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The Rise of Small Nuclear Plants
ColdWetDog writes "The Oil Drum (one of the best sites to discuss the technical details of the Macondo Blowout) is typically focused on ramifications of petroleum use, and in particular the Peak Oil theory. They run short guest articles from time to time on various aspects of energy use and policies. Today they have an interesting article on small nuclear reactors with a refreshing amount of technical detail concerning their construction, use, and fueling. The author's major thesis: 'Pick up almost any book about nuclear energy and you will find that the prevailing wisdom is that nuclear plants must be very large in order to be competitive. This assumption is widely accepted, but, if its roots are understood, it can be effectively challenged. Recently, however, a growing body of plant designers, utility companies, government agencies, and financial players are recognizing that smaller plants can take advantage of greater opportunities to apply lessons learned, take advantage of the engineering and tooling savings possible with higher numbers of units, and better meet customer needs in terms of capacity additions and financing. The resulting systems are a welcome addition to the nuclear power plant menu, which has previously been limited to one size — extra large.'"
Isn't it un-American to have something that is the size you need when you could have something that is 100X the size you need?
Because a huge carrier is so hard to see, I have to listen for it.
Why not call it the Deepwater Horizon blowout? That's the phrase everyone else seems to be using.
It's more specific than 'BP Blowout' (for obvious reasons)
It's also more specific than 'Macondo Blowout' (The Macondo Prospect, as wikipedia tells me, is the name of the field, which presumably might still have another blowout at some point in the future. Deepwater Horizon, having sunk to the bottom of the ocean, is unlikely to have any future blowouts.)
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
The EnviroWackos would never allow that. Think of the Turtles!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Of course that is a very morbid thing to consider, and is sufficiently horrible, not to mention suicidal, that we'd never actually do it...
Don't underestimate the perversity of our species. There are people right now, on this earth, at this very moment, who would answer the question "Should all human life on this planet be destroyed?" with a resounding "YES!".
To paraphrase Terry Pratchett... if you put a button deep in a cave somewhere and put up a painted sign next to it saying "End of world button, do not touch!" the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
You can reuse the steam turbines and electric generators with solar thermal power plants as well.
Haven't you ever played sim city? You can't replace a Coal Plant with Just one solar plant.
A solar plant with the same foot print as the coal plant might get 50 Mwatts, Where the coal plant it's replacing is usually around 500 Mwatts.
Whereas most nuke plants are like 1000-2500 Mwatts.
Haven't you seen the way most humans are remote controlled via small pocket devices and white cords jacked into their ears?
You couldn't have a better sig for that post!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.