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Robert X Cringely Predicts More Mininuke Plants

Posted by timothy on from the make-them-bouncy-and-floaty dept.

LandGator writes "PC pundit Robert X Cringely had a life before writing 'Triumph of the Nerds' for PBS: He covered the atomics industry and reported on Three Mile Island. In this blog post, he analyzes the Fukushima reactor failures, and suggests the end result will be a rapid growth in small, sealed 'package' nuclear reactors such as the Toshiba 4S generator considered for Galena, Alaska. He thinks Japan may have little choice, and with rolling blackouts scheduled, he may be right."

2 of 430 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'd be open to it, but good luck with everyone by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 4, Informative

    ask any Victorian about their willingness to live near Hazelwood (note: Moe is near there...)

    That's Victoria, Australia folks. Home of the meanest belching brown-coal moonscape and Pink-Floyd nightmare of a 1950's power station. And Moe (pronounced "mowie") is a Township, not a Stooge. Or was, anyhow. Just in case you needed more detail. Bad idea to leave your clothes out on the line for any length of time.

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  2. Re:I'd be open to it, but good luck with everyone by hoeferbe · · Score: 5, Informative
    Solandri wrote:

    Supposedly some of these spent fuel rods in building #4 caught fire

    First off, the fuel pellets in these boiling water reactors are made of uranium dioxide -- a ceramic which has a melting point of 2,865 degrees Celsius and the zircaloy cladding melts somewhere in the range of 1,850 to 1,975 degrees Celsius (depends on which alloy they are using). I could not even find a combustion temperature for either material. That doesn't matter, though, because the temperature of the spent fuel in the pool would be somewhere around 200 degrees Celsius, depending on how long it had been taken out of the reactor.

    So it is unreasonable to speculate that the fuel rods have `caught fire`.

    Secondly, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said that an oil leak in a cooling water pump at Unit 4 was the cause of the fire the media keeps talking about.

    I would strongly suggest anybody interested in following this event watch that web page and/or this one for accurate, knowledgeable, non-scaremongering reporting. I've heard too many news reports totally screw the facts up. (Like when they reported there was a 3rd explosion when really it was the 2nd explosion that happened in the #3 reactor building.)