With the commercialization of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium was recycled back into MOX nuclear fuel for thermal reactors.[2] The reprocessed uranium, which constitutes the bulk of the spent fuel material, can in principle also be re-used as fuel, but that is only economic when uranium prices are high.
In order to make the uranium in spent fuel usable it needs to be separated and enriched further which is so expensive it isn't economic at this time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprocessed_uranium).
This was about time. This decision was about 30 years overdue. Just a selection from the wiki article:
accident in December 1995, in which a sodium leak caused a major fire, forced a shutdown.
On August 26, 2010, a 3.3-tonne "InVessel Transfer Machine" fell into the reactor vessel when being removed after a scheduled fuel replacement operation.
16 February 2012 NISA reported that a sodium-detector malfunctioned
30 April 2013 an operating error rendered two of the three emergency reactors unusable. During the monthly testing of the emergency diesel generators, staff forgot to close six of the twelve valves they had opened before testing, releasing thick black smoke
On 5 March 2012 a group of seismic researchers revealed the possibility of a 7.4M (or even more potent) earthquake under the Tsuruga Nuclear Powerplant. (the fault runs about 250 meters from the reactor building...)
Do they need any more reasons to close this thing? It seems a bunch of children is running this sodium cooled thing that has reached criticality for a very short duration in is operational life time.
The failure to build more nuclear reactors is the biggest social disaster since the sacking of the library of Alexandria. Just as that act set world civilization back by 1000 years, the failure of humankind to use carbon-neutral and safe modern designs of fission reactors will be seen by centuries of people in the future as a major failing.
Oh, come on. Nuclear is not carbon neutral. If you imply all the associated costs of mining Uranium (in third world countries), transporting it, working it up, processing it after it has been used, cleaning up the stuff and storing it for 10.000 years, it can hardly be called carbon neutral.
Japan has essentially no internal oil or natural gas resources. Everything has to be imported. As a result of the nuclear shutdown, imports are up. Way up. So are prices.
And were is all the uranium coming from that's supposed to keep imports down? Exactly: from outside of the country... Imports are not up!
Conserving? I don't know where you live in Japan, but from everything I've seen they blow cold air straight into the hot air in summer. Japanese certainly know how to waste energy. There's a whole lot more to be conserved. They might reduce energy consumption in offices and schools but I've not seen anything of that in public shopping malls whatsoever. Business would probably be to affected if they did it.
You seem to think that businesses tell the government what to do over there. Quite the opposite. The government bureaucracy completely rules that country. If the reactors were built in a bad place, then Tokyo was just fine with that.
Don't know where you got that one from but sure as hell businesses run the place in Japan. You might be right for the street sign but for everything that is real life, forget it. The bureaucracy is intimately linked on all levels with businesses. Everything that goes contrary to businesses is simply not done. Help yourself a little by reading this: Amakudari.
My macbook has been running Ubuntu happily since well over two years. One of the things I have noticed is that firefox and openoffice are twice as fast under Ubuntu compared to Mac OS X on the same machine.
I'm from Belgium and I read time until I realised that I had better toilet paper. I think Time hardly can qualify as an international influential news magazine any more.
Considering the Macbook pros: I don't know for sure, but since apple's tendency to put in cheaper hardware I think you can better look for one of the edirol devices to record instead of using your onboard apple device. I'm using the digital audio output of my macbook because the analog output isn't really good (if you have ears, a good amplifier and good speakers) and I've been told that the pro's don't have much better onboard. I wouldn't bet on it for anything near professional.
Japanese school children on the other hand are given the basic tools of rational and critical thought, drilled constantly to master both mathematical and lexical (language) skills, and everything is done to prepare them for secondary education.
Come again, Japanese school children are not thought they are drilled, and certainly not drilled to be a critical thinker. How do you imagine that's going to happen when you get thought with 40 students in one room? The true thing is that Japanese students have to learn almost all the time all of their live. From age 6 they attend after class schools until 9-10 in the evening. During vacations they take summer schools until finally they are prepared ready to do their entrance exams in one the universities here. Once in, they can relax as they are sure they will pass everything else.
The pressure on children is such that suicide at the age of 10-11 is rather common here.
Did anyone notice that if you "take the tour" at the main page of ubuntu it looks suspiciously like a windows tour: browse the web, buy music while you listen, mobilise your digital life, start fast with windows eeeurhm, i mean ubuntu,...
I've had none of the problems you have.
For example, I'm running fluxbox on ubuntu, no GNOME. It didn't take ages to setup, just a few seconds. GNOME is absolutely not hard welded to the system, contrary to what you are saying. Probably you haven't been looking too well.
Your statement seems to suggest that you can only get hearing loss above 120 dB. That is not correct. You can get hearing loss beginning from 85 dB. If you are exposed to 8 hours+ a day to 85 dB you can get permanent hearing loss. This lowers dramatically as dB increases. 100dB can give you hearing loss after 15 minutes. 110 dB after 1 minute. 120dB can give hearing loss immediately.
That might be true, but most young people have not the slightest idea of what they are doing to their hearing. If we continue the way we are heading right now we might have a complete deaf generation. I'm teaching music and I once warned my pupils of the age of 10 they shouldn't put their music too loud as I lost quite a big part of my hearing in the same way. I was shocked to learn that all (not most but ALL) already had tinnitus. Which they also blamed on the frequent children parties (which are organized by schools and youth organizations) they are already attending. I really wonder how much they will be hearing in a few years.
It's about time somebody does something and protects this generation. The problem is both in mp3-players and the likes which everybody seems to listen to all of the time and in noisy environments, so they have to put up all the way to the maximum volume and never turn down, and in the live concerts, I remember reading that a live concert can reach 140 dB, and clubs. This is a case where government really should do something and all arguments that people should be free to damage their hearing is really nonsense if you ask me. They simply don't know until it's really too late.
Sadly, hearing loss never means that you don't hear anything, on the contrary. There was a case of a man of 30 here in Belgium this summer who committed suicide because even if he whispered something it hurt his hearing (you can read his story here: http://mog.com/Jo/blog/1401025). Look here for how damaging hearing loss can be to once life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Townshend
Slashdot Mirror
The idea that spent fuel is 96% fuel is also a pipe dream in reality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing says:
With the commercialization of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium was recycled back into MOX nuclear fuel for thermal reactors.[2] The reprocessed uranium, which constitutes the bulk of the spent fuel material, can in principle also be re-used as fuel, but that is only economic when uranium prices are high.
In order to make the uranium in spent fuel usable it needs to be separated and enriched further which is so expensive it isn't economic at this time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprocessed_uranium).
Concerning the much touted MOX-fuel, there are currently only 4 reactors in the world able to efficiently use MOX-fuel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_nuclear_fuel and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_reactor#Currently_operating). I guess that the one in Japan is currently not operating.
Japan is still using this system and as far as I know isn't switching yet.
Read this fine article for some more "down to earth" ideas about this study: http://ww.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/09/largest-volcano-on-earth-it-is-all-about-timing/
Do they need any more reasons to close this thing? It seems a bunch of children is running this sodium cooled thing that has reached criticality for a very short duration in is operational life time.
The failure to build more nuclear reactors is the biggest social disaster since the sacking of the library of Alexandria. Just as that act set world civilization back by 1000 years, the failure of humankind to use carbon-neutral and safe modern designs of fission reactors will be seen by centuries of people in the future as a major failing.
Oh, come on. Nuclear is not carbon neutral. If you imply all the associated costs of mining Uranium (in third world countries), transporting it, working it up, processing it after it has been used, cleaning up the stuff and storing it for 10.000 years, it can hardly be called carbon neutral.
Japan has essentially no internal oil or natural gas resources. Everything has to be imported. As a result of the nuclear shutdown, imports are up. Way up. So are prices.
And were is all the uranium coming from that's supposed to keep imports down? Exactly: from outside of the country... Imports are not up!
Or should one say: Insha'Allah
Conserving? I don't know where you live in Japan, but from everything I've seen they blow cold air straight into the hot air in summer. Japanese certainly know how to waste energy. There's a whole lot more to be conserved. They might reduce energy consumption in offices and schools but I've not seen anything of that in public shopping malls whatsoever. Business would probably be to affected if they did it.
You seem to think that businesses tell the government what to do over there. Quite the opposite. The government bureaucracy completely rules that country. If the reactors were built in a bad place, then Tokyo was just fine with that.
Don't know where you got that one from but sure as hell businesses run the place in Japan. You might be right for the street sign but for everything that is real life, forget it. The bureaucracy is intimately linked on all levels with businesses. Everything that goes contrary to businesses is simply not done. Help yourself a little by reading this: Amakudari.
My macbook has been running Ubuntu happily since well over two years. One of the things I have noticed is that firefox and openoffice are twice as fast under Ubuntu compared to Mac OS X on the same machine.
Obviously you don't seem to have read the news lately... Or know your history very well...
I'm from Belgium and I read time until I realised that I had better toilet paper. I think Time hardly can qualify as an international influential news magazine any more.
Considering the Macbook pros: I don't know for sure, but since apple's tendency to put in cheaper hardware I think you can better look for one of the edirol devices to record instead of using your onboard apple device. I'm using the digital audio output of my macbook because the analog output isn't really good (if you have ears, a good amplifier and good speakers) and I've been told that the pro's don't have much better onboard. I wouldn't bet on it for anything near professional.
Please mod this up as this report clearly is not true!
This collection contains some of the most miraculous recordings of the previous century.
Japanese school children on the other hand are given the basic tools of rational and critical thought, drilled constantly to master both mathematical and lexical (language) skills, and everything is done to prepare them for secondary education.
Come again, Japanese school children are not thought they are drilled, and certainly not drilled to be a critical thinker. How do you imagine that's going to happen when you get thought with 40 students in one room? The true thing is that Japanese students have to learn almost all the time all of their live. From age 6 they attend after class schools until 9-10 in the evening. During vacations they take summer schools until finally they are prepared ready to do their entrance exams in one the universities here. Once in, they can relax as they are sure they will pass everything else.
The pressure on children is such that suicide at the age of 10-11 is rather common here.
Did anyone notice that if you "take the tour" at the main page of ubuntu it looks suspiciously like a windows tour: browse the web, buy music while you listen, mobilise your digital life, start fast with windows eeeurhm, i mean ubuntu, ...
I've had none of the problems you have. For example, I'm running fluxbox on ubuntu, no GNOME. It didn't take ages to setup, just a few seconds. GNOME is absolutely not hard welded to the system, contrary to what you are saying. Probably you haven't been looking too well.
Your statement seems to suggest that you can only get hearing loss above 120 dB. That is not correct. You can get hearing loss beginning from 85 dB. If you are exposed to 8 hours+ a day to 85 dB you can get permanent hearing loss. This lowers dramatically as dB increases. 100dB can give you hearing loss after 15 minutes. 110 dB after 1 minute. 120dB can give hearing loss immediately.
That might be true, but most young people have not the slightest idea of what they are doing to their hearing. If we continue the way we are heading right now we might have a complete deaf generation. I'm teaching music and I once warned my pupils of the age of 10 they shouldn't put their music too loud as I lost quite a big part of my hearing in the same way. I was shocked to learn that all (not most but ALL) already had tinnitus. Which they also blamed on the frequent children parties (which are organized by schools and youth organizations) they are already attending. I really wonder how much they will be hearing in a few years.
It's about time somebody does something and protects this generation. The problem is both in mp3-players and the likes which everybody seems to listen to all of the time and in noisy environments, so they have to put up all the way to the maximum volume and never turn down, and in the live concerts, I remember reading that a live concert can reach 140 dB, and clubs. This is a case where government really should do something and all arguments that people should be free to damage their hearing is really nonsense if you ask me. They simply don't know until it's really too late.
Sadly, hearing loss never means that you don't hear anything, on the contrary. There was a case of a man of 30 here in Belgium this summer who committed suicide because even if he whispered something it hurt his hearing (you can read his story here: http://mog.com/Jo/blog/1401025). Look here for how damaging hearing loss can be to once life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Townshend