was that multi-death car crash?
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Honestly, I'd be more worried about Colombians with a sub.
Go home, you scumbag gippo asylum seeker.
The prospect of a dirty bomb going off are zero, because dirty bombs don't exist. Uranium, Plutonium and the other radioactive materials are very toxic when there's a big lump in one place, or when ingested or inhaled in smaller quantities, but as far as concentration goes, they're no more toxic than any number of other deadly poisons. The idea that getting a piece of plutonium and spreading it out over the 4,000 square mile area covered by a city would kill thousands is laughable and has been debunked a number of times - it'd just spread much too thinly to do any damage. You'd need tons and tons of the crap. If you were determined to poison a city, it'd make more sense to get a crop-dusting plane and spray with DDT. Or put it in the drinking water.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
Mr. Fusion anyone?
Perhaps, the US might start working on ways to have fewer (asshole) people in the world angry at them and wanting to blow up their cities with dirty bombs? That might be a good place to start.
Ah, yes, coddling and capitulation are always the trick.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I can remenber the 1970, when the IRA - no doubt with funding from scum like you - were blowing something up every other week.
Ahem.
Though to be honest, these days that article presented as an official announcement probably would terrify the populace. Good luck reassuring people who are terrified of imaginary threats.
[clever sig]
It will require somebody with vision. I would think Paul Allen or even Elon Musk are the most likely individuals to go after this. Gates has never been the visionary type. It is possible that the next president will have vision, but I am not holding too much to that. I think that the last president with good vision was kennedy.
:).
As to the payoff, IT IS CERTAIN. The ONLY issue is how deep before you hit the real heat. But at this time, we have a good idea of how much heat is available through out USA, Europe, Japan, etc. It is in 3rd world countries that this is not really known. But if you drill beside a volcano, you will get LOTS of heat at some point
Right now, the single hardest issue with geo-thermal it does not get the marketing clout that other energies do. Consider Hydro, nukes, wind and solar. These are all that we hear about. But in the 1'st/2nd world, hydro has been developed most of the way (Russia, Canada and New Zealand has more to be done), though china and 3rd world are finally moving to it. Nukes are hated by a number of groups (about 1/4 of the ppl), while others love it (about another 1/4), and the rest simply say use it if it is cheap and will stop global wamring. So that leaves wind (which at this time, is about the same price as nukes, so more expensive than coal), and solar (FAR more expensive than any of the choices, but pushed by high-tech companies that are going into the manufacturing of the cells). Geo-thermal really is one of the best choices as it is available 24x7. If done up right, it would be combined with solar thermal heating that will supplement the geo0thermal during the day (allows the site to generate more when demand is at its highest).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The idea that getting a piece of plutonium and spreading it out over the 4,000 square mile area covered by a city would kill thousands is laughable and has been debunked a number of times - it'd just spread much too thinly to do any damage.
Ah, but good luck convincing the general public of that. The idea would not be to kill thousands of people but to make that large area unusable. A dirty bomb would not kill many people outright but it might not be a good idea to live in the affected area without some clean-up. The effort involved to do a proper clean-up is tremendous.
"There are crazy people.
Carzy people will kill other people.
You can't stop the crazy people without becoming a totalitarian police state and taking away freedoms from everyone."
I have to disagree.
First, what you call crazy people is, in fact, acting in perfect accord to what they believe. The POTUS believes the world was created in 6 days and those crazy people believe they will go to heaven after killing themselves in specific ways.
And yes - you cannot stop crazy people, but you may be able to avoid creating the kind of resentment they feel against our Western civilization by reducing foreign intervention. I still remember the US backed Saddam Hussein when he was fighting Iran and the theocracy there that emerged from a revolution against a government that was, pretty much, a US-endorsed very bloody dictatorship. I also remember that the Taliban also enjoyed the support from the US while they were battling the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. There is a fine and blurry line between a terrorist and a freedom-fighter.
If the US limits its interference in external affairs, it may be forgotten by those very lunatics who insist on blowing themselves up.
While those lunatics may find other enemies to blow up, at least, _you_ will be safe.
You can't make friends by imposing your way of life upon them. While I love democracy and all the nice stuff that goes around it, I also know it has to be conquered. It can't be a gift you receive from someone.
It takes generations, but it comes.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Makeing Homer Simpson the safety inspector.
This is one "battery" i'd rather not see explode...
If it's like a AA battery, does that mean that it, too, will explode if you leave it outside in the winter? God I love living in Minnesota....
I don't worry about the competence of the people designing these things. I worry about the competence of the road crews installing/upgrading/repairing/extending sewer lines/gas mains and what would happen if they suddenly discovered a concrete block in the way of their excavation. No doubt their first choice of action would be to drill away whatever bits were in their way.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
In the article, the company suggests that they want to call it a 'battery' because it is 'that safe' - with all the reports of problems with Lithum-Ion batteries spontaneously-combusting, I don't think anyone would assume a battery is safe.
The muffin man lives on Drury Lane
When will Dell be replacing their batteries with these?
No, the real tragedy is that because of wars and the necessity to maintain arms, we can't spend 25% of the national budget on things like curing malaria, septicemia, and even just simple stuff like diarrhea, or building the type of infrastructure in 3rd world countries to but the death rate of young people under the age of 25 to an acceptable amount.
But the fact is, most of the world still lives within a few percentage points of totalitarianism where the bullet is equal to the rule of law.
US death rate wise, catch a clue -- most of the fatalities due to heart disease, etc. are also related to smoking or flat out old age. Many of the accidental deaths are due to alcohol or other forms of substance abuse. I.e. culturally and individually allowable forms of slow or accidental suicide by another name. But worldwide? the most common ways to die are still by disease or by belonging to a weaker group when the rampages begin.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Uh ... no. ... You really don't know what you're talking about, do you? I recommend doing some research into why they "explode" in the winter. Hint: it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it provides electrical power.
Wrong. You can't become a totalitarian state without ending up with crazy people running it.
The simple reason is that totalitarian states are able to suppress the truth about problems. This is a ready made opportunity for nuts, who are full of ideas that have the drawback of causing more problems than they solve.
In the end, you have to judge: is it more dangerous to let the world see what your government is up to than it is to keep the citizens in the dark?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It's vapourizeware.
"Can you explain how jet fuel created giant quantities of molten steel?"
Umm, by melting steel?
Doesn't burn hot enough, you say? Can you then explain how they melted
sand into glass in antiquity, and made steel several hundred years ago,
using only the same kind of charcoal for fuel that you might throw on
your (steel) barbecue?
Hint: burn temperatures depend on lots of environmental factors.
The figures you read are just typical ones, specific to the particular
set of circumstances you might find in a small-scale lab experiment
not designed to maximize temperature.
Why don't you go ask a firefighter how many nails he finds after a
typical total-burndown housefire?
sudo ergo sum
3 - The rational process of assessing risk and making choices about how to safely run a society is not a democratic process, and it should depend in no way on assuaging the fears of individuals, or the assertions from the lay public.
/*shudder*/ Should their fears and assertions be taken into account then?
What if the individuals who made up this democracy were a bunch of "smart" guys like yourself? A whole country full of youseguys:
Building 7 did not fall down at free fall speed. Video shows objects *actually* in free fall, falling faster. Same goes for the collapse of the towers.
Oh, and that 'molten steel'? Never verified as such, and almost certainly it was molten aluminum. Workers reported seeing molten *metal*, or they simply assumed it was steel, but the fact is that the ruins were hot enough in places for aluminum to be molten for days or weeks after the day - and there was a LOT of aluminum in the wreckage. All the cladding on the outside of the towers was aluminum, for a start.
9/11 was a big deal, because 20 guys made an opportunistic attack that leveled several city blocks of the most populous city in the US using nothing but box cutters. It was also the single largest attack aimed solely at American civilians ever to occur.
We knew that Al Qaeda existed, and that they hated our guts long before 9/11. In that regard, it wasn't a big deal at all. The fact that cockpit doors were kept unlocked is stupid, and we have only ourselves to blame for letting it happen.
After hiring a few locksmiths to fasten locks to the bloody doors, we should have stopped, and left it at that.
Instead, we had:
"Gee. These people really don't like us. Let's invade their country"
"Okay."
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I feel sorry for you. I really do.
You can get radioactive crap all over already anyway. For many decades the radio-source for X-ray images was a box full of radioactive material. A lot of them now use a device to make the radiation, rather than a substance. These things are supposed to be regulated, but can and do go missing.
There was one that got "scrapped", taken to Mexico, melted for scrap and came back as parts of tables, they followed a trail of little pellets into Mexico with some geiger counters. But didn't know anything had happened until the tables were on the way back "hot". No missing device, not picking up the radiation on the side of the highway.
The idea that a new, useful, and tracked tool is going to be more dangerous than old, discarded, and perhaps untracked tool is foolish. There's already plenty of places to get radiation without risking buying one of these things.
You are already under the risk of someone doing something with radioactive material, these things won't add to that to a significant degree.
In short, you are already a victim of the fear mongering ignoramouses/a-holes.
Have a nice day.
Yes, 24 is especially guilty, but a damn good show.
The idea that there is always some mega villian
about to cause major havoc is just not realistic.
I ultimately had to stop watching it, it was infecting my
brain with paranoia.
or just point out their stupidity and their ignorant worthless fearful opinions.
Looks like trash day will become much more interesting.
"Honey, it's you turn to take out the generator waste. My hair is still falling out."
Thousands of small reactors, I don't see any problem controlling that. No sir-ree bob.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Why exactly should "we" hope that these are not mainstream?
Just so long as Sony don't make 'em.
Ha,ha - CAPTCHA is "recall"! You couldn't make it up! http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/10/17/sony_japan_recalls_90k_vaio_batteries/
Do I think what we are doing in iraq is sane? Well I'm writing this message from iraq, and Yea I do. Did we make a lot of mistakes? Sure.. and as it stands, some things are better then when we started, and some things are worse, but If things are bad, they are the exception, not the rule. Also now the iraq people have hope, which is something they never had before.
Is Hyperion connected to Moller?
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
I don't entirely agree with everything the GP is saying, but I do have to make this (very interesting, often overlooked) point:
We know quite empirically that Al Qaeda does not want to blow up nuclear reactors.
How do we know this?
They didn't already.
There are many nuclear reactors in the northeast, but to truly drive the point home, let's consider just one. On the morning of September 11, a jihadi pilot used the Hudson River as a visual navigation aid while flying down towards Manhattan from the north. Just north of the city (24 miles, to be exact - a short drive), they flew directly over the Indian Point nuclear power plant. It's enormous, with large, spheroid containment domes, exhaust plumes, etc. It is unmistakeable what it is, even from far in the air, let alone if you have spent the last several years meticulously planning and researching potential targets.
A strike against Indian Point, rather than the WTC, would have been vastly more devastating. Rather than merely felling two skyscrapers and killing several thousand, the entire New York metro area could be depopulated. Just stop for a moment and imagine it.
It's beyond question that they chose to fly right past it.
There are many reasons. They probably understood that eloquent PR, rather than loss of life, is the real function of terrorism. In a real battle of "who can kill more of the enemy," everybody already knows the answer.
Perhaps more simply, they knew if they hit a reactor and caused damage and loss of life on that scale, they could expect an enraged west to respond with a nuclear/biological/chemical strike in their homelands.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
If you don't believe the guy in a white lab coat, who do you believe? Politicians? Anybody who agrees with you?
Well... I'll stick with the science people.
Pick it Up!!
I would comment intelligently and think about what you posted, but my mind is still trying to work around the image of the "raped from the inside" metaphor...
Slashdot is a pretty cool guy eh posts dupes and doesn't afraid of anything.
As for the security issues... Sure, I guess somebody should keep tabs on these things... But I'm no more worried about one of these than a truck full of fertilizer and fuel oil. And I somehow think it'd be easier to come up with the fertilizer and fuel oil than it would be to dismantle and weaponize one of these things.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
By the way - if I have to chose between a reactor on land and this, the mini-ship definitely sounds like a better option. It is cheaper, better and easier to dispose of the waste.
dispose of the waste? Like dumping radioactive waste in our waters would be a good idea?
I didn't know Rosie O'Donnell posts here. What exactly is "free fall speed" anyway?
...and red fluorescing paint, or does the installer have to buy them separately?
Don't try this at home, please, but:
1.) Let someone else install one of these.
2.) Start a suitable explosion on top of the reactor, or the lines bringing the coolant in and out.
3.) Watch the broken containment spew rad waste in the area, or while the lack of coolant produces at least a 3-Yard Island event.
I've been reading a ton of posts below that are portreying people's fears about these portable nuclear reactors being distributed to rogue states in a similar light -- 'What, you're a fearmonger!'.
/. could probably assemble a bomb given one of these road-side reactors and a few weeks.
I generally acknowledge a lot of the extremely good benefits of Nuclear power. While it does generate highly toxic waste, it generates very little, and that waste is all confined in a small area rather than being tossed into the air where it would have terrible effects and destroy the local environment.
I also generally believe in what Noam Chomsky said in his latest book, namely that the behavior of the US is moving more and more towards what one would call a failed or rogue state -- and part of that activity is demonstrated in keeping its population in fear about unknown threats that the government porteys as ubiquitous, and ever surmounting.
However, all that being said...
I wonder if you're objection to people's fears would be so outright were the title of this article "Portable battery powered by Anthrax in the Development Stages". Nuclear material is *extremely* deadly, and even a small amount can not only kill a whole lot of humans, as well as plant and animal life, but also render entire areas uninhabitable for extended periods. I think it would be wonderful if a small "battery" the size of a bathtub could power small cities for extended periods, but when that involves placing uranium or plutonium in a box next to a power substation on some country road -- free for the taking -- that genuinely scares me.
There are *very* good reasons that nuclear reactors have extensive security. And, in this case, "it really does only take one person" to make an entire area uninhabitable for a long while, and kill everyone who used to live there. I'm sure that most of the people who read
Giving clean, abundant, and inexpensive energy away to the world? Sure, of course, that's what a lot of us spend our time trying to develop. But now making it a million times easier to for "anyone" to get ahold of nuclear materials? That's insane.
The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
This is, in fact, a common misperception held by people in the northern, and in particular, north-western states, who already have a relatively clean energy mix - but in large part because their grids are built for it. It's easy to advocate for something you already have.
But you also seem to think there is no other alternative. There is. There are plenty of alternatives, in fact. The difficulty is actually that there is an ever-increasing demand due to ever increasing sources of energy demands and population increase. No one solution will meet this demand, period. Nuclear will be part of the solution, so will solar. Centralized generation will be part of the solution, so will decentralized local generation. Increase in power output will be part, as will an active pursuit of demand reduction through energy efficiency. Your fallacy is thinking that there is one true way, and that the 'governments' are 'realizing' it.
As a quick aside; solar energy has a lot more to do with how you build things than with how you turn sunlight into electricity. The facing of windows, the use of different materials, and paying attention to how the environment affects the building. Walmart, of all people, have done an amazing job of turning some of their stores into very energy efficient buildings in part using 'solar energy'. And it's not predicated on it being daylight all the time, or near the equator. Article here, and it's a very good example of how attacking the problem on multiple flanks is far more useful than shouting from the hilltops how there is only one possible solution, and everything else has drawbacks. Of course everything else has drawbacks. Everything has drawbacks. The trick is to balance them into something ultimately more useful, where the drawbacks cancel.
[Ego]out
I recognize that it's a VERY long-term concern, but wouldn't sucking energy from tidal forces sap the orbital velocity of the moon over time?
[Ego]out
I have "gone and learned a lot more about physics, radioactivity, power generation, the biological effects of radiation, logic, risk assessment, and terrorism."
In my view, nuclear energy is a very foolish investment. Since you've implied that you've done all the above, you're aware of the hazards -- quite apart from terrorism or the likelihood of human error that's apparent from decades of nuke operation -- of uranium mining and waste disposal. The failures to cope with these hazards prove that pressing ahead is only an option for the bull-headed.
Your assertion about France ignores the fact that their problems have been kept secret. In Japan, US, UK, and USSR, many nuclear failures and spills have been visible -- and many more were kept hidden.
Your attitude that wind and solar being unable to "generate power density high enough" (whatever that means) is a learned attitude that flies in the face of current technology. If you're referring to the variability in wind and solar energy, both can be stored to produce hydroelectric power. In the US, existing coal and nuclear facilities can handle those few remaining industries that need "power density" until alternatives are built. Finally, after decades of stalling.
Your attitude toward energy, in short -- and toward democracy, for that matter -- is based in the belief that growling loud will scare people so they'll do what you want. Which is a long way of saying that you come off an arrogant, self-important bully. Is your nickname "shooter"?
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
"Preventive" is a real word. "Preventative" is a made up word. Yes, I know it's probably in some dictionary somewhere, but it's not the correct term.
Someone is going to want to respond with "language evolutionates (see how dumb it is to add extra suffixes?), deal with it." I don't want to hear it. The word is preventive.
Save oxygen. Use fewer syllables.
Couldn't agree more. You tell your 10,000 employees that you can't build any cars today, because the wind isn't blowing enough outside, or its overcast. Wind and Solar are SUPPLEMENTS to the power grid.. Hell, there is no place on earth that solar will work 24/7/365. (i know, I know, in parts of alaska it will work 24/7/90 or so) Don't get me wrong, they are great SUPPLEMENTS, especially solar, since its going to produce the most power at the same time that most people are going to be running their AC, but they are not going to be reliable for running off of until Electric storage becomes much, much better.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
But I think even better than that is geo-thermal. It is a constant source for where available.
There's the point where most alternative energy sources fall down. Tidal and wave power are not going to be big in Nevada, or Saskatchewan, or Southeast Queensland. There may not even be suitable locations to build hydro plants there. We have a couple of wind turbines where I live (one of which is on a nuclear power generation site, for some bizarre reason) and there's only a 50/50 chance that they're actually running when you see them. Wind is unreliable. Solar may work well in southern climes, but up here, you'd have to have some procedure for keeping the snow off of the collector panels. Geothermal is only viable in a vanishingly small number of places, most of which are geologically unstable.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
If this technology is so great, why it was not included as part of 4th generation power plant. With current licensing speed, there is simply 0 chance for anything to happen by 2012. One design in 4th generation nuclear power plant, a lead-cooled fast reactor is most similar to this idea. However, it won't be ready until 2030, assuming the concept it valid.
I do suggest US do more research on nuclear technology for next couple of decades to solve energy issue. In the long term (100 years), nuclear fusion technology will be ready to take on all energy need.
Thanks for posting the link about the Russian RTG's. After reading it, however, I'm not convinced that these portable nuclear reactors will be of such a great concern.
For starters, these generators are planned to provided electricity for population centers, not remote lighthouses and the such. So the likelyhood that they could be forgotten is unlikely since they'd provide power to tens of thousands of homes. Their absence would be noticed quickly. Also, since this is private enterprise, there's a commercial interest in keeping track of the generators. Even if the country using them or the producing company goes kaput, others will step in to recycle and re-use them.
The Russian RTG article linked above also included this tidbit-
It takes no less than 900 to 1000 years before RHSs reach a safe radioactivity level.
When I think of nuclear power, I remember stats about the waste requiring 10,000+ years before it decomposes to a safe level. Of course, I don't have any confidence about what humans will be doing in 10k years, so I wouldn't want to deposit that waste anywhere. But 1000 years? I can imagine there are places we could safely bury this waste and it won't come into human contact within 1000 years.
The Russian RTG example doesn't really provide stats on deaths associated with these miniature reactors. It doesn't take long, though, to find fatality stats regarding fossil-fuel energy production. In light of global warming, wars over petroleum, and rising fuel costs, I am eager to see nuclear adopted in the US.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Prior to 9/11, hijackings occurred when people would just CLAIM to have a bomb. Why? Because all anyone ever wanted was to be flown somewhere or to have hostages for some political leverage. If you just did what they said, your chances of living we quite high. It never occurred to anyone that people would kill themselves and everyone on board in pursuit of virgins.
So, yes, we're obsessed with guns and nukes because you don't just sit around waiting for the next attack, you try to be proactive. The next attack probably isn't going to happen with airplanes, because no one is going to believe the next guy who stands up and says, "Do as I say and you will live!"
Don't confuse the attack on Iraq with 9/11, because the only connection is that Bush found Americans in a surly enough mood that it seemed like a good time to go in. The only place that the US has gone out "and start[ed] fucking up as many muslims as [they] can" is Afghanistan, and you'll have a hard time convincing me that Afghanistan was unwarranted. Also, the US is fairly tame when it comes to rolling into a country. Look into the US in the Philippines (250,000 - 1,000,000 civilians dead) or Japan in China (20 - 35 million dead) for how nasty one can be.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You're right that it's a lot of heat to get rid of for such a small area. TFA is light on the details, but mentions that the system is self-regulating. Makes me wonder if a temperature coefficient is part of this self-regulation. As the temperature goes up, the reaction slows down, and the temperature of the whole thing naturally settles out in some band that's several hundred degrees above ambient. Just a guess on my part. I'd be interested in knowing how robust this self-regulating process is, however, as its degradation or failure would have serious thermal implications as you alluded to.
So... you're suggesting that the events of 9/11 didn't count as murder, because small non-governmental groups should be able to kill whoever they want?
Is deposing a cruel tyrant bent on domination of the region, who is determined to produce nuclear weapons, and claimed to his generals that he had already done so, and providing for the foundation of democracy in his place sane? Yes, that is sane.
The military commissions act makes it possible for the US government to designate ANY PERSON an enemy combatant for terrorists acts or (more importantly) aiding or interacting with any other person who acts against the interests of the US. SIC.
That is wildly incorrect. See 928a.1. for the definition. The law provides that the government can only designate those as unlawful enemy combatants who have "engaged in hostilities or who have purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or its allies, and who is NOT a member of any regular armed forces or militia of any government, recognized or unrecognized.
Once designated, that person basically loses their rights and enters a kangaroo court system
A designated unlawful combatant has all the rights provided under the military commissions, including a court with a fully qualified and competent judge; a fully qualified and competent defense counsel, either hired by the accused, or else provided by the military; a competent court reporter who makes a verbatim transcript of the proceedings; to be informed of the charges against him, which are to be sworn and signed by a member of the court; the right to not incriminate himself, and any statements obtained by torture are inadmissible; the right to present evidence in his defense; the right to cross-examine the witnesses who testify against him, and to respond to examine and respond to evidence admitted against him; the right to challenge the qualifications of the judge or counsel, including one peremptory challenge; the right to any exculpatory evidence known by the prosecution; the right to a copy of the proceedings; the right to no cruel or unusual punishment; the right of appeal, including appeal of the final judgment to the federal circuit court and to the Supreme Court; etc, etc, etc.
that can include secret evidence, prosecutors talking privately with the judge, sealed testimony from anonymous accusers, etc etc etc. As I said, you have to go read it, carefully.
The only ex parte (talking privately with the judge) that is allowed, is a motion to claim that certain information is classified and should be excluded. No evidence itself is presented ex parte. For national security privilege to be invoked, the head of an executive or military department must find that (1) it is classified, and (2) disclosure would be detrimental to national security. In that event, the judge may delete certain classified items from the document being submitted for evidence, or substitute a portion or a summary of it, to protect sources, methods, or activities. In no case is a defendant tried without knowing the nature of the evidence or without having the opportunity to counter it. Does he have all the rights of a criminal defendant? Of course not. Nor would that be appropriate.
As for habeas corpus (I don't think you mentioned it,
My titanium Spork from Thinkgeek http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/outdoors/8ace/ right now!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I think you need to read more budday: http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071126/NATION/111260034/1001
"Gee. These people really don't like us. Let's invade their country"
"Okay." Afghanistan? The government there was harboring the people who carried out the attacks - actively protecting them, in fact. If ever there was a legitimate reason for war, this was it! Or is there some kind of threshold for devastation that 9/11 didn't meet?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Taxpayers paid for the research and development, taxpayers insure against any sort of nuclear accident, taxpayers pay for the waste storage dump, taxpayers pay for security to keep this out of terrorist hands, so it seems quite logical that private industry should keep the profits from selling these things. What a great deal! I'm always amazed how libertarian-leaning people can be such fanboys for nuclear power. Nuclear power requires vastly more big government involvement at every step of the way than any other form of power.
So in your world treating people with respect is "coddling and capitulation"? You sound like a really pleasant and friendly person.
it's not a problem with enough/not enough energy for the world.
...
... prolly it will take
...
... power. but until then, thanx but no thanx to nuclear power!
the problem is that humans dont tend to live longer then 100 years.
every gneration seems to be prone to repeat the mistakes of the previous one
to some extent.
and we are doing it again.
the genration before us now, discovered oil and a machine typ that could use it.
this is the world we have outside now.
the word that is dangerous is "abundant".
if our generation goes down the path of abundant nuclear energy, sooner or later
future generation will have the same problems we have today (=pollution).
the safe word is refinement. we need to refine our energy consumtion. we need to
get better aero dynmaics for cars. cars need to be less heavy.
houses need to be better isolated. water, etc. needs to be better recycled.... etc. etc.
combined cycle..wahtever it's called power generation stations
geez, why buy a energy saving light bulb, when you build a new house? after all
they are WAY mroe expensive then ur regular edison light bulbs
a few years to break-even the extra cost from a expensive "neon light bulb"
to a regular light bulb. (*)
this is the problem. we have enough energy (power).
the problem is the way we waste it
i'm not against nuclear, just against the waste (consumtion) mentality,
that WILL make nuclear (waste) a problem in the future.
if we learn to refine our energy consumtion, then maybe, maybe i might start supporting
this NASTY stuff prefixed with nuclear
remember where all those (dead-cheap) ol' skool lead-mercury batteries went?
Oh that story sure sounds credible. Just like all those cute anecdotes that tend to pop up whenever there's some sort of war drum beating or crisis looming.
Have you heard the one about the atheist professor and the piece of chalk?
Grow up.
Install one of these suckers in the next iPod/iPhone and all those whiners complaining about the battery replacement fee will shut up.
1) Do you understand the difference between a bath tub and a hot tub? Your math is off by about a factor of 4.
2) Do you understand the chemical properties of uranium hydride? Your statements about cooling are groundless.
Welcome to exciting world of nuclear engineering, where nuclear engineers do the design work. Go get them some coffee.
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
> The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and
> these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
You've completely ignored the whole raft of problems that come along with hydro-electric. I'll agree that they're primarily environmental problems, but that doesn't make them any less problems and doesn't make them "not economic problems," either. For instance, silting eventually impairs the hydroelectric facility itself without some amount of maintenance. People whose livelihood is based on fishing wouldn't think that cutting off fish runs is "merely environmental." Both of these problems have solutions, and those solutions are being practices. (Though there are still many people who would like to see the Niagara and Colorado rage free, at least periodically, not just for the "raw nature," but for the downstream ecosystem health.) But to pretend that anything is problem free is naive.
For that matter, geothermal uses up one of those non-renewable energy sources - the original heat from the Earth's creation. Yea, there's some radioactive-generated heat there too, but the Earth is still radiating the heat of its birth.
As for fossil fuels, the only reason there isn't an outcry about them is that we're used to it. From what I've heard, fossil fuels send more radioactivity up the smokestack in the fly ash than we've released in nuclear accidents. (Caveat - I don't know how effective current scrubbing is at removing the radioactive components.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
These things can be made safe from terrorist hands rather easily. Bury them in well known locations entoumbed in 1000 tons of concrete and a few sensors. To "steal" one would take a lot of time and effort and could not be a covert effort. You could also embed cell phones, GPS, and other tech deep in the devices and if they are moved it will be easily tracked. Those could be overcome, but if you put it deep in teh device, that again would be difficult and time consuming.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Kind of like the fearmongering of Team B back in the 70's, eh?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Do you understand the difference between electricity and heat? TFA mentions heat output, not electrical output. This is not an electric generator. Is it too much to ask that you read the article before dismissing it as propaganda?
Nevertheless, it is great for industrial applications, like creating steam for coal sand extraction or syngas production. With appropriate co-generation facilities, it could work for residential heat and power, but that's pretty pointless -- large nuclear reactors are already quite efficient at large scale power production. Isolated locations like Antarctica will see these; Middle America will not.
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
I'll stick with the science people as well, but preferably those that don't have a direct stake in the technology being reviewed. I think if you are eating out of the research budget you should not be in on the policy decisions. That's good practice in accounting and the same goes for science. You want to see a clear separation between those that 'do' and those that 'check'. Science run wild is just as bad as anything else without controls, and possibly worse. Politicians and scientists collaborating to undermine the public good and plunder the planet is the worst of both. Monsanto comes to mind in this context.
Politicians are the scum of the earth as things are right now, but I'm not convinced that a 'meritocracy' based on your scientific status would be any better. From what I can see of the scientific world from my position it is mostly about ego, and that is pretty close to how politicians operate. All these parties have an agenda, as someone without any clout in either of these worlds I like 'full disclosure'.
MP3 Search Engine
Just be glad it's the USA you're talking about. Yes, we do stuff wrong, and things get out of hand. But we have a system that corrects itself before stuff gets completely beyond repair. We're already on top of fixing this one, and we're likely to put stuff in place to prevent it from happening again. If we were anyone but the United States of America, we'd might have already given up in a panic like everyone else seems to have already given up on us.
Dude, you don't need hoards of people. It only took one or two to take down the Murrah federal building, It was about 7 who took down the twin towers and parts of the pentagon. Another 2 or 3 that blew up a train station in Spain. And I'm not sure how many handfuls launched the poisonous gas strikes in China's (or was it japan's?) subway.
.000001 percent of the people in the world dumb enough to attempt to kill others for some stupid reason that doesn't make enough sense for a bunch of others to follow in kind.
Put it all together and you have what amounts to less then
And yes, there will be someone stupid enough eventually to attempt to get one of these either in their hands to makes something destructive or do something destructive onside in an attempt to cause some amount of harm to others. Maybe it gets them hard like Dohmer, Maybe it is some sort of intellectual thrill like Bundy, Maybe it is some neo-political statement, or maybe, just maybe, some nuts were convinced that if they die while spreading senseless death to others, that they would get 72 virgins in the afterlife. The only problem is that no one told them those virgins would always remain virgins and they were going to a hell instead of a heaven. But you see, there are bad people in the world. There are people who can convince other people to be bad. Judging from the tone of your post and the total lack of common sense, I might think you were a bad person too. That or really really ignorant.
especially solar, since its going to produce the most power at the same time that most people are going to be running their AC
Also bear in mind that there are large parts of the world where the peak load is heating not aircon.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
"Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!"
Something I have yet to see mentioned on slashdot is the glassification of radioactive wastes. This process converts extremely dangerous chemical and radioactive elements into inert glass which could safely be deposited in some of our planets deepest oceanic trenches. There are constantly new ways of disposing of radioactive materials being thought up and just because it has a "decades old half-life" is the most ridiculous statement ever. If you for whatever reason subscribe to this line of reasoning, then ask yourself why our cities are dumping thousands upon thousands of tons of chemicals into our water systems and letting them flow downstream. Do you honestly think we have the ability to purify out water such that the water we end up pouring downstream is pristine? Not at all! Daily chemicals of varying toxicity are dumped into the environment, and these will not simply break down in a matter of years.
While I admit that the threat of terrorism is often claimed, when the real intent is to compel the compliance of the citizenry, rather than promote their safety and well being. Nevertheless, when it comes to a company scattering thousands upon thousands of "nuclear batteries" across the country, with no obvious plan for avoiding the deliberate misuse of the very dangerous materials inside, saying "You're just terrormongering" isn't going to cut it. It's one thing to say that our reaction to 9/11 was overblown, misdirected, ineffective, etc. I would agree on all counts. It's quite another to say that the makings for a dirty bomb don't need security protections because, hey, terr'ists are just boogeymen. These tiny installations are going to need serious security precautions before we should even think about letting them on the market.
The Toshiba device is a reactor. It incorporates a steam generator to harvest heat carried by molten sodium from the nuclear core. This steam then turns a turbine generator set. RTGs use thermoelectric junctions that develop small voltages when heated. RTGs have been used on outer-planet space missions when there's not enough solar flux to meet mission power needs with photovoltaics. RTGs are simple, reliable, and very inefficient in terms of their electrical power density. A 10MWe RTG would probably have to be at least 100x the volume of the Toshiba reactor.
She should have asked for directions but she was too busy wearing the pants.
Not only what you said, but "Crazy People" exist amongst "Normal People." You don't have to track down every crazy person, you only have to ensure that the general mass of people are willing to turn them in or stop them themselves. Obviously when you support totalitarian regimes, the populations of those countries are much more inclined to turn a blind eye to those who would murder you. >br?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
First, I doubt this would get into widespread use, it would instantly generate high return targets for terrorists. Dig one up and blow it up and you would spread the radioactive uranium across a wide area and into the atmosphere.
It might be useful at the south pole research stations. Currently they operate on generators running off JP-8 jet fuel I believe and produce 1 megawatt of electricity. With 27 megawatts of thermal output, you could get a lot more electrical output and keep more of an area warm. This leads to another place where it may be useful, as a power plant and heat source for a lunar or martian base.
So -- nothing to fear, here. Please move along? And if there were, it's because we haven't worked on making people like us enough?
And you got rated 5s for that load of rhetorical dogsh@t?
Analyze and manage risk. It doesn't mean denying it, and it doesn't mean exaggerating it. Take your political views and try to make your brain come up with something a little better than yelling, waving your hands, calling out "Fearmonger!" and stamping your foot.
The neutrons coming out are too fast to react inside the core (they escape before they do so). So you have to insert moderators to slow the neutrons and then the core becomes critical. Remove the moderators and it drops to subcriticality. But it's still quite radioactive and warm, just not likely to blow up.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
If it can be coerced to output a lot of controlled power over a couple of days or weeks, it might be interesting to use one or more of these to charge up a less controversial energy storage system - something local but not necessarily even portable. Pump a couple of billion gallons of water up to the top of a mountain, use a river to restock a massive hydrogen storage facility, that kind of thing. Then once the recharge is done, truck the nukes on out of there again.
Sure, conversion inefficiencies and all that. On the plus side, no-one would be able to dig up and nick the battery.
The name Hyperion predates Dan Simmons' book. *SPOILER FOLLOWS* If you read the rest of the series you find that Earth wasn't destroyed, it was transported to the Magellanic Clouds by the "Lions and Tigers and Bears"
Oh, I hardly think he's going to enjoy it.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
"One seeks a midwife for his thoughts, another someone to whom he can be a midwife: thus originates a good conversation.
"Gee. These people really don't like us. Let's invade their country"
"Okay." Wasn't it more:
"Gee. These people really don't like us. Let's invade their country"
"But I have business interests in Saudi Arabia. Can we invade Iraq instead?"
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The article says,
life imitating art yet again...
[quote]Perhaps, the US might start working on ways to have fewer (asshole) people in the world angry at them and wanting to blow up their cities with dirty bombs? That might be a good place to start.[/quote]
Ah yes. While we're at it, tell those jews to stop doing that stuff that they do that made Hitler hate them! It was all their fault they were being attacked.
It was also the woman's fault she was raped! She was asking for it!
I've always loved this argument, it's good for a laugh.
But seriously, come on.
Keyword--spokeswoman. If it was a engineer or scientist making the analogy, I believe it. Nice idea though.
How about we refer to this device as a "thin crust pizza pocket"? With a thermal metabolism of 27 MW per small number of cubic meters we are looking at the kind of energy density underlying the slab of Mt St Helens that is no longer there. Slap on a trailer hitch and be the first person in your neighborhood to drive one across the border.
Way to ruin a joke... :p
=Smidge=
If you're worried about radiation, consider that burning coal outputs a non-trivial amount due to its own uranium content. That on top of other side effects arguably makes it less safe than nuclear reactors (assuming a sane fuel recycling policy that currently the US does not have).
A Chernobyl type disaster simply is impossible with US reactor designs. Chernobyl was a massive design and operating failure. The lack of a containment building significantly contributed to the spread and all US reactors and designs have at least that and usually more. Also many new designs, when lacking coolant will not melt down in a run-away reaction but instead will actually stop reacting altogether, so the uncontrolled state becomes "off" instead of "slag".
As with *ALL* forms of energy generation (and really anything mechanical), following procedure is necessary for maximum safety. Making it hard to produce new prototype reactors and make new production plants a fiscal reality makes it difficult to formulate adequate procedures and train personnel, in fact making everyone less safe, not more safe.
I would happily live near a nuclear power plant. The sooner we increase our energy production via nuclear power, the less coal we burn, the less dependent we are on foreign oil and the more money we can use to investigate fusion power which will likely become the dominate power generation method until we can build adequate space based solar collection arrays for industrial power generation.
The acceleration of an object is approx 9.8 meters per second, per second. I.E. at the end of the first second 9.8 meters, second second 19.6 third second 29.4... this is ACCELERATION, there is also drag (Friction)on the object in a medium, that will limit the speed somewhat hence why an object with a round parachute "Falls" slower... and Terminal Velocity is when the drag equals the force of gravity through a medium... say a person jumps off a six foot ladder, and someone dives off a ten meter platform... the person on the platform will hit the water at a higher rate of speed than the person on the ladder will hit the ground... but... someone falling from say 30000 feet will not make a bigger crater than someone falling 3000 (1/10th the distance) their speed will be equal...
I do not suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! E. A. Poe
The French? I think you mean the Americans. Unfortunately, American nuclear technology doesn't actually get used here -- the public has been told that they its bad for the environment.
Actually, he has a good point, I say we destroy all technology and return to stone-age living like our forefathers. With no technology to exploit and us living in caves there will be nothing to destroy and we will have defeated the terrorists.
There are about 700 million air trips per year. I estimate that the unnecessarily increased screening is 1 hour each versus pre-9/11. 8760 hours/year, so 79,909 years. At 80 years/life, about 1000 lives. If you assume the average passenger has lived half his/her life, 2000 lives per year.
Why "unnecessarily increased"? Increased screening for weapons is not needed due to strengthened crew doors. Shoe removal for everyone is not justified by one idiot who couldn't get the fuse to light - the ban on matches and cigarette lighters suffices. Ditto ban on liquids due to the incident in Britain in which their authorities later admitted the stuff couldn't have been mixed into an explosive in the air.
Explosives in checked and carry-on luggage like Lockerbie, a real concern, still aren't covered by sniffers at many airports.
What wouldn't be theatre? Carry-on and checked luggage through x-ray and explosives sniffer. Person through metal detector and explosives sniffer. No random checks. No shoe removal.
If the US lost four or fewer planes a year to in-sky explosions without significant ground damage the rest of us would come out ahead.
I mean how else does it keep going and going and going, without breaking all of the laws of thermodynamics!
No more than the rest of the world. I don't know anyone that has changed any part of their lives in regard to extremism in the middle east other than maybe not visiting. :) The fact is, media has hyped the 'terror' for their own benefit. Of course, it doesn't mean people aren't fearful I just don't see it. I see the government abusing the supposed fear for their own benefit. That needs to be stopped, can't wait for bush and friends to get out of office.
A catastrophic event could happen and it is prudent to take measures against anyone. We have enough nutcases in the U.S.A. that assuming it is a 'terrorist' doesn't matter. I didn't matter before 9/11 and it doesn't matter after.
Not to mention, if a country decided to sponser something like this and there was event a small taint, I expect 3rd world war as USA starts bombing the crap out of something regardless of whether it will change anything.
But that's the beauty of terrorism, it causes extreme reactions on both sides. At any rate, we do need nuclear power, it makes the most sense. We are way late already in developing this.
Cheers
Don't forget living a world where a psychopath holds the keys to a massive nuclear arsenal that he can launch whenever his monkey-ass itches. Makes this portable reactor look insignficant as a risk factor.
Got a giggle from the summary about the little reactor doing it's "chemical thing". Seems like if it's got tubes, it's not only a chemical and nuclear hazard, but could cause an internet tube-thingie meltdown as well.
I wish it were, but when you kill people's loves and relatives, and then give them the opportunity to strike back, you shouldn't be surprised if they do.
This isn't (necessarily) "fearmongering", it's awareness of guilt. And we, i.e. the US as a country, *are* guilty. Most of us know it, and just feel helpless to stop it. Some portion of those know it, but won't admit it to themselves...and thus get all defensive. And some don't even seem to realize that we've done anything wrong. I end up unsure whether they are (willfully) ignorant or psychopathic.
All that said, fear of radiation is a bit overblown. If we treated cars the same way, there wouldn't be a car allowed on the streets. (It's not that it isn't dangerous, it is. But it's only one danger among many.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Neither of my Senators seem to care what I think. They're more interested in collecting money for the next campaign.
One of Democratic Senator has been voting in ways that are likely to cause me to vote Republican next time, because if I'm going to have a Republican Senator, why not at least have one that can't sabotage the Democratic party leadership.
My Representative does seem to represent me...but that's 1/2 of one branch of the government that's responsive to my opinions.
My city council seems corrupt...but I haven't been able to analyse it well enough to be certain just HOW corrupt.
The state I'm not sure of. The state government seems mildly responsive, when it isn't shackled by federal requirements. Unfortunately it's broke and in debt.
Does this, to you, sound like a self-correcting system? Can you tell what state I'm from? (If not, then this may be even more common that it looks like from my vantage.)
I'm from California.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Well, first off I have to say I respect your commitment to a set of ideals - it takes a lot to go risk getting killed or maimed in service of one's country. That commitment is a very honorable thing to follow.
I do have to respectfully disagree with your view that what we're doing will work in the long run. Tactically there are many successes, and those are to your credit and to the credit of all the troops there trying to do the right thing. But strategically, the war is a disaster. We basically took a thinly balanced set of regional politics and made it much worse by empowering Iran, inflaming relations with Turkey, and unleashing years of sectarian wars in Iraq. We didn't create the underlying problems in Iraq: the power struggle between the Kurds, the Shia and the Sunni, or Iranian aspirations to regional control, and I honestly believe that Saddam was so near collapse that we would have had to reckon with geopolitics anyway. But our current course of action is like smelling gas in a house, worrying that there could be an explosion, and lighting a match to try to burn off the gas. The key actions that would have served to stabilize Iraq and the region are political - we should have brokered a deal with Turkey and the Kurds BEFORE invading, we should have worked harder on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before invading, we should have insisted to Mubarak that Egypt hold free and fair elections (which would have resulted in political participation by the Muslim Brotherhood) before invading. The list of needed political actions goes on and on: negotiate some sort of oilfields services for a no-nukes deal with Iran, enlist the rest of the world (esp. China and Russia) in reconstruction, shut down AQ Khan's nuclear network, force the Saudis to get serious about slowing financing for terrorist and insurgent groups, etc.
Huge props to you all for all the successes you've accomplished, but long-term success or failure of an Iraqi state depends on political actions, and until those are taken, we can't change the fundamental situation there.
Wow, are YOU misinformed. A nuclear reactor first off can't create a nuclear explosion, any one that would be produced for use in North America in itself utilizes a design, by law, which makes use of a negative heat core coefficient. Secondly they device obviously would not be uranium as it is too expensive to refine and collect for a comercial venture, instead it would be plutonium. Plutonium is one of those things that most educated people feel they understad but is actually very imsunderstood at its basis when it comes to nuclear reactors and bombs. A uranium bomb is simple to construct and amke for just about any country given that they have the resources to refine it, which most dont, the isotope of urnaium used is about 0.07% of what is normally found in raw uranium....and raw uranium is found as one part per million in most granite mines. Plutonium OTOH is very common, much more so then one would think and it is actually quite harmless, again another misconception, due to it only being an alpha emitter. The onyl ain differnce between the two bomb designs is this A uranium bomb is simple in design it has a small plutonium core and an adequate amount (AKA critical mass) or uranium encompassing it in a spherical design, this sphere is split in two,a nd a peice or berylium and carbon is placed between them, this construct sits inside a shell, when a high impact explosive is triggered inside the tube the two semi-spherical halfs slam together sandwhciching the beryliuma nd carbon whcih in effect releases a neutron, this neutron hits the pluoniuma nd realeses another two neutrons which hit the uranium (assuming theres enough there and the neutron doesnt jsut pass throuhg, hence CRITICAL MASS) and makes the uranium split and throw off five neutrons these five hit more uranium and you get a chain reaction. A plutonium bomb works on aan implosion design which uses explosive lenses to create a simultaneous explosion around the core at 360 degress......this is very ahrd and almost impossible unless you have the engineering resources of a large developed country behind you.....it has to be an exact perfect explosion....This kind of technology isnt available to msot terrorist groups and is too ahrd to attain....therefore i dont get what the fuss is about "terrorists making a nuke" it simply is so improboble to do that its shoudlnt be a concern....Sadam couldnt even create a plutonium bomb cause of the difficulty so instead he tried to make a uranium bomb, the only problem was is that he didnt have the means to enrich urnaium excpet for the use of Calutrons which suck up an extremem amount or power to operate adn produce very little refined uranium.... I HATE FEAR MONGERING and people who dont understand these topics do a great job of it when they atart talking about things they dont wholly understand.
Chernobyl had a reactor design that actually had a positive heat coefficient, which means the hotter it got the quickler ti reacted. Thius means that when the reaction was happening and the core was heating and got to the capacity of tnt, instead of maintiang its reactionslwoly and producing heat and energy, it simply blew up. Chernobyl was not a nuclear reaction but a chemical one which was equivilant to its core mass in TNT, the problem with Chernobyl was that it burned and released plutonium gas into the air whic flooded up the copuntry side, and though it was only alpha emitting plutoniuma dn plutonium is safe, it isnt when its inhaled....and this si what caused a lot of the damage.
Has anyone thought of tapping the power of nitrogen instead of hydrogen? When the Oklahoma City bombing took place there was considerable interest in reducing access to high explosives. Has anyone improved upon binary explosives that you could safely use as a power supply for a laptop? Talk about a scorched lap! :-)
- waste
- safety
- containment in case the 'safety' bit fails Not a nuclear engineer, physicist, etc.. but I've looked into them for an energy project. I can try to find sources if you'd like or wikipedia has outside links to some of them in the Gen IV article. Google also had some interesting papers on it. http://nuclear.energy.gov/genIV/neGenIV1.html was an excellent starting point. There's also an international nuclear research program: http://www.gen-4.org/
Waste would not be a problem if we would be allowed to reprocess the waste from our current reactors. However, that is a legislative issue. Additionally, a large portion of the next generation (Gen IV) reactors are supposed to run on the waste of their predecessors and produce far less waste than before.
Many of these "new" (Loosely used, some are enhancements of old designs with improved tech. Others are new since the tech now exists to make them feasible) reactors will have significantly improved safety controls over their predecessors; many of these are passive such that the reactor will stop itself instead of having a guy do it. A lot of these designs are also closed cycle so a large portion of the containment problems would be alleviated.
Glancing through your posts, it's pretty clear that you're a solar/wind guy but you did acknowledge that nuclear was a need to solve the problems as a stopgap. My opinion is that we need nuclear as a replacement for coal plants given that both are pretty much continuous output. Wind and solar have their places but we can't always count on their consistency. Hell, solar won't be able to provide all our energy needs due to the maximum energy that hits the Earth at a given location. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be considered.
Energy is ultimately going to be provided by a suite of sources: wind, hydro, geothermal, nuclear, solar, etc. They all have their places and none of them can be ignored. All need R&D to work on ways to improve safety, manufacturing, efficiency, and the like to make them more feasible and attractive to industry.
However, I see the energy problem as a two-pronged problem: supply and demand. Everyone continues to focus on the supply side so heavily while demand generally goes overlooked. I think a large portion of the problem stems from the fact that reducing demand is seen as a move to decrease "quality of life" even though it doesn't have to. I really think there needs to be technology (or legislative) goals to reduce power consumption of appliances throughout the house and office: air conditioning, fridge, stove, computer, printer, networking equipment, etc... By reducing demand and making our supply more environmentally friendly, I think we can make a pretty big difference in emissions and air quality, future energy supply security and growth (plug-in electrics), job security for many, environmental damage (coal mining), etc... We are really only borrowing this planet from our children and grand children after all. I see it more as our children and grandchildren inherit all the problems we weren't bothered to solve in our lifetimes. Similar premise though.
Right, like I typed, 'population centers.' That's what you've quoted here.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I dont know where you are but the only two places I can speak of authoritively is Australia and Turkey.
:)
Neither have had any significant impact because of 9/11.
Australia now has tighter airport security and a security hotline. Nothing which has any impact.
Turkey hasnt changed at all. Security is lax as ever.
I am constantly amazed at how much greed can wipe histories lessons away, and how much hubris mankind has when profit margins are concerned. Has no one thought to point out to Ms. Blackwell that despite double 'a' batteries seeming safety that occasionally they do leak, but when they do however, the site of the leak does not require hundreds of years to recover, cause thyroid cancer, nor radiation poisoning.
History (and film) have shown us examples of men foolish enough to tempt the fates with statements that begin with "God himself could not sink this ship" and "KLATU. VERATA. NNNnnnecktie. Nectarine. Nickel, definitely an n word. KLATU. VERATA. nNNNChoughmumble cough cough cough."
The fates, such as history and Ash have shown us, are usually more than happy to give us a resounding "oh yeah?" and beat the tar out of our hubris. We never learn tho, there is always another Ash or Hyperion lurking around the corner ready to pronounce the phonetic incantations in the necronomicon 'for the record' and unleash evil on us all.
-m
-Magdalene --"there are 10 types of people in the world, those who read binary, and those who don't"
Afghanistan? The government there was harboring the people who carried out the attacks - actively protecting them, in fact. If ever there was a legitimate reason for war, this was it! Or is there some kind of threshold for devastation that 9/11 didn't meet?
The people who carried out the attacks died in them. They were mostly Saudi Arabian (none from Afghanistan or Iraq), were partially trained in Afghanistan, but received flight instruction in the U.S. Considering the capitulation of the Taliban before the war (they were willing to turn Bin Laden over to an Islamic court) and the opposition Al Qaeda has put up since the start of the war, it's unlikely that invading Afghanistan was the right decision. I think even the Taliban would have realized that losing their country was worth less than protecting Bin Laden. As it is now, the Taliban can fight the foreign invaders AND protect Bin Laden without a conflict of interest. Way to go, strategic war planners!
So can they make something 1/25,000th as big to power one home? I'll bet there's a bigger market for that.
J
1. In asserting I was off by a factor of four, you have proven my order-of-magnitude guesstimate.
2a. Although I'm pretty sure I've done more nuclear engineering design work than you ever will, I don't actually know the chemical properties of UH3. We nuclear engineers try pretty darned hard to keep our uranium from hydriding in the first place. It reacts violently with water. UO2 or UC is much more stable. Please explain why the chemical properties are so relevant in rejecting about 20MW of heat. Neither TFA nor the hyperionpowergeneration.com page gave any technical insight.
2b. "Your statements about cooling are groundless." Again, basic thermodynamics state that the heat must either be rejected somewhere, or the system will heat up. The heat must go somewhere. I just don't see why my statement is groundless.
So, at first I was annoyed, but maybe we can turn this into an educational experience. What's so great about UH3?
"Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
3 - The rational process of assessing risk and making choices about how to safely run a society is not a democratic process, and it should depend in no way on assuaging the fears of individuals, or the assertions from the lay public.
Risk/benefit analysis is a cold-blooded business but it's the only way to make the right decisions. Too many people get upset over this, when they read memos which explain that "this technology will result in x premature deaths over the next y years." What they simply do not understand is that the implementation and use of industrial-scale power systems has costs that can and must be calculated in terms of human life. The American public has proven itself, time and again, to be unable to properly assess the risks of nuclear vs. conventional power, and that inability has paralyzed our power-production industry for forty years. The truth is, the best you can do is pick from the least of multiple evils. That much it is possible, but you have to accept some risk.
Unfortunately, here in the U.S., Congress controls how our infrastructure dollars are spent, and they are way too sensitive to the wrong aspects of our mass psychology/psychoses. Worse, they exploit the general ignorance of our population with regards to numerical, scientific or technological issues, staying in power by convincing us that there is a boogeyman in every closet, whipping us into a frenzy over non-issues such as nuclear energy. It's become a twisted system, and I don't see any way out.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Afghanistan proved that even one country overrun by extremists is incompatible with our lifestyle. It had to go. Even a country run by horrid warlords is better for our interests than one run by militant extremists.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
They were mere pawns. Do you really think that someone smart enough to plan an attack like that would be stupid enough to kill himself for a couple of virgins?
I think half the people on slashdot would kill themselves for just one virgin.
Well, forgive me for not being impressed by that. An Islamic court? Why? Did they attack an Islamic country? No. I think a jury trial would be just fine, right here near the crime scene. They certainly did not capitulate - they were defiant right up until the end.
Why should Afghanistan be impressed with U.S. courts? They execute murderers in Islamic courts the same as the U.S. does (unlike most of the first world countries). What more do you want? Torture? Public humiliation? The "crime scene" for Bin Laden is not in the U.S. It's any training camps, places where money was transferred, or other interactions with the actual people who carried out the attacks. All those things probably occurred in Afghanistan. My question to you is: Why should a sovereign nation be forced to submit to another nation's court system? Should any U.S. citizen be charged in an Islamic court for crimes committed in that foreign country despite the fact that the U.S. citizen had never even been to that country? Should Blackwater agents and military personnel be tried in Afghanistan or Iraq courts for murdering the local citizens (not just casualties of war)? Should G. W. Bush be tried in Afghanistan or Iraq for bombing those countries?
Afghanistan proved that even one country overrun by extremists is incompatible with our lifestyle. It had to go. Even a country run by horrid warlords is better for our interests than one run by militant extremists.
This one is funny enough to respond to as well: First, you consider horrid warlords (ooh, maybe like Saddam?) better than extremists, but you don't really make a distinction between them other than that. I suppose you could be alluding to the fact that the U.S. put both the Taliban's predecessors and Saddam Hussein in power (both warlords) in an attempt to control events in the middle east, and armed both of them as well, and also screwed around in Iran. You're essentially saying that creating terrorism in your children's generation is preferable to dealing directly with other nations in the present. Instead, let's just use subversive tactics to ruin other countries in defense against the Hordes of Communism (or whatever) and arm them so they'll be full of angry U.S. haters in a couple decades, and trained and armed to the teeth by the CIA.
That is wildly incorrect. See 928a.1. for the definition. The law provides that the government can only designate those as unlawful enemy combatants who have "engaged in hostilities or who have purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or its allies, and who is NOT a member of any regular armed forces or militia of any government, recognized or unrecognized.
Except for the fact that is not the only way to end up before the tribunal system: "The following offense shall be triable by military commission under this chapter at any time without limitation..." (emphasis mine). Section 950v(b)(2) then goes on for pages to list triable offenses, including "any person" who, among other possibilities, is "in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States" (e.g., a citizen) and "knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States..." Also, this jewel, "Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission." Now, this might not sound too bad, obviously this is a bad person, right? Except that these are not people who have committed crimes being tried under this law (since they have not been tried yet), but people who have been accused of doing these things, and, if the accused person was always guilty, why would we need a court system at all?
There are similar problems with your defense of a person's rights under the tribunals. The law is complex, has many possible loopholes, and is not under the same oversight as the normal court system. You say that the process is appealable, but, effectively, it makes no difference: "no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever ... relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions." In other words, no interlocutory appeals, no complaints about the process itself; no appeals at all until all is said and done and you have been sentenced, years after you have been incarcerated. Habeas corpus is effectively denied since, once the process is started, you cannot challenge it. If forced to, they can accuse you of "conspiracy to molest a kangaroo in the support of terrorism" to bypass habeas and bog down the tribunal process essentially forever. Compare the number of people planned to be tried by the tribunals to the number of people actually held. The right to a "speedy trial" is in no way upheld.
If the tribunal process gave you the same process as the normal courts, why create a parallel system? They are doing the minimum they can at each stage when forced to by years-long Constitutional challenges. The assertion that it does not materially change the status of the accused is preposterous.
A little web searching led me to the patent (sorry, find it yourself). It's a true fission reactor, cleverly using the properties of uranium hydride to moderate itself automatically, maintaining constant temperature once started, but with provision to shut down if necessary.
For the record, I agree that caution should be taken with projects like this, for a number of reasons, and you make some sensible points, but, there is a difference between proactive and self-destructive.
So, yes, we're obsessed with guns and nukes because you don't just sit around waiting for the next attack, you try to be proactive. The next attack probably isn't going to happen with airplanes, because no one is going to believe the next guy who stands up and says, "Do as I say and you will live!"I've had two direct hits by tornadoes plus several other disasters. I am "proactive" in that I know where my supplies are, inventory and check them on occasion, and know where to go when weather gets dicey. But I am not "obsessed" with anything, and I do not live in fear of the weather. I know there is a risk and I deal with it. It does not take over my life.
Post 9/11, fear has been allowed to infect our politics, our foreign relations, and even our daily lives. Lives and treasure have been flushed at a fantastic rate. Major changes are being made or contemplated to our political system. This is unnecessary. Terrorists have existed for a long time. Some four hundred years ago a guy stuffed the British Parliament building full of powder. Several villages were exterminated during the Revolutionary War era by extremists as well as the smaller scale violence against civilians leading up to the conflict. Our system was set up with an understanding of what is possible. Some adjustment needs to be made for technology and times, but not a throw-our-hands-up-in-the-air and attack or distrust everything. I am not certain this is what you are conveying, but it is a narrow ledge. Life goes on. Some risk is well worth freedom.
Terrorism is just a criminal justice problem. The British learned that: when they started treating terrorists like common, every day criminals, they got much less attention, did not look like martyrs, and did not recruit any where near as well. Reacting strongly to them gives them power.
Don't confuse the attack on Iraq with 9/11, because the only connection is that Bush found Americans in a surly enough mood that it seemed like a good time to go in. The only place that the US has gone out "and start[ed] fucking up as many muslims as [they] can" is Afghanistan, and you'll have a hard time convincing me that Afghanistan was unwarranted. Also, the US is fairly tame when it comes to rolling into a country. Look into the US in the Philippines (250,000 - 1,000,000 civilians dead) or Japan in China (20 - 35 million dead) for how nasty one can be.
The attack on Iraq should be connected with 9/11 because it was and still is for many people. 9/11 set the stage and was used, as you yourself point out, to make it happen. It was another knee-jerk reaction by the public out of fear and revenge with no backing of hard (or really any) facts. The other rationales presented were just a smokescreen to try to salve peoples' consciences for what I think many people knew was wrong from the beginning. This is why the US government structure was set up to be conservative. It was supposed to be difficult to go to war to prevent exactly these kinds of reactions. The proper action would have been a letter of Marque and Reprisal, just like has been used against organized piracy in the past--- an authorization for force directed against the extra-governmental entities directly responsible for the attack--- instead of handing the Executive a stack of blank checks. The morality of some of what we did can be argued; I do not think it arguable that we should have given a lot more thought and less emotion to the doing of it.
This is true, but that is why a responsible alternative power scheme always 1) includes batteries or some other means to store energy, and 2) multiple sources of energy. Generally when it is not sunny during the day, for instance, it is because it is overcast, likely windy, and just possibly raining. Some active conservation and care in using the electricity also helps. Knowing when energy cost and availability are at their highest and planning accordingly helps. Sadly, few people care about the environment if it actually means affecting their lives or ways of doing anything. But we all adjust our driving and fueling according to the price at the pumps these days, so maybe awareness will bring change.
That being said, time is against us and some form of baseline power will always be necessary at least in urban areas, so we will need a mixed solution and, yes, that will probably include nuclear at least for a good bit.
The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
This part a lot of people miss. You need baseline power for two reasons: 1) to make sure you have some way to meet at least basic demand all of the time and 2) to even out dirty power. The mass of the turbines in nuclear, hydroelectric, and coal turbines (somewhat in that order) absorbs surges, problems with polarity, and so forth which might otherwise blow bulbs, reduce the lives of appliances, and maybe even start fires. Wind turbines, gas jets, and other generators do not come close.
In rural areas, it is much easier to get around this because you have more off-grid setups. If you create your own power or get it locally, it is much easier to monitor and respond to. There is also less of a cascade effect from other users/producers in the grid, like the domino effect which took out the grid in New York a bit ago. In a rural area, you can much more easily change your activities to match power availability. I can glance at the battery status to decide whether to run another load of wash, watch a movie, or just play cards with my wife. When battery status is high and the sun or wind is going, I can go crazy. Not hard to do and just becomes habit.
In the end, we need to build our energy policy around a lot of solutions: baseline power, local self-sufficiency, renewable energy, conservation, research. With a mixed solution, we have a better chance of hitting the right one and dealing with things that go wrong. If, as you say, wind shifts and a wind farm or two is left high and dry, we will be happy to have solar, and hydro, and methane plants, and, maybe a portable nuclear pile as well.
It sounds to me as though you have an irrational fear of nuclear power which is a shame because we're going to be seeing it utilised a lot more often now that governments are realising there simply is no other alternative.
Bingo. We have painted ourselves into a tight corner. Unless people are willing to do a crash-change to a fraction of our current consumption, the effect of aging plants coming off-line in the next few years will not be replaceable by anything else. I, personally, am not irrationally afraid of nuclear power, but I do not like the fact that we have been forced into a place where we have no option.
Lives currently stand at about 4000 over 4 years - again, not exactly what I would call "a fantastic rate". Terrorism is just a criminal justice problem. Domestic terrorism, sure. But in Afghanistan Bin Laden was being sheltered by the Taliban - out of reach of our justice system. At that point, it becomes a foreign policy issue. For the record, we didn't get nearly as wound up about Timothy McVeigh or the Olympic bombing in Atlanta - they were both handled by the justice system. Reacting strongly to them gives them power. The trade center was bombed once by these same chuckleheads, and we didn't really react. So they came back and did it right the second time. I fail to see how inaction helped us.
I don't really disagree with what you said about Iraq - but I reiterate that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and the only connection was Bush's new policy of pre-emptive war that was spurred by 9/11.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Iraq, until we went in with guns-a-blazin', didn't produce any terrorists at all. Saddam the dictator (a warlord, if you prefer) did not lead to terrorism. Although, you could argue that our support of the Shah in Iran DID eventually lead to extremism, which in turn led to terrorism in today's Iraq. Again, there was the Soviet connection - the Shah was the lesser of two evils.
Anyway, I don't think that you can make the general statement that a dictator today means Islamic terrorists tomorrow. The world isn't so black and white. And in any event, the US is trying to learn from past mistakes and make sure that democracy eventually is installed in both countries. People want to run from this, and I think that is very short-sighted for the reasons you state - some pain now should prevent some pain for our children.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Ok, am I the only true geek here. How come no one else has said this: I want one! And I have no intent of sharing with the neighbours either
"The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
:-(
From what I've read in "New Scientist", fissionable nuclear material is going the same way as oil -- in fact, we have fewer years supply of Uranium than coal, which are predicted, currently to last about 400 years. Not that coal is a good way to power anything, but I wouldn't put all my hopes in nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion doesn't look like it will provide any answers, either, unless we figure out a way to harness the equivalent force of a sun's gravity to contain the thermonuclear reaction. The energy requirements of containment appear to make fusion, as a power source, infeasible in the foreseeable future.
The most promising source of new energy: geothermal. One can build geothermal generation plants almost anywhere that sits on top of a sufficiently hot heat source -- like the stored heat energy of the earth. Tapping into geothermal energy to meet the power demands of the 21st appears far more likely than development of fusion (even though fusion is certainly more portable). With geothermal, , humanity would have enough power to sustain us until humanity shuffles, either, off its mortal coil or off off this earthly rock (to other 'earthly' rocks!).
As for there being "simply no other alternative" than fission...you aren't thinking very hard (not that I'm against nuclear fission, but if the fuel is already in as short of supply as it appears, it better not be our only alternative).
Now we use LiIon on laptops and the worse that can happen is a local fire.
Fast forward in the future... will laptop users need to fear of vanishing all their city if their supplier sold them a bad nuclear battery?
There's a positive side as well: Perhaps with nuclear batteries, manufacturers will be forced to be more proactive to avoid manufacturing errors.
...whent these 4000 REACTORS all are done in 5 years and become toxic nuclear waste, who is gonna pays to take care of them for the next 100,000 years?
Do that math and then tell me it is economical.
Not to mention, no human institution has ever lasted 100,000 years, especially without profit.
AAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Treasure currently stands at about 1% of the GDP. I don't know that I would call that "a fantastic rate".
Lives currently stand at about 4000 over 4 years - again, not exactly what I would call "a fantastic rate".
Plus the increases in homeland security on federal, state, and local levels, the long-term costs of the war (we disagree here on accounting, as I consider Iraq fallout), such as veterans' benefits, loss of productivity due to workforce overseas, severe drawdown of military inventory which will have to be replaced, etc. We haven't begun paying the cost; that will fall to my kid(s). Even "1% of GDP" is quite a bit compared to what it could be used for.
As for lives, there are also some 30,000 wounded. Because of advances in defensive equipment, medical technology, and the nature of the conflict(s), a large chunk are maimed and/or have suffered head trauma. This will have a lasting effect. Compared to highway deaths, just like 9/11, this is a drop in the bucket; I admit that, but it is completely disproportionate to the issue that triggered it.
Terrorism is just a criminal justice problem.Domestic terrorism, sure. But in Afghanistan Bin Laden was being sheltered by the Taliban - out of reach of our justice system. At that point, it becomes a foreign policy issue. For the record, we didn't get nearly as wound up about Timothy McVeigh or the Olympic bombing in Atlanta - they were both handled by the justice system.
Point taken. However, this is also where my comment on letters of Marque and Reprisal comes in. Whether they were used to authorize private or military action (some Constitutional disagreement), they provided a carefully tailored legal (recognized by international law), criminal mechanism specifically designed for the case: an non-governmental entity violating international law to inflict harm, difficult to wage direct war against, and possibly hiding behind the borders ("marque") of another nation. Afghanistan will end up costing much more than it should because we are not able to focus what we need on the problem. There is a giant Whoooossh as it gets sucked somewhere else. But, we don't seem to disagree on that, just how to label and account for it.
Reacting strongly to them gives them power. The trade center was bombed once by these same chuckleheads, and we didn't really react. So they came back and did it right the second time. I fail to see how inaction helped us.It did not get them the effect they wanted. That is why they had to come back. We did take action, just did not scream it to the world. Under Clinton (note I am not making Clinton the hero here), limited, focused action was taken against Al Qaeda. Under Bush, that action was canned and we largely took our eyes off the ball before 9/11. Now we are running around screaming and I fail to see where that gets us. There is a comfortable (or uncomfortable) medium somewhere.
I don't really disagree with what you said about Iraq - but I reiterate that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and the only connection was Bush's new policy of pre-emptive war that was spurred by 9/11.Agreed in principle. It just seems important to me to underline that it was the public post-9/11 panic and need for revenge that made it easy to do. If people had slowed down just a touch, it would not have been. On that particular day, it did not take me long to fear the public/government reaction more than the attack itself. This is true of a lot of high-profile but extremely rare dangers. I lived through a school shooting, have kept an eye on a number of others, and see the same thing there. Not much trying to fix problems, a lot of hand-wringing, finger pointing, and security theater. But that is a complete gripe in and of itself.
well said, and your probably right. One other problem that I see here, not totally sure the reason (maybe they spent to much time reading WWII and Vietnam books that make mention of 27 year old Lt Colonel's and see their chance to get a bump up) but to much time is spent over here Turning differing FOB's and COP's into different commander's little Palace's and "Home away from home's" a ridiculous amount of soldiers time is spent doing landscapping/painting/cleaning CRAP that we are just going to turn over to the IA, or close down. also where I'm at (Up north, near the kurdish region) should have been turned over to the IA a long time ago... once again probably haven't so that whatever commander is in charge can keep looking good.
This applies, so I'll cross-post:
"Last time I checked, I believe it's said that in 10,000 years all of the material of which speak so alarmingly would still be radioactive. Well, at least as radioactive as the raw ore from which it came. You know, like rocks? Which we've had buried in the ground unshielded, leaking dangerous trace amounts of radioactively into our groundwater supplies for a few billion years or so. I tell you, someone should DO something!
Not to belittle this, but we've had two major, ultimately worst-case radiological events occur: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And yet, both of those sites are habitable today. Millions of people live there, work there, play there. Let's repeat that. Two atomic BOMBS.
And you [the other poster] want to bitch about the "dangers" of a material fused into glass, tucked behind shields, and buried in a mountain?"
"... we will need to take a long hard look at what the long term effects will be..."
I have to disagree. We already know the dangers and the solutions. Sitting around and rehashing the same old tired arguments only serves the purposes of those who'd be perfectly happy if all we did was sit around and rehash the same old tired arguments. Why do you think that the opponents to a bill in Congress are only too happy to send it off to a committee?
Inaction equals no action.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Did you actually read your own post? While I agree with the latter statements, your first assertion is just STUPID. Is your position that bullied people who want the bullies to stop pushing them around deserve to be murdered? Are you serious? Why don't we just change the freaking foreign policy of America to include not supporting dictators and tyrants for the financial gain of the military-media-industrial complex. Wouldn't that be easier, cheaper and a little more sane then just saying "Off with their heads!" America needs to wake up and see that the cause these people are fighting for can be wiped out with the stroke of a pen as opposed to a sword. America is experiencing the blowback of half a century of interventionism, capitalistic opportunism and blatant imperialism. The NeoCons have used 9/11 (whether US govt sponsored, as I believe, or not)to hijack America. We have lost all of our freedom and the day is coming when you will no longer have the right to complain about it! Another 'attack' on America will happen. It will be big. It will make 9/11 look like a fender bender. The NeoCons will seize the opportunity to suspend, revoke or otherwise nullify the remainder of your rights and America will be plunged further into this black hole dug under the guise of national Security. I am a betting man and I put money on it happening before November 2008.
Um... can you name three things that prove your point? I can name any number of things that go against it -- e.g. the executive branch blatantly violates the law, and repeatedly thumbs their nose at any kind of congressional oversight, and yet the democratic leadership in Congress is doing their best to prevent impeachment from even being discussed.
Consider that Nancy Pelosi's constituency is San Francisco, and she's repeatedly declared that "impeachment is off the table". She doesn't need to guess on the will of the people on this one, we voted on a direct initiative calling for impeachment. For that matter, the nationwide polls on the subject bounce around between a third and more than half being in favor of impeachment (depending on who does the polls: one wonders where that wide spread comes from...). There's no way you can spin this as some extreme, crazy notion, it's essentially middle-of-the-road as far as the people at large are concerned, and conventional wisdom as far as the people of San Francisco are concerned.
What do you call a representive government that doesn't represent you?
electroniceric wrote:
You're jumping to a number of conclusions. All the guy said is that he was in Iraq. Maybe he's an accountant working for Blackwater.
(Or maybe he's a propagandist sitting in Washington, working for Bush Jr.)
i'm guessing you went through the American school system... complete with a lack of late 20th century history. self-righteous, educated ignorance... amazing.
you must be right, after all, there hasn't been any terrorist attacks on US soil since 2001. is that because there are no terrorists, or that maybe the feds are doing their job? and yes, that includes having ongoing operations overseas.
and if you even start to think there are no terrorists bent of attacking the US, then ask yourself, who was responsible for 9-11? the USSCole? TWA800? OKC? WTC'93? and a host of other attacks on American embassys during the 90s? maybe if the feds were doing their job back then, those events wouldn't have occurred.
here's a thought... ask some British or Israeli kids if terrorists exist, then maybe you'll start to understand. because sure as hell, your school teachers don't want you to know.
While the company featured in TFA seems to be trolling vapourware in order to grab some government cash, there are a couple of interesting points made in TFA and on the company website. First the company states on their site that the device will need to be refueled every five years. This means that if they are situated in populated areas radioactive material will need to moved to site, swapped over with spent material and the used material transported away from site. This leads me to ask several questions:
The second point the article makes is that the company intends to use a uranium compound as fuel. The old Russian devices used strontium 90 as a heat source, this was probably used as it is cheaper than plutonium 238 the other obvious choice. Uranium isotopes have extremely long half lives. I find it difficult to believe that they would use a uranium isotope, especially when they state they need to refuel every five years. You may find these devices less acceptable if any waste needs to be stored for hundreds of thousands of years. To me this makes the Russian RTG look like a sensible, conservative design. If the device is real then surely choosing plutonium-238, curium-242, curium-244 or the Russian favorite strontium-90 makes more sense.
I still think that apathy is going to be the problem with these devices, even if the device itself is maintained is this going to be the case with the supporting infrastructure? Organizations with toxic legacies today are often reluctant to clean up until legislation forces them to. If the device is safe within a population center the by products from its use could be unsafe outside of populated areas. In this case the risk of apathy has not been abated but merely moved elsewhere.
If you enjoyed the previous Bellona link then this one may also be of interest.
Surely somewhere in all this is an Australian scientist who couldn't get funding.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
While that point is well taken, I read his MySpace page - he's a soldier in Iraq. I also really believe that it takes guts to go into a war zone, contractor or not.
Plus, America is hardly civilized. Your healthcare system should be a cause for national shame. Certainly the American people have the sympathy of others, worldwide - at least in this respect.
For what it's worth, flamebait != reading an unpleasant (if obscured) truth.
Requiem for the American Dream
Unlikely. You'd still need a large amount of radioactive crap and that ain't easy to come by. Also the nature of bombs are that they blast stuff upwards, so most of it would dissipate very widely. Do the maths, the overall increase in background levels would be tiny. The US and UK military have both run tests on it and declared it useless - you'd overall do more damage by spending more money on extra explosives. Even nerve gas isn't as scarya s it sounds - remember Aum Shinrikyo's Sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway? 5,000 people injured but the death toll amounted to 12 - compare that to the 7/7 London Tube bombings - 50 dead there from conventional explosives. Basically, I don't think the public would worry about it, except that the government and the media bang on about it so much - what are their motives here except to instill fear?
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
Trust me the government is interested in this beyond just scaring people. The DoD, the national labs, the EPA, etc, are all spending money figuring out where this stuff would go, how it would interact with surfaces, and how to clean it up.
The public wouldn't worry about it? Bullshit. How many people do you think would show up to work if told that their office building was contaminated with radioactive (OMFG! Radiation!) dust?
Again the idea would not be to kill people but cause panic and economic harm. If done in a major metropolitan area the cleanup costs and economic losses could easily go into the hundreds of millions or more.
You modded this guy 'Troll'?
Don't you folks ever watch cartoons? Jeez!
I exchanged email with Hyperion Power Generation (the maker of the new power generator). They indicate that the Sante Fe reporter made a mistake. The output is about 25-17 MW ELECTRIC [This statement was also consistent with the patent which talked about tens of MW in electricity.] They also said that the containment vessel will be dense enough that no radiation will escape even if it is not buried in the ground. So in addition to the regular electric generation there would be probably double that amount of thermal power. Which could be partially converted to electricity using thermoelectronics. 30-66% with better technology like powerchips. This is not radioisotope thermal generation. I have looked at the patent and it is a simplified variant of solid core nuclear reactors. Up to 50% of the fuel would be burned. It would provide for 20-50 times more efficient use of Uranium and allow for the use of Thorium. This technology make it three times cheaper and faster (less infrastructure and piping) to tap 1.1 trillion barrels of oil that is in the form of oil shale in the USA. Increasing US oil reserves by 30-40 times and perhaps eliminating the need for oil imports in 10-15 years. Helping to more economically unlock global oilsands and oil shale. Plus it would at the same time allow up a 100 year transition to a lot more nuclear power and renewables. It would be possible for a shorter transition with less air pollution and fossil fuel use as well by eliminating coal. Edward Teller tried to make Uranium hydride bombs but was only able to get the equal of 200 tons of TNT to explode. A nuclear power generation system would not have the bomb optimizations that Teller had so the reactors would be far safer. I have also examined using this reactor to power Vasimr plasma rocket engines to send rockets to Mars in 39 days.
Absolutely. After a certain threshold, it becomes 'hijinx', and then 'tomfoolery'.
Perhaps, the US might start working on ways to have fewer (asshole) people in the world angry at them and wanting to blow up their cities with dirty bombs? That might be a good place to start.
I agree, but I don't think that is compatible with the usual USA self-image. Changing their ways is acknowledging that others' anger has been noted and that the USA cares what others think and will change its ways. Never gonna happen.