Probably also driving too fast... European emission standards require testing at 90km/h, while the max speed in most EU countries is 120 or 130km/h
I'm in the U.S. and my car is rated 22mph city 29 mph highway. The city rating is dead on. The highway rating is off, I actually get 34 mph rather than the stated 29. My typical highway is designated 65 mph and when traffic is light it is practical to do 75 mph. At 75 mph I get 34. The rating of 29 may be based on obsolete 1970's 55 mph standards.
Maybe 55 was optimal with 1970's auto technology but it doesn't seem so today, at least for me. And of course YMMV is quite appropriate here.
He didn't say "stable" - you did. His point stands.
More like he omitted stable from the original definition.
That aside, your argument is then that bitcoin is currently an unstable measure of wealth, currently an unstable holder of value, and it is still is a useful currency?
That process is irrelevant towards defining BitCoin as money. By the very definition of what money is and what money is used for - BTC qualifies.
It fails by your very own definition, specifically the stable measure of wealth (alternatively described as a store of value) requirement. Its currently too volatile. The process is just one convenient and easily understood piece of evidence of this.
Bitcoin's current value is that as a payment method not a currency. It currently threatens things like PayPal, not currencies like the US Dollar, Euro, etc.
To some, bitcoin also has value as a speculative asset.
By definition, BitCoin is money. Troll more elsewhere.
"any article or substance used as a medium of exchange, measure of wealth, or means of payment, as checks on demand deposit or cowrie."
It currently fails as a stable measure of wealth (alternatively described as a store of value), its a bit too volatile. Although it is currently a good medium of exchange.
As evidence for the proceeding notice the growing popularity of exchange merchant services where merchants who accepts bitcoins as payments (from the customer's perspective) never in fact sees or "touches" a bitcoin. They specify a price to the echange in fiat, the exchange provides the equivalent price in bitcoins and provides a payment address. The bitcoin payment in fact goes to the exchange which immediately converts to fiat and credits/pays the merchant.
Do these smaller reactors found on nuclear subs not require significantly higher fuel enrichment than the average power plant? Is this cost-effective, or even safe, to use on a large scale?
The sub was paid for, the fuel was paid for, these were essentially sunk costs. However they couldn't afford to send the ship to sea anymore and the city could really use some power. They were just making due with what they had. Was it cost effective for the navy, no, they weren't getting their desired value (combat power, deterrence, etc) from the sub. Was it cost effective for the city, perhaps, the sunk costs were not their problem and whatever the navy charged them was probably less than building a new power plant of any type (nuclear, natural gas, coal,...).
That said, I'm just mentioning the subs as a working example of sea going nuclear power plants. I'm not suggesting we use sub reactor designs for commercial plants.
If the coal industry paid for it then it has hilariously backfired on them. During the summer they often end up paying to generate electricity because renewables are bringing in so much.
The dirty little secret of renewables is that some fossil fuel companies are often thrilled when a renewables plant is built. In parallel backup generation is often built, in the US it is usually natural gas based and in Germany it is usually coal based. In Jan-Mar 2014 renewables generated only 27% of Germany's electricity, in all of 2013 it was 25%. Don't let momentary blips of 74% confuse you. Coal is still laughing all the way to the bank.
Because it's not for them? NOBODY CARES WHAT THE DENIERS ARE DOING. THis is for people who have the brains to taka facts as facts. Sea levels have risen more than estimated. This is measured data. They are not going to protect the nuclear plants by reversing global warming or whatever, but by elevating the ground, or building floodwalls, or something. If someone wants to deny rising sea levels please sell them flat land by the shoreline. They can then deny there all they want.
OK. So we pick sites with higher natural elevations for the 3rd generation reactors that are about to begin construction. Similar story for the 4th generation reactors when they go commercial in 30 years. 1st and 2nd generation reactors at risk can be take off line and the waste stored on these sites can be transferred to the 4th gen reactors to be used as fuel (a nice benefit of 4th gen, consuming old waste).
The at risk 1st and 2nd gen reactors can be replaced, taken off line and their sites cleaned up many decades before we get near that 7 foot increase in 86 years.
It seems as if at risk reactors will be phased out via their normal life cycle, no mounds, walls, etc are needed.
I'd expect more like 20-30 years before 4th gen is ready for commercial operation.
So we are back to practical again. What investor is going to put money into something that will be ready in 20-30 years, by which time the market will have changed and some countries, like Germany, will have ditched nuclear altogether?
Germany made that move for political reasons, the coal industry controls many politicians. The old lignite burning coal plant are "paid for" so they are incredibly cheap to operate and the external costs of lignite use is not charged to the companies. Despite this, Germany has some of the highest electricity costs in Europe. France, which is 75% nuclear, has some of the lowest.
Regarding who is investing: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, European Union, France, Japan, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. And possibly Australia in the near future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
Here is a better take on reality. A 4th gen reactor group that the US Dept of Energy helped start.
VHTR: The very-high-temperature reactor is a further step in the evolutionary development of high-temperature reactors. The VHTR is a helium-gas-cooled, graphite-moderated, thermal neutron spectrum reactor with a core outlet temperature higher than 900 C, and a goal of 1 000 C, sufficient to support high temperature processes such as production of hydrogen by thermo-chemical processes. The reference thermal power of the reactor is set at a level that allows passive decay heat removal, currently estimated to be about 600 MWth. The VHTR is useful for the cogeneration of electricity and hydrogen, as well as to other process heat applications. It is able to produce hydrogen from water by using thermo-chemical, electro-chemical or hybrid processes with reduced emission of CO2 gases. At first, a once-through LEU (
SFR: The sodium-cooled fast reactor system uses liquid sodium as the reactor coolant, allowing high power density with low coolant volume fraction. It features a closed fuel cycle for fuel breeding and/or actinide management. The reactor may be arranged in a pool layout or a compact loop layout. The reactor-size options which are under consideration range from small (50 to 150 MWe) modular reactors to larger reactors (300 to 1 500 MWe). The two primary fuel recycle technology options are advanced aqueous and pyrometallurgical processing. A variety of fuel options are being considered for the SFR, with mixed oxide preferred for advanced aqueous recycle and mixed metal alloy preferred for pyrometallurgical processing. Owing to the significant past experience accumulated with sodium cooled reactors in several countries, the deployment of SFR systems is targeted for 2020.
SCWR: Supercritical-water-cooled reactors are a class of high-temperature, high-pressure water-cooled reactors operating with a direct energy conversion cycle and above the thermodynamic critical point of water (374C, 22.1 MPa). The higher thermodynamic efficiency and plant simplification opportunities afforded by a high-temperature, single-phase coolant translate into improved economics. A wide variety of options are currently considered: both thermal-neutron and fast-neutron spectra are envisaged; and both pressure vessel and pressure tube configurations are considered. The operation of a 30 to 150 MWe technology demonstration reactor is targeted for 2022.
GFR: The gas-cooled fast reactor combines the advantages of a fast neutron core and helium coolant giving possible access to high temperatures. It requires the development of robust refractory fuel elements and appropriate safety architecture. The use of dense fuel such as carbide or nitride provides good performance regarding plutonium breeding and minor actinide burning. A technology demonstration reactor needed for qualifying key technologies could be in operation by 2020.
LFR: The lead-cooled fast reactor system is characterised by a fast-neutron spectrum and a closed fuel cycle with full actinide recycling, possibly in central or regional fuel cycle facilities. The coolant may be either lead (preferred option), or lead/bismuth eutectic. The LFR may be operated as a breeder, a burner of actinides from spent fuel, using inert matrix fuel, or a burner/breeder using thorium matrices. Two reactor size options are considered: a small 50-150 MWe transportable system with a very long core life, and a medium 300-600 MWe system. In the long term a large system of 1 200 MWe may be envisaged. The LFR system may be deployable by 2025.
MSR: The molten-salt reactor system embodies the very special feature of a liquid fuel. MSR concepts, which may be used as efficient burners of transuranic elements from spent light-water reactor (LWR) fuel, also have a breeding capability in any kind of neutron spectrum ranging from thermal (with a thorium fuel cycle) to fast (with a uranium-plutonium fuel cycle). Whether configured for burning or breeding, MSRs have conside
The research has been going on for decades, the problem is that the cost of developing it into a working commercial scale reactor is too great and will take took long. Tens of billions of dollars and a decade minimum.
4th gen reactors are relatively new. Not long into the test reactor phase. Its 3rd generations that has only recently moved into the commercial construction phase. I'd expect more like 20-30 years before 4th gen is ready for commercial operation. Even so, the ability to recycle existing waste is a huge offset and a huge win. Managing that waste has an incredible cost.
Even then it might not work. Doesn't make economic sense, will never be funded, not a practical solution.
If there are funding problems the cuts will be political in nature, not based in economics. As was done in the 90s under Clinton.
That's not moving the goal posts, that is reality. Your argument is basically a straw man, because you are choosing an easier target. Practical means something we can actually do now.
Your prediction was that no one would propose a practical solution and just blame environmentalists. The ability to build something now is your recent addition, the moving of the goal post. Continuing to research a promising series of designs that can offer enormous benefits not seen before is a very practical thing we can do right now.
You want some info on what is doable from the folks who have been researching and building reactors for decades? Their web site is terrible, you have to hover the cursor over the "nuclear waste" tab but there it is.
http://www.ga.com/energy-multi...
Larger fires because of larger fuel loads doesn't preclude global warming from also having an effect. It's not an either/or thing.
The problem is that the same ecosystems crosses the US/Mexican border. And on the US side we have the larger fires while on the Mexican side we have the more natural patchwork of smaller fires. Its fire suppression policies that change at the border not the climate.
and point out that 4th gen nuclear reactors will consume the waste of previous gen reactors as fuel
Yes they can use some waste material as fuel, in fact some of the most difficult stuff to store. Unfortunately utter idiots have been pretending that they can consume all waste by magic and those utter idiots have set back the cause they are trying to promote. You appear to have fallen victim to such an idiot.
No, you merely mischaracterize what I have written by deleting relevant portions. I'll highlight the relevant portion you deleted:
"point out that 4th gen nuclear reactors will consume the waste of previous gen reactors as fuel, and the waste from 4th gen only remains hazardous for a few centuries rather than tens of thousands of years."
By the way, one source of info for the above: the people who have been building reactors for decades. I'm sure I can find others put this was one of the first things that google finds. Their web site is terrible, you have to hover the cursor over the "nuclear waste" tab but there it is. http://www.ga.com/energy-multi...
Prediction: The rest of the discussion will be nuke fans lamenting the lack of proper storage facilities and breeder reactors, without proposing any practical solutions.
Bad prediction. Some proponents of moving off of fossil fuels include nuclear along with renewables and point out that 4th gen nuclear reactors will consume the waste of previous gen reactors as fuel, and the waste from 4th gen only remains hazardous for a few centuries rather than tens of thousands of years. So there, a practical solution to getting rid of current waste. Practical as in 4th gen test reactors are up and running.
We clearly have different definitions of "practical". So far no-one has built a working commercial scale breeder reactor, and all of the prototype/research ones have had severe problems. That was my point really.
No, it was not. You have moved the goal post. Originally you claimed that no one would propose solutions for moving forward. Well, one has been proposed, and it is currently being researched and worked upon. Now you complain that we are at the start of the research rather than near then end. That is a quite different point.
Prediction: The rest of the discussion will be nuke fans lamenting the lack of proper storage facilities and breeder reactors, without proposing any practical solutions.
Bad prediction. Some proponents of moving off of fossil fuels include nuclear along with renewables and point out that 4th gen nuclear reactors will consume the waste of previous gen reactors as fuel, and the waste from 4th gen only remains hazardous for a few centuries rather than tens of thousands of years. So there, a practical solution to getting rid of current waste. Practical as in 4th gen test reactors are up and running.
There we have it, a forward looking plan for a solution. Not a backward looking lament about what we could have but did not do or did not build.
In other words, more blame, mostly aimed at environmentalists even though this is primarily a financial and regulatory problem.
Actually various environmentalists are coming over to the above. They've looked at the science and realize that renewables alone won't prevent the continued use of coal and other fossil fuels as billions of people in the developing world demand more and more electricity. They admit that 3rd gen reactors are far safer then current reactors and that 4th gen can help eliminate a very dangerous existing stockpile of waste.
Wow first four comments are global warming deniers and all post within six minutes. Earn that pay, boys!
Sorry, AC. But the deniers of science here are those who deny the effect of fire suppression policies and land management policies. Sometimes it really is the politics.
The huge factors here are (1) fire suppression policies not allowing natural burn cycles to occur, fuel unnaturally accumulates and it does so over larger areas and (2) land management where people are allowed to build in fire prone areas but not allowed to clear brush to a "safe" distance. The result is larger fires and fires that are a high risk to homes.
CO2 is only one of many man made problems and it is not always the leading contributor.
That said, wildfires are a very complicated topic and man is responsible for their increased size and devastation. However the man made activity that has a huge impact here is fire fighting. This has been known for many decades. The problem is that the natural cycle of fires leads to smaller fires. These smaller fires prevent fuel from accumulating and they provide a patchwork of natural firebreaks to a degree. Our habit of stomping out every single fire as it starts just leads to more and more fuel accumulating over larger and larger areas. The result is the larger and more devastating fires.
Preventing the natural burn cycle sets us up for larger fires. We need to be more strategic about our fire fighting in rural and wilderness settings.
Mainly because the PS3 was a radically different architecture, and when the company had to do assembler-level optimisations to get the game working well, and now they're trying to recode those optimisations for x86, while ensuring the shaders, physics, lighting etc all work perfectly, it's an impressive project.
Its not about assembly code, this mischaracterizes the problem.
Optimizing for the PS3's Cell architecture is not simply rewriting some critical code in assembly. Its more of a parallel processing effort. To greatly simplify things the Cell has a general purpose CPU and six specialized coprocessors. The trick to Cell optimization is moving code from the CPU to the coprocessors and keeping those coprocessors as busy as possible. Now add the complication that the coprocessors are not interchangeable.
Assembly has little to do with it. Its architecting the code to keep 7 parallel processors going, whether the underlying code that implements this software architecture is C or assembly doesn't matter a whole lot.
That's easy! I wouldn't try to run SPE units code on x86 but x86 code on x86. The "optimization" shouldn't have affected the Game or it's portability and that's why it's their own damn fault.
Optimized PS3 code is not what you think it is. Its not taking some general C code and rewriting it a bit to be friendlier to the underlying CPU architecture or rewriting it completely in assembly. The PS3's Cell processor is, in simplified terms, a general purpose CPU and six special purpose coprocessors. So optimization is really figuring out how to pull major pieces of code out of the general purpose and move it to the appropriate specialized coprocessor, and then add the control code necessary to coordinate the two. Or to put it even more simply, optimizing for the PS3's cell processor is really an exercise in parallelizing code 7 ways.
Slashdot Mirror
Jesus the human may not have been a fictional character.
Jesus the son of God most certainly is.
Given that there is no evidence one way or the other you seem to be making a religious-like belief, an article of faith of your belief system. :-)
FWIW my car has a six speed manual transmission. 6th is not practical until 60+, AC on or not.
Probably also driving too fast... European emission standards require testing at 90km/h, while the max speed in most EU countries is 120 or 130km/h
I'm in the U.S. and my car is rated 22mph city 29 mph highway. The city rating is dead on. The highway rating is off, I actually get 34 mph rather than the stated 29. My typical highway is designated 65 mph and when traffic is light it is practical to do 75 mph. At 75 mph I get 34. The rating of 29 may be based on obsolete 1970's 55 mph standards.
Maybe 55 was optimal with 1970's auto technology but it doesn't seem so today, at least for me. And of course YMMV is quite appropriate here.
He didn't say "stable" - you did. His point stands.
More like he omitted stable from the original definition.
That aside, your argument is then that bitcoin is currently an unstable measure of wealth, currently an unstable holder of value, and it is still is a useful currency?
The problem is that you still need PayPal or a similar system (such as BACS, SWIFT, Visa etc) to get your fiat money to the exchange.
Don't I need BACS (ACH in the US), VISA, etc to get my money into PayPal?
That process is irrelevant towards defining BitCoin as money. By the very definition of what money is and what money is used for - BTC qualifies.
It fails by your very own definition, specifically the stable measure of wealth (alternatively described as a store of value) requirement. Its currently too volatile. The process is just one convenient and easily understood piece of evidence of this.
Bitcoin's current value is that as a payment method not a currency. It currently threatens things like PayPal, not currencies like the US Dollar, Euro, etc.
To some, bitcoin also has value as a speculative asset.
I think the US government is genuinely confused.
I think the US government doesn't care. Its the Japanese government that cares, Mt Gox is in Japan. :-)
By definition, BitCoin is money. Troll more elsewhere. "any article or substance used as a medium of exchange, measure of wealth, or means of payment, as checks on demand deposit or cowrie."
It currently fails as a stable measure of wealth (alternatively described as a store of value), its a bit too volatile. Although it is currently a good medium of exchange.
As evidence for the proceeding notice the growing popularity of exchange merchant services where merchants who accepts bitcoins as payments (from the customer's perspective) never in fact sees or "touches" a bitcoin. They specify a price to the echange in fiat, the exchange provides the equivalent price in bitcoins and provides a payment address. The bitcoin payment in fact goes to the exchange which immediately converts to fiat and credits/pays the merchant.
BitCoin is not "money".
Even if true, bitcoin would still be a very useful payment system. It may not replace the US Dollar but it may very well replace PayPal.
Do these smaller reactors found on nuclear subs not require significantly higher fuel enrichment than the average power plant? Is this cost-effective, or even safe, to use on a large scale?
The sub was paid for, the fuel was paid for, these were essentially sunk costs. However they couldn't afford to send the ship to sea anymore and the city could really use some power. They were just making due with what they had. Was it cost effective for the navy, no, they weren't getting their desired value (combat power, deterrence, etc) from the sub. Was it cost effective for the city, perhaps, the sunk costs were not their problem and whatever the navy charged them was probably less than building a new power plant of any type (nuclear, natural gas, coal, ...).
That said, I'm just mentioning the subs as a working example of sea going nuclear power plants. I'm not suggesting we use sub reactor designs for commercial plants.
Actually in Russia they did wire some into city power grids, these ships weren't going to sea anymore.
If the coal industry paid for it then it has hilariously backfired on them. During the summer they often end up paying to generate electricity because renewables are bringing in so much.
The dirty little secret of renewables is that some fossil fuel companies are often thrilled when a renewables plant is built. In parallel backup generation is often built, in the US it is usually natural gas based and in Germany it is usually coal based. In Jan-Mar 2014 renewables generated only 27% of Germany's electricity, in all of 2013 it was 25%. Don't let momentary blips of 74% confuse you. Coal is still laughing all the way to the bank.
Because it's not for them? NOBODY CARES WHAT THE DENIERS ARE DOING. THis is for people who have the brains to taka facts as facts. Sea levels have risen more than estimated. This is measured data. They are not going to protect the nuclear plants by reversing global warming or whatever, but by elevating the ground, or building floodwalls, or something. If someone wants to deny rising sea levels please sell them flat land by the shoreline. They can then deny there all they want.
OK. So we pick sites with higher natural elevations for the 3rd generation reactors that are about to begin construction. Similar story for the 4th generation reactors when they go commercial in 30 years. 1st and 2nd generation reactors at risk can be take off line and the waste stored on these sites can be transferred to the 4th gen reactors to be used as fuel (a nice benefit of 4th gen, consuming old waste).
The at risk 1st and 2nd gen reactors can be replaced, taken off line and their sites cleaned up many decades before we get near that 7 foot increase in 86 years.
It seems as if at risk reactors will be phased out via their normal life cycle, no mounds, walls, etc are needed.
Prototypes? We've had operational floating mobile nuclear power plants for about 50 years, US Navy. :-)
I'd expect more like 20-30 years before 4th gen is ready for commercial operation.
So we are back to practical again. What investor is going to put money into something that will be ready in 20-30 years, by which time the market will have changed and some countries, like Germany, will have ditched nuclear altogether?
Germany made that move for political reasons, the coal industry controls many politicians. The old lignite burning coal plant are "paid for" so they are incredibly cheap to operate and the external costs of lignite use is not charged to the companies. Despite this, Germany has some of the highest electricity costs in Europe. France, which is 75% nuclear, has some of the lowest.
Regarding who is investing: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, European Union, France, Japan, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. And possibly Australia in the near future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
Here is a better take on reality. A 4th gen reactor group that the US Dept of Energy helped start.
VHTR: The very-high-temperature reactor is a further step in the evolutionary development of high-temperature reactors. The VHTR is a helium-gas-cooled, graphite-moderated, thermal neutron spectrum reactor with a core outlet temperature higher than 900 C, and a goal of 1 000 C, sufficient to support high temperature processes such as production of hydrogen by thermo-chemical processes. The reference thermal power of the reactor is set at a level that allows passive decay heat removal, currently estimated to be about 600 MWth. The VHTR is useful for the cogeneration of electricity and hydrogen, as well as to other process heat applications. It is able to produce hydrogen from water by using thermo-chemical, electro-chemical or hybrid processes with reduced emission of CO2 gases. At first, a once-through LEU (
SFR: The sodium-cooled fast reactor system uses liquid sodium as the reactor coolant, allowing high power density with low coolant volume fraction. It features a closed fuel cycle for fuel breeding and/or actinide management. The reactor may be arranged in a pool layout or a compact loop layout. The reactor-size options which are under consideration range from small (50 to 150 MWe) modular reactors to larger reactors (300 to 1 500 MWe). The two primary fuel recycle technology options are advanced aqueous and pyrometallurgical processing. A variety of fuel options are being considered for the SFR, with mixed oxide preferred for advanced aqueous recycle and mixed metal alloy preferred for pyrometallurgical processing. Owing to the significant past experience accumulated with sodium cooled reactors in several countries, the deployment of SFR systems is targeted for 2020.
SCWR: Supercritical-water-cooled reactors are a class of high-temperature, high-pressure water-cooled reactors operating with a direct energy conversion cycle and above the thermodynamic critical point of water (374C, 22.1 MPa). The higher thermodynamic efficiency and plant simplification opportunities afforded by a high-temperature, single-phase coolant translate into improved economics. A wide variety of options are currently considered: both thermal-neutron and fast-neutron spectra are envisaged; and both pressure vessel and pressure tube configurations are considered. The operation of a 30 to 150 MWe technology demonstration reactor is targeted for 2022.
GFR: The gas-cooled fast reactor combines the advantages of a fast neutron core and helium coolant giving possible access to high temperatures. It requires the development of robust refractory fuel elements and appropriate safety architecture. The use of dense fuel such as carbide or nitride provides good performance regarding plutonium breeding and minor actinide burning. A technology demonstration reactor needed for qualifying key technologies could be in operation by 2020.
LFR: The lead-cooled fast reactor system is characterised by a fast-neutron spectrum and a closed fuel cycle with full actinide recycling, possibly in central or regional fuel cycle facilities. The coolant may be either lead (preferred option), or lead/bismuth eutectic. The LFR may be operated as a breeder, a burner of actinides from spent fuel, using inert matrix fuel, or a burner/breeder using thorium matrices. Two reactor size options are considered: a small 50-150 MWe transportable system with a very long core life, and a medium 300-600 MWe system. In the long term a large system of 1 200 MWe may be envisaged. The LFR system may be deployable by 2025.
MSR: The molten-salt reactor system embodies the very special feature of a liquid fuel. MSR concepts, which may be used as efficient burners of transuranic elements from spent light-water reactor (LWR) fuel, also have a breeding capability in any kind of neutron spectrum ranging from thermal (with a thorium fuel cycle) to fast (with a uranium-plutonium fuel cycle). Whether configured for burning or breeding, MSRs have conside
The research has been going on for decades, the problem is that the cost of developing it into a working commercial scale reactor is too great and will take took long. Tens of billions of dollars and a decade minimum.
4th gen reactors are relatively new. Not long into the test reactor phase. Its 3rd generations that has only recently moved into the commercial construction phase. I'd expect more like 20-30 years before 4th gen is ready for commercial operation. Even so, the ability to recycle existing waste is a huge offset and a huge win. Managing that waste has an incredible cost.
Even then it might not work. Doesn't make economic sense, will never be funded, not a practical solution.
If there are funding problems the cuts will be political in nature, not based in economics. As was done in the 90s under Clinton.
That's not moving the goal posts, that is reality. Your argument is basically a straw man, because you are choosing an easier target. Practical means something we can actually do now.
Your prediction was that no one would propose a practical solution and just blame environmentalists. The ability to build something now is your recent addition, the moving of the goal post. Continuing to research a promising series of designs that can offer enormous benefits not seen before is a very practical thing we can do right now.
You want some info on what is doable from the folks who have been researching and building reactors for decades? Their web site is terrible, you have to hover the cursor over the "nuclear waste" tab but there it is. http://www.ga.com/energy-multi...
Larger fires because of larger fuel loads doesn't preclude global warming from also having an effect. It's not an either/or thing.
The problem is that the same ecosystems crosses the US/Mexican border. And on the US side we have the larger fires while on the Mexican side we have the more natural patchwork of smaller fires. Its fire suppression policies that change at the border not the climate.
Yes they can use some waste material as fuel, in fact some of the most difficult stuff to store. Unfortunately utter idiots have been pretending that they can consume all waste by magic and those utter idiots have set back the cause they are trying to promote. You appear to have fallen victim to such an idiot.
No, you merely mischaracterize what I have written by deleting relevant portions. I'll highlight the relevant portion you deleted:
"point out that 4th gen nuclear reactors will consume the waste of previous gen reactors as fuel, and the waste from 4th gen only remains hazardous for a few centuries rather than tens of thousands of years."
By the way, one source of info for the above: the people who have been building reactors for decades. I'm sure I can find others put this was one of the first things that google finds. Their web site is terrible, you have to hover the cursor over the "nuclear waste" tab but there it is.
http://www.ga.com/energy-multi...
Prediction: The rest of the discussion will be nuke fans lamenting the lack of proper storage facilities and breeder reactors, without proposing any practical solutions.
Bad prediction. Some proponents of moving off of fossil fuels include nuclear along with renewables and point out that 4th gen nuclear reactors will consume the waste of previous gen reactors as fuel, and the waste from 4th gen only remains hazardous for a few centuries rather than tens of thousands of years. So there, a practical solution to getting rid of current waste. Practical as in 4th gen test reactors are up and running.
We clearly have different definitions of "practical". So far no-one has built a working commercial scale breeder reactor, and all of the prototype/research ones have had severe problems. That was my point really.
No, it was not. You have moved the goal post. Originally you claimed that no one would propose solutions for moving forward. Well, one has been proposed, and it is currently being researched and worked upon. Now you complain that we are at the start of the research rather than near then end. That is a quite different point.
Prediction: The rest of the discussion will be nuke fans lamenting the lack of proper storage facilities and breeder reactors, without proposing any practical solutions.
Bad prediction. Some proponents of moving off of fossil fuels include nuclear along with renewables and point out that 4th gen nuclear reactors will consume the waste of previous gen reactors as fuel, and the waste from 4th gen only remains hazardous for a few centuries rather than tens of thousands of years. So there, a practical solution to getting rid of current waste. Practical as in 4th gen test reactors are up and running.
There we have it, a forward looking plan for a solution. Not a backward looking lament about what we could have but did not do or did not build.
In other words, more blame, mostly aimed at environmentalists even though this is primarily a financial and regulatory problem.
Actually various environmentalists are coming over to the above. They've looked at the science and realize that renewables alone won't prevent the continued use of coal and other fossil fuels as billions of people in the developing world demand more and more electricity. They admit that 3rd gen reactors are far safer then current reactors and that 4th gen can help eliminate a very dangerous existing stockpile of waste.
Wow first four comments are global warming deniers and all post within six minutes. Earn that pay, boys!
Sorry, AC. But the deniers of science here are those who deny the effect of fire suppression policies and land management policies. Sometimes it really is the politics.
The huge factors here are (1) fire suppression policies not allowing natural burn cycles to occur, fuel unnaturally accumulates and it does so over larger areas and (2) land management where people are allowed to build in fire prone areas but not allowed to clear brush to a "safe" distance. The result is larger fires and fires that are a high risk to homes.
CO2 is only one of many man made problems and it is not always the leading contributor.
First off, I am *not* a climate change denier.
That said, wildfires are a very complicated topic and man is responsible for their increased size and devastation. However the man made activity that has a huge impact here is fire fighting. This has been known for many decades. The problem is that the natural cycle of fires leads to smaller fires. These smaller fires prevent fuel from accumulating and they provide a patchwork of natural firebreaks to a degree. Our habit of stomping out every single fire as it starts just leads to more and more fuel accumulating over larger and larger areas. The result is the larger and more devastating fires.
Preventing the natural burn cycle sets us up for larger fires. We need to be more strategic about our fire fighting in rural and wilderness settings.
Mainly because the PS3 was a radically different architecture, and when the company had to do assembler-level optimisations to get the game working well, and now they're trying to recode those optimisations for x86, while ensuring the shaders, physics, lighting etc all work perfectly, it's an impressive project.
Its not about assembly code, this mischaracterizes the problem.
Optimizing for the PS3's Cell architecture is not simply rewriting some critical code in assembly. Its more of a parallel processing effort. To greatly simplify things the Cell has a general purpose CPU and six specialized coprocessors. The trick to Cell optimization is moving code from the CPU to the coprocessors and keeping those coprocessors as busy as possible. Now add the complication that the coprocessors are not interchangeable.
Assembly has little to do with it. Its architecting the code to keep 7 parallel processors going, whether the underlying code that implements this software architecture is C or assembly doesn't matter a whole lot.
That's easy! I wouldn't try to run SPE units code on x86 but x86 code on x86. The "optimization" shouldn't have affected the Game or it's portability and that's why it's their own damn fault.
Optimized PS3 code is not what you think it is. Its not taking some general C code and rewriting it a bit to be friendlier to the underlying CPU architecture or rewriting it completely in assembly. The PS3's Cell processor is, in simplified terms, a general purpose CPU and six special purpose coprocessors. So optimization is really figuring out how to pull major pieces of code out of the general purpose and move it to the appropriate specialized coprocessor, and then add the control code necessary to coordinate the two. Or to put it even more simply, optimizing for the PS3's cell processor is really an exercise in parallelizing code 7 ways.