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Intelligent Absorbent Removes Radioactive Material
Zothecula writes "Nuclear power plants are located close to sources of water, which is used as a coolant to handle the waste heat discharged by the plants. This means that water contaminated with radioactive material is often one of the problems to arise after a nuclear disaster. Researchers at Australia's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have now developed what they say is a world-first intelligent absorbent that is capable of removing radioactive material from large amounts of contaminated water, resulting in clean water and concentrated waste that can be stored more efficiently."
too bad all nuclear power innovations are now moot, since nobody wants 'em.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
How much of this is going to be needed for hosing down half of Honshu?
Researchers at Australia's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have now developed what they say is a world-first intelligent absorbent that is capable of removing radioactive material from large amounts of contaminated water
So, they've reinvented zeolite filters which have been used since the 40s to do the exact same task exactly the same way?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeolite#Nuclear_industry
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Are they calling it Rad-Away
It's a case of too little, too late. I have zero trust in the nuclear industry because no matter how urgent, present, demanding, and obvious the need to make double-extra super-safe reactors presents itself to the manufacturers of these facilities, they seem hell-bent on cutting corners and cheaping out on the front-end, to disastrous consequences (insert whatever link to "Japanese Reactor Meltdown / Chernobyl / Three Mile Island" you want here) which in retrospect were the result of shoddy workmanship, sloppy maintenance, wilfully stupid cost-cutting and just general all-around stupid douchebaggery of the kind you get when you give too much power and responsibility unto the hands of those fatally unprepared for the responsibility part.
While zombie-like steps continue to be made towards legitimizing this super-expensive but also unbelievably fraught with peril method of boiling fucking water the public's opinion on nuclear power seems to have solidified somewhere around the spectrum of "Holy Fucking Shit Those Things Are Massively Unsafe" and thank God and the FSM for it. There seems to be no amount of regulation or incentive that can persuade private or public nuclear power plant operators to actually operate safely, and none of that would even matter one damn bit if Mother Nature brought on sufficient catastrophe.
Can we please be done with nuclear energy? Yesterday? Solar, geothermal and wind are all coming rapidly into their own, already cost less than traditional non-renewables (especially if we take away Big Oil/Gas/Nuclear's free rides and subisdies) and it looks like about 30 years down the road give or take we could be living with a distributed power grid that takes inputs from every single solar roof/windmill/vent in the country.
Proof positive that this cultural shift in the trust of big, unaccountable institutions to manage such dangerous materials is the ever-burned-into-our-brains image of Homer Dumbass Simpson, nuclear power plant worker who routinely blows up his plant with his fumbling incompetence. THAT is what most of America and the world think of when we think "nuclear power plant."
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
It'd probably be better to say this product specifically targets the contaminants rather than it's self-aware.
A job for Ron Paul, as the intelligent absorbent.
Once it's absorbed radioactive material it becomes a problem all by itself. But at least it doesn't flow downhill.... much.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
I wonder how much it would cost to construct solar panels in orbit which then transmit their power to Earth's surface through a focused microwave beam, vs the cost of building (and decommissioning) a nuclear reactor. http://space.mike-combs.com/spacsetl.htm#SPS
Is a GECK, the tidal basin, and a whole lotta pipe. Sorted!
Fucking SELECTIVE, goddammit.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
http://www.koksu.kz/koksu/gb_en/ecology.html
Gamma rays shielding. A layer of shaly shungite provides a more effective level of shielding than equally thick layers of concrete or aluminium. Shungite shields can be used in the areas of potential ecological disasters, such as oil pipelines, gas-condensate reservoirs, handling grounds for combustible materials, sump and sewage tanks, etc. A promising area of shungite application is seen to be the construction of chemical and radioactive waste storages.
http://lists.drizzle.com/pipermail/rockhounds/2009-January/027781.html
Shungite occurs in rocks as 1 mm to 20 cm clasts of lustrous shungite that probably represent redeposited, oxidised oil derived from oil spills.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016913680300043X
The shungite-bearing rocks were accumulated within a volcanic continental rift setting, in a non-euxinic, brackish-water, lagoonal environment developed on the rifted margin of the Archaean craton. The occurrences of shungite-bearing rocks represent a combination of a petrified oil field, petrified organosiliceous diapirs and oil spills.
if you go to the website of the american chemical society, and browse titles of the many journals, which are among the top chem journals in the world, you will see that smart is even more trendy and chic then nano.
sounds like some pretty std ion exchange filter, with some selectivity.
nothing here, move along
if it's willing to just sit there and absorb radiation like that.
From my memory of doing a Physics degree there may years ago, they could do with a few grams of these nanofibres in the basement of Q block.....
Wow, I know a lot of AI researchers who are going to be pretty pissed off that these materials scientists scooped them.
Has it passed the Turing test yet?
Wow, I like how this material is so intelligent that it can differentiate and select radioactive ions from non-radioactive ones. Nice work.
Nobody said that. It's for cleaning up the sort of heavy metals that would be in the water after a leak whether they are radioactive or not. It would be a safe bet that it was tested and perfected with non-radioactive materials.
You kids have to learn about context. A reactor boils water, a turbine turns that into motion, and a generator produces electricity from that motion. There is nothing at all wrong with the statement you are pretending to correct and building an enormous house of cards of false superiority on. It appears to all be about winning a spelling bee instead of understanding - the depressing tendancy of seeing science as an incantation where you have to get the spelling correct but don't require the merest clue of what is going on. Pointless attacks over semantics AND GETTING IT WRONG are a depressing thing to see, and an exposure of a lack of knowlege of the subject you are mindlessly cheering for even more so. For fuck sake learn SOMETHING about the subject you are pretending to correct people on before doing so.
YA!!! Coal is safer and cleaner than anything.
Bluff collapse at power plant sends dirt, coal ash into lake
Containing the damage at We Energies site
Collapsed bluff got pass from state regulators
Bluff collapse came weeks after Congress rebuffed EPA on coal ash rule
I used to consider myself a Republican. Now I'm embarrassed to admit that. I however am not a Democrat either. I belong to the party of "The Screwed."
The current political party that would like to call itself "Republican" is a party of and for the wealthy elitist businessmen. They have NO interest in the well-being of the general population. Their only concern is for a double-digit profit at the end of the quarter and they don't care how many resources they have to destroy or consume to get it.
The robber barons are back and this time they openly want it all. They're not making any secret of their intentions.
And just like all the spin selling and PR that has been going on for coal, the natural gas guys are starting up their own story-telling machine to support fracking.
With fresh water shortages developing all over the world, how is a technology that uses fresh water that is loaded with all sorts of nasty stuff (and thus rendered useless to any life form) and can destroy fresh water sources be a sensible solution?
And BTW, several fresh water wells have been contaminated by this WE Energies coal plant. WE Energies has bought the properties after the people have signed agreements to not sue them.
I'd rather take my chances with nuclear.
@Baloroth: thanks for "the facts" link.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
Are then any published testing results, experimental data? Sounds great, but we do hear about all kinds of wonderful stuff that "can do XYZ" really soon now.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
"Corporate America's" pattern of behavior suggests to me that a suit in an executive suite somewhere will order a bunch of this material to be put in the water discharges of all the nuke facilities he can affect to contain "minor problems", and then lay all maintenance crews off except one - which will be tasked with doing what they can to prevent a major catastrophe at all of the facilities on a rotating basis.
Thereby generating "shareholder value" by reducing labor costs and increasing the possibility of a major nuclear catastrophe.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
A reactor boils water, a turbine turns that into motion, and a generator produces electricity from that motion.
Indeed. Both myself and SlippyToad know this damn well, so what's your point?
There is nothing at all wrong with the statement you are pretending to correct
Yes there is, but it it lies in the implications of the way it was (deliberately) phrased and not in the surface meaning. *That* was correct, but misses the point.
It appears to all be about winning a spelling bee instead of understanding - the depressing tendancy of seeing science as an incantation where you have to get the spelling correct but don't require the merest clue of what is going on.
No. Despite your sanctimonious and condescending rant, you *entirely* missed the whole damn point of what I said.
Stating that nuclear power was an "unbelievably fraught with peril method of boiling fucking water" (while pedantically correct) rather than "...of generating electricity" carries the subtle but deliberate shift of emphasis away from the real and useful end purpose as well as implying that the nuclear part is trivial because it should just be a minor step in the process of boiling water.
No, it's obtaining the energy (in whatever form) to boil the water in the first place that's the whole damn hard part. The remainder is relatively trivial energy conversion.
I'm not implying that SlippyToad put as much conscious thought into his choice of words as I did in dissecting them, but it's pretty clear that on some level he knew damn well why he chose those words. This is how politicians, PR and the real world works, how one shifts arguments by subtly pushing an implied message via the choice of emphasis.
Please continue ranting to yourself if you still don't get that.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Of course I "get it" otherwise I could not point out your pointless attack over semantics could I? In this case "pedantically correct" is technically correct so you've got a whole lot of bullshit there attacking the truth. Is this inspired by the example of corrupt politics or something?
Also of course it's condescending, how else can such a pathetic example such as your above post be addressed? It's a shining example of what happens when you cut educational spending for years and get kids that think a spelling bee is more important than knowing what the words mean.
Reactors make steam. That is what they do. Beyond that it could be just about any other thermal power station.
Of course I "get it" otherwise I could not point out your pointless attack over semantics could I? In this case "pedantically correct" is technically correct so you've got a whole lot of bullshit there attacking the truth.
I've already clearly explained the point I was attacking twice, and it wasn't the surface meaning that "reactors produce steam" (duh). I don't intend repeating it. I'd say "go back and read it", but in your case that would obviously be a waste of time.
Even mildly autistic people (who often have trouble picking up on hidden meaning and implication in practice) can at least understand the existence of this concept in principle when it's explained to them. The fact that *you* can't suggests that you're more likely just an idiot.
It's a shining example of what happens when you cut educational spending for years and get kids that think a spelling bee is more important than knowing what the words mean.
Another example of your blinkered, spelling-bee-in-your-bonnet insularity. I'm not even a product of the US education system- matter of fact I've never even been there.
And yes, it was pretty obvious that this was your underlying assumption- the "spelling bee" thing gave it away. While spelling bees aren't solely an American phenomenom, they don't have the same cultural importance elsewhere.
But yeah. My analysis of the underlying meaning demonstrates that I only have a superficial understanding of language.....?! The fact that you can't tell the difference between this and spelling-obsessed superficiality says a lot more about your ignorance than it does about mine.
Reactors make steam.
Well, duh. Clever boy. You get a gold star!
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
None of this is relevant to nuclear power at all is it?
You also didn't seem to get the point above was a not very subtle hint to piss off and let people with a clue have a say instead of building pointless arguments pretending right is wrong. Now if you DO have a clue what you are writing about please stop pretending to be an arrogant uneducated child.
You didn't seem to get it when nearly everyone would, which is why I was holding you up as an example of a failure of education.
you've childishly pretended they said something completely different to what was written just
On the contrary, I made quite clear that I agreed that boiling water was a part of the nuclear process, just not the end product.
You know this very well, so you're either incredibly stupid or intentionally repeating a lie on the basis that if you say it enough times it'll be true.
Then after I called you to task you are accusing me of being mentally ill.
Actually, I called you an "idiot". (*)
I said that even a mildly autistic ("mentally ill" in your words) person could understand in *principle* something that you apparently couldn't.
You didn't seem to get it when nearly everyone would
The part in my original post where I said, and I quote:-
I'm surprised that you didn't know that the boiling water *isn't* the final product! In fact, it's simply a means to an end- a minor *intermediate* step used to convert the heat created by the nuclear reactions into the final product- electricity!
None of this is relevant to nuclear power at all is it?
The OP's comment was relevant insofar as it was a subtle and intellectually dishonest way of attacking nuclear electricity using the same techniques that politicians and PR people use.
You didn't seem to get it when nearly everyone would, which is why I was holding you up as an example of a failure of education.
No, you *specifically* tried to use me as an example to serve the bee in your bonnet about the US education system with relation to *its* spelling obsession and *its* cuts.
(Given you likely didn't know how old I am or where I was educated, you couldn't have known for sure that there had even been "cuts" when and where I was educated).
Now that you've been proven wrong, you're weaselling out by trying to pretend that you were merely talking about "the failure of education" in general. Nice try.
(*) Yes, I know that "idiot" has various technical and formal meanings that would count as "mentally ill". Most people wouldn't take it that way in everyday use, and I think it's more likely you're just a sloppy reader and assumed I was calling you "autistic" when I wasn't.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
There's an easy way to stop such ridicule. Think before you post something that is so incredibly stupid as to claim that something very obviously true is false.
By using such inconvenient things as facts instead of transparent fiction like your post above? You really appear to be trying very hard to make people think even less of you with each outpouring.
You appear to be far too thick to realise that your earlier post was so incredibly stupid that it provoked my post along the lines of "look at how badly these kids are taught today".
Yep, that's certainly what you meant. *cough*
As well as incorrectly assuming I was a product of the US education system, you're still talking about how "those kids" are taught "today"... with no knowledge of when I attended school. For all you *actually* know, maybe I left school last year, or maybe it was fifty years ago.
You're right... you were "provoked" into your spelling-bee-obsessed rant of narrow-minded stupidity!
By using such inconvenient things as facts instead of transparent fiction like your post above?
Thanks for clarifying that when I said:-
You're either incredibly stupid or intentionally repeating a lie [that I disagreed that nuclear power generated steam, even though I acknowledge this in my original and all subsequent posts] on the basis that if you say it enough times it'll be true.
You were going for the "repeating a lie" bit... in addition to being incredibly stupid.
You really appear to be trying very hard to make people think even less of you with each outpouring.
Sorry to disappoint you (oh no, wait.... I'm not). But the only people likely still following- or at least giving a damn about- this conversation are you and me.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).