I'm not sure how you did the math on this, working from the 550 MT yellow cake (U3O8), you get ~60 MT U at an enrichment of 3.5%, which is a typical feed enrichment for a light water reactor. A typical LWR has a core inventory of about 90 MT of fuel and about 1/3 of the core is replaced every 18 months. So, this would provide the reload fuel for about two reactors and would remain in the core for ~6 years. This will result in a total of 3x10^6 MW-days of thermal energy generated (or about 1x10^6 MW-days of electricity). You can do a similar calculation for CANDUs (since the yellow cake is going to Canada), which will use all of the 550 MT (minus loses) as fuel since they burn natural uranium and you get about the same results (~4x10^6 MW-days of thermal energy and ~1.3x10^6 MW-days of electricity)
WTF, Apple supports non-intel Macs. Read 5 lines up on the wikipedia site you reference:
"Processor must be any Intel, PowerPC G5 or G4 (at least 867 MHz or faster)"
I have no problem on my G5 with apple software. It's M$ who decided not to support non-intel macs.
What NASA needs is pure Pu-238, not Pu-239+Pu-240+Pu-241+small amounts of Pu-238. The plutonium from recycled spent fuel rods does not contain pure Pu-238 and therefore is not suitable.
Not to mention that there is no easily way to separate the Pu-238 from the remainder of the Pu. Someone earlier mentioned laser isotope separation. Some day perhaps this technology will be available.
The U.S. has been buying Uranium to blend down for power reactors. We have not been buying plutonium. There is a joint program on plutonium disposition, but no plans to sell Pu to the US.
It's not the quality of readers, it's the moderators that are mod'ing things that they don't understand. While, I know realize that my comment was incorrect for a reason that I did not consider when I commented, it did generate a discussion which arrived at the correct response.
... most of the optical and ultraviolet radiation emitted from stars, galaxies, and quasars since the beginning of time now lies in the infrared.
Optical (visible?), ultraviolet and infrared are distinct parts of the electronmagnetic spectrum. the optical and ultraviolet regions do not lie in the infrared region.
...will ship in 2U two-way and 4U four-way configurations. A base configuration of the 4U is expected to cost less than $3,500, sources said.
But it doesn't actually say that the base configuration comes with 4 cpus at this price. It's very common for IBM and others to offer a lower price configuration with empty cpu sockets for later upgrades.
I currently use digitemp to monitor the temperature in my computer room using
Dallas Semiconductor DS18S20 temperature sensors. I had thought that they also had iButtons that also monitored humidity, but I don't see them now.
I know that this is offtopic, but I can't help but be grateful that I can use pine over a ssh connection when I see articles like this. I can access all of my mail from nearly anywhere in the world and have the same capabilities as if I were sitting at my desk. I can even access it using only a java-enabled web browser using mindterm.
You're correct in stating that this battery idea is similar to a reactor, but a different process is used.
Nuclear reactors generate energy from the fission process in which uranium is interacts with neutrons to create an unstable isotope, which then fissions releasing more neutrons and a lot of energy. The emitted neutrons then cause more fissions creating a sustainable chain reaction. Of course, after this reactor is shutdown, there are a lot of radioactive nuclides that decay and generate a lot of heat as well.
Of course, what is novel about this battery is the way that they are capturing the energy of the beta particle.
Nuclear decay, nuclear fusion, and nuclear fission are all nuclear processes and they all can be used to produce energy. "Harvesting" nuclear power, as you put it, is simply a means of convering the energy released from the nuclear process in to useful energy. In this case, the beta particle's kinetic energy is captured. In nuclear fusion, the example that you cite, the kinetic energy of fusion products create heat which is then used to produce electricity (at least some day).
One specific example where nuclear decay is used to generate electricity is in radioisotope thermal generatures used by NASA on space probes. In these RTG's Pu-238 decays (alpha decay in this case) to create heat which is then converted to electricity. While it's not fission or fusion, it's still energy created by nuclear (not atomic) processes.
Beta decay is most certainly a nuclear reaction. The parent nucleus and daughter nucleus are different. The beta particle is from the nucleus, not the orbital electrons.
When ever you count such a large number of things, either by computer or by hand, there will also be the potential for error. Therefore, what really should be done is a good assessment of the error of the voting and counting systems (hand, machine, electronic, etc.). These statitical errors than should be used to determine whether someone actually wins or not. I don't know much about voting systems, do the manufacturers specific an error rate? (for example +/- 0.1 %)?
I own an Epson Stylus Color 640 printer and found that I can buy cartridges very inexpensively for this printer. A generic black cartridge costs $3.75 and color cartridge costs $4.50. I've had no problems with them and the print quality is good.
Who to you mean by "they"? The majority of this $58 billion (if not all) comes from a tax that the goverenment places on the generation of power at nuclear plants (0.1 cents/kWh). So the "they" that are paying for the disposal are the utilities (and ultimately us) generating the waste. Why should money that is being set aside to pay for spent fuel disposal pay for the development of fusion energy?
Re:Source code is already available - Digitemp
on
Am I Hot or Not
·
· Score: 2
I am using 4 sensors now, but you can use many more (I'm not sure of the precise limit). The 1-wire network allows me to get readings from all of the probes with out any problem.
Source code is already available - Digitemp
on
Am I Hot or Not
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The source code for collecting data from these sensors is already available in a package written by
Brian Lane called Digitemp:
http://www.brianlane.com/digitemp.php
I've been using these sensors and digitemp to monitor our computer room temperature for the last year. It works flawlessly.
By the way, the interesting thing about these sensors is that they are actually network devices, each with it's own unique ID. You can address each of them separately over the "1-wire network" and get their temperature reading. Also note, that these sensors directly give you a temperature reading, not current or some other reading. So, they do not require any calibration and are a breeze to use.
Doesn't this box have a serial port? I monitor the temperature of our
computer room using Dallas Semiconductor DS-18S20 sensors and
Digitemp. The sensors can be connected to your
computer via the serial port and are relatively inexpensive (approx $3.00 for the sensor, $10.00 for the serial port interface)
Most browsers will automatically assume the http://www. and.com if you just type in the middle part. For example, in Mozilla, type in sun and it will find http://www.sun.com
It's not cheaper to just buy a new printer, if you have the right model Epson that is. I have an Epson model 640 that I bought for $100-$140 a few years ago. I can buy generic cartridges from
SimplyBargins.com for a few dollars. A generic black cartridge costs $1.85 and a generic color cartridge costs $4.10. I've used many of them and had no problems. It pays to check the cost of consumables before you buy a printer!
Come on, give them a break. This is a fledgling operation and you cannot expect the first issues to be on par with large magazines with a bunch of fluff content. I think that Py has the potential to be to Python what Linux Journal is to Linux. I think that LJ is great because the articles are written by real people doing real things with Linux. Rather than the "commerical" magazines that have the same people rehashing the same things over and over.
I brought the first issue and think that it shows great promise. So if you are Python user and would like to see useful, real world articles I suggest you support Py by subscribing and writing articles.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure how you did the math on this, working from the 550 MT yellow cake (U3O8), you get ~60 MT U at an enrichment of 3.5%, which is a typical feed enrichment for a light water reactor. A typical LWR has a core inventory of about 90 MT of fuel and about 1/3 of the core is replaced every 18 months. So, this would provide the reload fuel for about two reactors and would remain in the core for ~6 years. This will result in a total of 3x10^6 MW-days of thermal energy generated (or about 1x10^6 MW-days of electricity). You can do a similar calculation for CANDUs (since the yellow cake is going to Canada), which will use all of the 550 MT (minus loses) as fuel since they burn natural uranium and you get about the same results (~4x10^6 MW-days of thermal energy and ~1.3x10^6 MW-days of electricity)
WTF, Apple supports non-intel Macs. Read 5 lines up on the wikipedia site you reference: "Processor must be any Intel, PowerPC G5 or G4 (at least 867 MHz or faster)" I have no problem on my G5 with apple software. It's M$ who decided not to support non-intel macs.
What NASA needs is pure Pu-238, not Pu-239+Pu-240+Pu-241+small amounts of Pu-238. The plutonium from recycled spent fuel rods does not contain pure Pu-238 and therefore is not suitable.
Not to mention that there is no easily way to separate the Pu-238 from the remainder of the Pu. Someone earlier mentioned laser isotope separation. Some day perhaps this technology will be available.
There is no plans to sell plutonium. It will be burned in reactors in Russia. We are buying uranium from Russia, however. http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/na-20/rus_plut_dis.shtml
The U.S. has been buying Uranium to blend down for power reactors. We have not been buying plutonium. There is a joint program on plutonium disposition, but no plans to sell Pu to the US.
It's not the quality of readers, it's the moderators that are mod'ing things that they don't understand. While, I know realize that my comment was incorrect for a reason that I did not consider when I commented, it did generate a discussion which arrived at the correct response.
Optical (visible?), ultraviolet and infrared are distinct parts of the electronmagnetic spectrum. the optical and ultraviolet regions do not lie in the infrared region.
For more info see http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroo m/ir_tutorial/what_is_ir.html
But it doesn't actually say that the base configuration comes with 4 cpus at this price. It's very common for IBM and others to offer a lower price configuration with empty cpu sockets for later upgrades.
I currently use digitemp to monitor the temperature in my computer room using Dallas Semiconductor DS18S20 temperature sensors. I had thought that they also had iButtons that also monitored humidity, but I don't see them now.
I know that this is offtopic, but I can't help but be grateful that I can use pine over a ssh connection when I see articles like this. I can access all of my mail from nearly anywhere in the world and have the same capabilities as if I were sitting at my desk. I can even access it using only a java-enabled web browser using mindterm.
They will use the heat to create steam and run a turbine. This battery is only intended for small power requirements.
Nuclear reactors generate energy from the fission process in which uranium is interacts with neutrons to create an unstable isotope, which then fissions releasing more neutrons and a lot of energy. The emitted neutrons then cause more fissions creating a sustainable chain reaction. Of course, after this reactor is shutdown, there are a lot of radioactive nuclides that decay and generate a lot of heat as well.
Of course, what is novel about this battery is the way that they are capturing the energy of the beta particle.
One specific example where nuclear decay is used to generate electricity is in radioisotope thermal generatures used by NASA on space probes. In these RTG's Pu-238 decays (alpha decay in this case) to create heat which is then converted to electricity. While it's not fission or fusion, it's still energy created by nuclear (not atomic) processes.
Beta decay is most certainly a nuclear reaction. The parent nucleus and daughter nucleus are different. The beta particle is from the nucleus, not the orbital electrons.
The description is correct.
When ever you count such a large number of things, either by computer or by hand, there will also be the potential for error. Therefore, what really should be done is a good assessment of the error of the voting and counting systems (hand, machine, electronic, etc.). These statitical errors than should be used to determine whether someone actually wins or not. I don't know much about voting systems, do the manufacturers specific an error rate? (for example +/- 0.1 %)?
How do you simply "squeeze" an extra 22 GB onto the drive? The platters have a well-defined fixed capacity.
http://www.lmcomp.com/printer-cartridges---generic -for-epson-inkjet-printers.html
Still, I only use this printer for low-volume printing, so costs are very low.
Who to you mean by "they"? The majority of this $58 billion (if not all) comes from a tax that the goverenment places on the generation of power at nuclear plants (0.1 cents/kWh). So the "they" that are paying for the disposal are the utilities (and ultimately us) generating the waste. Why should money that is being set aside to pay for spent fuel disposal pay for the development of fusion energy?
I am using 4 sensors now, but you can use many more (I'm not sure of the precise limit). The 1-wire network allows me to get readings from all of the probes with out any problem.
By the way, the interesting thing about these sensors is that they are actually network devices, each with it's own unique ID. You can address each of them separately over the "1-wire network" and get their temperature reading. Also note, that these sensors directly give you a temperature reading, not current or some other reading. So, they do not require any calibration and are a breeze to use.
Doesn't this box have a serial port? I monitor the temperature of our computer room using Dallas Semiconductor DS-18S20 sensors and Digitemp. The sensors can be connected to your computer via the serial port and are relatively inexpensive (approx $3.00 for the sensor, $10.00 for the serial port interface)
Most browsers will automatically assume the http://www. and .com if you just type in the middle part. For example, in Mozilla, type in sun and it will find http://www.sun.com
It's not cheaper to just buy a new printer, if you have the right model Epson that is. I have an Epson model 640 that I bought for $100-$140 a few years ago. I can buy generic cartridges from SimplyBargins.com for a few dollars. A generic black cartridge costs $1.85 and a generic color cartridge costs $4.10. I've used many of them and had no problems. It pays to check the cost of consumables before you buy a printer!
Come on, give them a break. This is a fledgling operation and you cannot expect the first issues to be on par with large magazines with a bunch of fluff content. I think that Py has the potential to be to Python what Linux Journal is to Linux. I think that LJ is great because the articles are written by real people doing real things with Linux. Rather than the "commerical" magazines that have the same people rehashing the same things over and over.
I brought the first issue and think that it shows great promise. So if you are Python user and would like to see useful, real world articles I suggest you support Py by subscribing and writing articles.