TMI was not our "wakeup call", nor Chernobyl theirs. TMI and Chernobyl were our respective PR disasters.
TMI was the first US meltdown of an operational power plant. Most of the rest of the accidents and disasters were at experimental plants. Those are to be expected, much like Marie Curie's death because we didn't have a clue about radiation at the time. Today we have that knowledge.
I'm still going to call it a wakeup call because it spured a fairly massive shift towards safety in nuclear operations. Chernobyl did the same for the USSR, though it was a far more expensive lesson. They substantially changed the design of the RBMK-1000 reactors to increase saftey in the following decades.
We still continue to have nuclear accidents fairly regularly, even in the most top-of-the-line reactors (like CANDUs, which have had corrosion issues). Most accidents aren't widely reported.
Why should they be reported when the negative effects are less than the average daily car accidents in a mid-sized city? The average result of those accidents is 'nobody exposed, not even plant workers, we just have to spend some money and man hours to clean it up/fix it'. At worst the power plant's knocked out of operation for some time.
Most don't provide immediate public threats (although they do give lie to the "amount of radiation the public receives from the nuclear industry" numbers, which are calculated based on assumed perfect operation, and often omit production releases as well).
Most don't provide even long-term public threats, and the amount of radiation the public receives are NOT based on perfect operation. They're based off from real world measurements - Which is 99.99% of the time effectivly zero. A nuclear plant has to screw up incredibly badly today to even release the amount of radioactivity spewed into the atmosphere daily by a coal plant.
However, thanks to containment structures, the worst you usually ever get is some discharged contaminated water or venting.
They don't discharge contaminated water into the open enviroment. Most venting is done from non-radioactive coolant, which is a secondary source. They'll vaporize fresh, uncontaminated water all day long to avoid releasing contaminated coolant. There's many reasons water is used for cooling nuclear reactors. One of them is that it's actually difficult to render radioactive. Distilling would work quite well on cleaning contaminated water.
Containment structures are why I am much more in favor of lead/bismuth and molten salt designs than your typical modular reactors like the PBMR, which just use confinement structures. Containment structures are what make the nuclear industry release only a "proportionally acceptable" level of pollution. Claims that PBMRs are essentially immune to accidents, so they don't need containment structures is simply ignoring history (even the very history of PBMRs themselves) in order to save enough money on construction that such a small reactor can be economically viable.
I'd have to agree with you here. A containment structure is cheap insurance, and has saved our butt multiple times.
I'd never go NIMBY on a lead/bismuth or molten salt reactor in my backyard, but if someone told me there were going to put up a no-containment-structure reactor whose fuel elements used graphite as a moderator (with the lame excuse that nuclear grade graphite doesn't burn**), you better believe I'd protest.
I'd like the molten sodium version just for the greater efficiency and reduced duration of the extreme hazard period for the waste. The fact that you can use waste heat to efficienty create hydrogen by the truckload is a bonus. I'm leery of the pebble bed design for the whole 'it's even more difficult to recycle' bit. I see IFR type reactors to be the ultimate future. Might as well keep recycling simple. As for the carbon - it's not naked carbon, all the 'pebbles'
We shouldn't be shooting the waste into the sun. We should be using it in breeder/IFR reactors for even more power. As for the low level stuff, grind it up and mix it with earth to seal old mines.
The thing is we simply don't notice because it's very dilute. If this is the case, then would not a simple solution to the waste problem be to simply grind the waste and eject it from the top of tall smokestacks very slowly?
That would indeed work, but most of us nukees also realize that the rods that are currently marked as waste still have quite a bit of potential life in them, and we'd rather the political community allow us to build some new plants to exploit that.
Plus, I don't like air pollution anyways, mixing it up with a bunch of dirt and burying it deep would work even better.
Plus, these days techs are smart enough not to disable the safeties.
With today's plants, even terrorists in control of the plant would have trouble releasing a significant amount of radiation from the core before we could drive an armored brigade up to the plant to take it back.
Trivia fact: Using current methods and an IFR reactor(99.5% efficient), it's possible to filter enough transuranics from the ocean using distillation methods to keep the thing powered.
And get usefull amounts of other valuable metals while you're at it. The mounds of salt might be a pain in the butt to move though...
I am referring to all these comments saying that nuclear power is completely safe. It is actually not. There accidents, there is waste, and both these things will be problems for longer than all of our known history.
Where did I refer to nuclear power as perfectly safe? I believe I've addressed it in the context of it's alternatives. As for remaining a problem for longer than our known history, the simple use of breeder reactors or Integral Fast Reactor would also allow known reserves to last far longer than known history. The fact that the waste only remains above natural ore radioactivity levels for 300 years is a bonus.
300 years is easily doable, especially when you figure than you need less than 1% the fuel, thus a pool capable of storing 20 years of current light water reactor waste would be able to contain 2000 years of waste. In reality, you'd likely only contain the 300 years worth, as the waste coming out of the reactor is more radioactive than current, thus you'd want to spread it out more.
How anyone can rationalize this kind of sacrifice is beyond me.
Because we don't need to? Our governments do many stupid things, and the whole Yucca mountain things is one of the top ones.
I see some sort of recycling reactor coming to the fore within the next hundred years.
A breeder reactor can reuse almost all of the high-level nuclear waste. I hate to see them just bury some potentially useful fuel, especially when the future supply of fissionable material is limited.
It's limited only by the fact that we built up quite a stockpile during the cold war and that's limited continued exploration.
For that matter I've always figured that if they interred used reactor rods in Yucca Mountain or elsewhere that we'd end up digging them up again. Now wouldn't that be hilarious? 'They spent an extra billion to make sure the facility would last 20k years. We ended up pulling all the waste out for reuse in under 200.'
1st: Something with a 10k half-life actually isn't that dangerous, especially if you spread it around(dilution), rather than trying to keep it concentrated. It even neglects that there's still 90-99% usable fuel in that 'waste', it just needs some reprocessing. Some of the newer designs are even capable of using it with minimal reprocessing.
Should the last 65 years* be considered statically significant on the performance for the next 100,000? * By the way, it's not good:
From your links: 2000-2006: 13 workers exposed to 'slight' or 'trace' levels of radiation, one plant had increased radioactive levels about 10% over ambient for "several days" in Hungary. This was considered a critical event. Overall level probably still less than ambient in Colorado Springs. Deaths: None. 1990's: Deaths: 2 Japanese workers at a uranium reprocessing facility who violated procedures. Will likely increase to 3 eventually. Exposed: 2k or so Russian workers exposed to up to 50mSv(half the allowed 5 year dosage). Happened at a plutonium reprocessing facility; most likely nuclear weapons related. Unknown number(but probably under ten) Georgian soldiers; from a military training source, not nuclear power. 1980s: Chernobyl, currently blamed for 93k possible future deaths by Greenpeace(hardly a dispartial source), current death toll by the other side is placed at just over a hundred. The models predicting thousands of deaths use the linear no-threshold model, which is in dispute. Studys on low level radiation exposure actually suggest a negative correlation with cancer(IE more radiation, up to a point, leads to less cancer). Besides Chernobyl, there was 1 other civilian fatality, and 13 Russian navy members died in two submarine accidents. There were four other exposure incidents; half military half civilian, two escaped containment.
I'm skipping earlier than the 1980s. Nuclear power in the '70s was just under development, it'd be like using the model-T to express car safety. The models are just that different.
Even if we take greenpeace's number, pad to to 100k for two decades, that's still 1/6th the death toll as experienced in the USA ALONE for coal power over the same time. And Chernobyl was a worse than worst case scenario; especially when compared to the safety of US plants.
Even Russian power plants are far safer today; Chernobyl was their wakeup, as TMI was ours.
Sometimes the solution is not cut and dried. And while a national increase in the minimum wage may not be needed, I would prefer to see federal legislation requiring a minimum Living wage for each local. That way the rate would vary based on the area, but you could get by on the minimum if need be....perhaps even being able to take classes to imporve your skill set and so eventually get a better job.
I oppose the minimum wage on the grounds that it pretty much only increases unemployment and inflation. However, by the same token I support initiatives to increase education levels.
Though I've proposed the idea to have a 'federal jobs program', that'll hire anybody for 40hours a week and provide a livable amount of food, shelter, and health care, plus a minimal stipidend. Plus, once certain levels of hours worked are met, credits for additional education/training would be awarded(and count, at least partially, to the 40hr/wk requirement).
As for your situation, it's amazing how many situations like yours crop up; but you don't really need help because you had some margin. Sure, you lost money on the rental(welcome to self employment); but you have health care, and didn't need to depend upon government assistance outside of your job's benefits. Remember, part of prudent financial planning is building up a reserve.
A barrel of waste in a containment facility isn't pollution. Mercury, in a container, is a valuable product for commercial use. Mercury that's escaped the smokestack of a coal power plant is pollution.
Basically, since we contain all the nuclear waste quite successfully(esp compared to coal power), it's not pollution.
Having seen the figures for realworld deaths caused by the pollution of coal power, combined with it's safety record and the figures screamed by the greens for worst-case nuclear disasters*, I'd rather go with the proven safety record of nuclear.
*That aren't even panned out for the worst nuclear power disaster in history, Chernobyl.
And those washers are how different than a hundred dollar bill is for humans? Both have little intrinsical value of itself. A c-note is simply a piece of paper with some artwork and a serial number on it. Heck, go back in time and you can find money, used by humans, that are little more than fancied up washers.
Both can be traded for items of larger intrinsical value(food in the money case). For highly developed creatures, this can lead to a secondary market. In this case the monkey trades ring for sex; prosititute monkey buys food with it. Heck, it's hard to tell what items the monkeys might create a secondary washer market for other than sex, it's not like they need clothing, pots or pans, and shelter is more or less provided for already.
Heck, we don't even know if they have a sense of property rights beyond what they're holding. That's actually a pretty recent development human wise as well. There are tribes that still don't have that concept today.
I find it interesting how monkeys can be compared to day traders. I think to goes to show how similar us humans really are to other animals. In many ways we're more a fortunate combination of traits than having truly unique traits.
So I go to apply for food stamps to feed my family, it's not based on your monthly earnings, but rather HOW MUCH YOU MAKE AN HOUR, becuase of this I'm left wondering if I wouldn't be better off working in fast food.
That's a messed up system. Still, it looks like the federal system is a monthly income level
Still, while your situation is tough, there is assistance out there as you mentioned. Your situation is difficult, as while you're making more than minimum wage; you're still 'underemployed' in the sense that you're working less than 40 hours/week.
I'd personally recommend trying to branch out a bit. Even something piecework could help. I'd see if you could find a scholarship.
First thanks for the corrected quote. I was scratching my head about the 'Eurotrash' stuff. If asked to define 'Eurotrash' it'd probably be something along the lines of europeans, mostly living on public assistance, that still commit petty criminal acts. Basically a copy of PWT here in the states.
I agree with you except one thing that really pisses me off is the assumption by many here (not you) that is only they had been there they would have saved the day (despite many of them never firing to kill another living human or dealing with the fear/confussion/adrenilin rush that goes on). You at least used the word chance, however I disagree that it was a "very good" chance. Sometimes shit happens and nothing can stop it.
Which is why I said 'Chance'. Nothing's certain, even if I could travel back in time and be standin in the first classroom with an alarm clock and my AR, fully loaded, I'm still not guarenteed to get him. I'll stand by my 'very good' chance, though. Reports have him shooting through doors and trying to force his way into a number of classrooms. By the sounds of it, he probably killed somebody, on average, every four-five shots. A defensive shooter, scoring the same 'hit ratio', would kill him on average three times over with a single magazine. As for the adrenaline or killing another human being, it happens in defensive fire frequently enough that it usually only makes the local news, when it makes even that. I'd hope to score more, but that's part of why I frequently visit the range. I'm well aware of my limits, but I only have one target(hopefully). He has dozens to choose from. Part of my mental prep for a situation like this is that yes, I would shoot him from behind, in the back of the head if possible. There's no need, no benefit, no sport to giving a murderer like this a chance.
Since we are playing fantasy what if. What if there was one or more armed students/teachers in the room and they were part of the initial group that was wounded/killed. He wouldnt have been slowed down or prevented from continueing in that scenario. I frankly think it's almost as insulting to spout all these hero fantasy scenarios as the one poster in this thread who blames the victims for being pussies and not overpowering him.
I listed that possibility in one of my earlier posts, in response to somebody implying that a defensive shooter would of probably increased the body count. Generally speaking, the worst case scenario is what happened. It wouldn't of been any worse if there had been a CCW permit holder or police officer there, but were shot and disabled before they could draw their weapon. It's just that with the number of people involved, the odds of him getting the armed people first would be remote. After all, I look no different than others when I'm carrying concealed. It only takes a couple seconds for me to draw and fire.
Depends on the business. Some only expect students (high-school) or stay at home parents whose kids just started at school and so are now bored, and the extra cash gives them some play money...or perhaps money for the kids' college fund. Or they are in the Hollywood industry between gigs which may a hell of a lot more, but the only job which lets you go to auditions and interviews is one which pays less per hour.....because YOU are not an investment to them as you will leave for periods of time for your "real" career.
Where my parents live even the fast food joints are having to pay better than minimum in order to get even high school students. But I'll note that you're listing pretty much bottom grade employees. Though the stay at home parent is iffy; if he or she does have skills they should be able to do better. As for the Hollywood gigs; well, that's something of a distortion, and if you expect to be able to take off pretty much at whim for unknown durations you are indeed a less valuable employee for many jobs.
And if you are a person who just a a streak of bad luck/choices, then you are in tough position. Take the job and starve...not take the job, live on welfare and still be bad off, but now get demonized by the right wing. In 20+ years of military service, I have lived in 8 states, Guam, and Korea. This does not count my time as a military brat and the places I lived at as a child. I have seen wildly differing cost of living throughout the US. A wage that would barely be survivable in Los Angeles would make you upper middle class in southern New Mexico.
On of the reasons I object to increasing the minimum wage for the whole USA is that there are many areas where even minimum has a fairly good lifestyle as long as you're fiscally careful. From my experience; 'bad luck' is usually more a matter of the person's choices than true random events. And, while I don't consider myself right-wing, I do indeed dislike the idea of people being on welfare. This nation has a low enough unemployment rate that there are labor shortages in some areas. If necessary, go back to school, get new skills, and move to where there are jobs.
I think the show "30 Days" showed that living on minimum wage is a constant cycle of simply keeping your head above water, deciding which bill is more important this month (is power going to be cut off if I don't pay.....or is eating more important?) Especially for a person with a family....especially if they are young (diapers, formula, etc). It is real easy to go over the income threshhold to NOT get benefits from the state...and it only takes that penny extra to cost you serious help. And while WIC and other programs help, they don't cover the total cost of a young child's needs, but the loss of those programs can send a person into a death spiral of debt.
I haven't seen the show, but I know of many people having trouble financially, of many income levels. While it's far easier to get into trouble the lower your pay, people with 100 times the income still end up bankrupt. It's more about fiscal responsability and financial planning than raw income.
But my whole point is what the heck are adults doing on minimum wage? They can move to my parent's area of the midwest, walk into a McDonalds and get hired at $7.50/hour assuming that they're worth anything at all. While not the cheapest part of the midwest by any means, it is far cheaper than California.
Ultimatly though, their best option is to get education. Finish that high school degree if possible, get the GED if not. Go to a trade school*, learn some skills. Electricians and plumbers are always in demand.
*Actually a better chance at a steady income than many college degrees.
It actually makes sense once you're shipping enough power. Sure, it's more expensive than all but the largest underground power lines, but there's still a break even point.
From my understanding, when Chicago installed 3 of them they actually made money on selling the copper wire pulled out, while substantially increasing capacity. So while expensive, there is a break even point on install cost. As for the nitrogen requirements, that's offset by the requirements for these huge underground lines to be oil cooled and the electricity requirements to get the LN by compression are actually offset by the loss of resistance. The amount of copper in a meter thick cable isn't cheap. Heck, 000 copper cable is over $10/foot, and that's light compared to what those distribution lines are.
As for the 'cooling pipe break'; the design is a multilayer design that's liquid proof but deliberately lets gaseous nitrogen out; that way they only have to keep pumping fresh LN in. The superconductive core is in the center; the LN is around it.
For a shared tunnel, I'd simply double pipe it. That'd keep the LN boiling off from getting into the tunnel proper while still letting it vent. Nitrogen isn't something to be too terribly afraid of. While it can displace oxygen in sufficient quantities, it's neither corrosive nor poisonous. A simple airline oxygen mask type setup would be sufficient. Depending upon design, turning on extra ventilators until repairs are done might be sufficient. The amound of nitrogen released is limited; the insulation is extremely thick.
One of the most widely reported Swedish nutjobs recently was a guy who snapped and drove a car at 60 miles per hour through a pedestrian precinct full of people. How many people died again? Oh, 2. If he'd had a gun instead of a car? Not 2.
An 86 year old hit over 50 people and killed 10 in a tragic accident here in the states.
As for the rest of it, I'd argue that your culture has much more to do with your low crime and murder rates as your gun control. After all, you're relativly next door to Sweden, which has some of the most lax gun control laws in the world, and they do just as good as you.
Personally, I mostly blame the drug war here in the states. That and we're further south*.
*Statistically speaking, the further south you are, on average, the higher the crime rate.
A single gunshot wound, even to the chest, is fatal less than half the time given prompt medical treatment. Given the preliminary descriptions, I figured he fired far more often than that.
I figure that it'll be at least a month before there'll be a report out on what happened. For example, I've heard 'two 9mm pistols', that later turn out to be a 9mm and a.22. I've learned to expect these mistakes. Rather than worry about the blow by blow, I'll wait until the dust settles a bit.
After all, my dad expected the East coast snipers to be using a varmit type bolt action.223 rather than an AR. The officials were looking for a white van/panel truck, and it turned out to be a car with a trunk turned into a sniper post.
The extra shots would explain the large number of dead vs wounded. But it just reinforces my point - a defensive shooter would of had a very good chance of getting this guy before he managed over thirty murders.
You'd still have the problem of water resistance, as well as having to load and unload the submarine cars. You might as well use traditional cargo craft at that point.
The idea of the tunnel is to avoid having to load everything onto boats; which have to fight far more resistance than an equivalent cargo capacity of railroad cars.
Build it right and you can even jack the speed up quite a bit and make it a faster bulk movement system.
I'm not sure how you'd deal with the issue of water pressure
The pretty much standard engineering answer? Lots and lots of steel-reinforced concrete. As long as each individual section is still light enough to be hauled by boat and usefully long, you're good to go. Besides, you don't really have to worry about water pressure until you go to evacuate the water out of the tunnel and fill it with air.
Hmm... Makes me wonder which is better? 5' Russian track or 4'8" US Standard? Would the extra ~4" result in a more stable vehicle, while not signifcantly increasing turn radius?
I could very well make the same arguement for entirely NATURAL crops. Intrinsically safe is an incredably high bar. Not even over the counter pain relievers are that safe. You can kill yourself with aspirin if you try hard enough.
Look at the whole spinach situation a while back.
Sure, some dangers may be slightly different; but it wouldn't be approved if studies don't point towards it as being as safe as current methods.
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TMI was not our "wakeup call", nor Chernobyl theirs. TMI and Chernobyl were our respective PR disasters.
TMI was the first US meltdown of an operational power plant. Most of the rest of the accidents and disasters were at experimental plants. Those are to be expected, much like Marie Curie's death because we didn't have a clue about radiation at the time. Today we have that knowledge.
I'm still going to call it a wakeup call because it spured a fairly massive shift towards safety in nuclear operations. Chernobyl did the same for the USSR, though it was a far more expensive lesson. They substantially changed the design of the RBMK-1000 reactors to increase saftey in the following decades.
We still continue to have nuclear accidents fairly regularly, even in the most top-of-the-line reactors (like CANDUs, which have had corrosion issues). Most accidents aren't widely reported.
Why should they be reported when the negative effects are less than the average daily car accidents in a mid-sized city? The average result of those accidents is 'nobody exposed, not even plant workers, we just have to spend some money and man hours to clean it up/fix it'. At worst the power plant's knocked out of operation for some time.
Most don't provide immediate public threats (although they do give lie to the "amount of radiation the public receives from the nuclear industry" numbers, which are calculated based on assumed perfect operation, and often omit production releases as well).
Most don't provide even long-term public threats, and the amount of radiation the public receives are NOT based on perfect operation. They're based off from real world measurements - Which is 99.99% of the time effectivly zero. A nuclear plant has to screw up incredibly badly today to even release the amount of radioactivity spewed into the atmosphere daily by a coal plant.
However, thanks to containment structures, the worst you usually ever get is some discharged contaminated water or venting.
They don't discharge contaminated water into the open enviroment. Most venting is done from non-radioactive coolant, which is a secondary source. They'll vaporize fresh, uncontaminated water all day long to avoid releasing contaminated coolant. There's many reasons water is used for cooling nuclear reactors. One of them is that it's actually difficult to render radioactive. Distilling would work quite well on cleaning contaminated water.
Containment structures are why I am much more in favor of lead/bismuth and molten salt designs than your typical modular reactors like the PBMR, which just use confinement structures. Containment structures are what make the nuclear industry release only a "proportionally acceptable" level of pollution. Claims that PBMRs are essentially immune to accidents, so they don't need containment structures is simply ignoring history (even the very history of PBMRs themselves) in order to save enough money on construction that such a small reactor can be economically viable.
I'd have to agree with you here. A containment structure is cheap insurance, and has saved our butt multiple times.
I'd never go NIMBY on a lead/bismuth or molten salt reactor in my backyard, but if someone told me there were going to put up a no-containment-structure reactor whose fuel elements used graphite as a moderator (with the lame excuse that nuclear grade graphite doesn't burn**), you better believe I'd protest.
I'd like the molten sodium version just for the greater efficiency and reduced duration of the extreme hazard period for the waste. The fact that you can use waste heat to efficienty create hydrogen by the truckload is a bonus. I'm leery of the pebble bed design for the whole 'it's even more difficult to recycle' bit. I see IFR type reactors to be the ultimate future. Might as well keep recycling simple. As for the carbon - it's not naked carbon, all the 'pebbles'
We shouldn't be shooting the waste into the sun. We should be using it in breeder/IFR reactors for even more power. As for the low level stuff, grind it up and mix it with earth to seal old mines.
The thing is we simply don't notice because it's very dilute. If this is the case, then would not a simple solution to the waste problem be to simply grind the waste and eject it from the top of tall smokestacks very slowly?
That would indeed work, but most of us nukees also realize that the rods that are currently marked as waste still have quite a bit of potential life in them, and we'd rather the political community allow us to build some new plants to exploit that.
Plus, I don't like air pollution anyways, mixing it up with a bunch of dirt and burying it deep would work even better.
Plus, these days techs are smart enough not to disable the safeties.
With today's plants, even terrorists in control of the plant would have trouble releasing a significant amount of radiation from the core before we could drive an armored brigade up to the plant to take it back.
Trivia fact: Using current methods and an IFR reactor(99.5% efficient), it's possible to filter enough transuranics from the ocean using distillation methods to keep the thing powered.
And get usefull amounts of other valuable metals while you're at it. The mounds of salt might be a pain in the butt to move though...
I am referring to all these comments saying that nuclear power is completely safe. It is actually not. There accidents, there is waste, and both these things will be problems for longer than all of our known history.
Where did I refer to nuclear power as perfectly safe? I believe I've addressed it in the context of it's alternatives. As for remaining a problem for longer than our known history, the simple use of breeder reactors or Integral Fast Reactor would also allow known reserves to last far longer than known history. The fact that the waste only remains above natural ore radioactivity levels for 300 years is a bonus.
300 years is easily doable, especially when you figure than you need less than 1% the fuel, thus a pool capable of storing 20 years of current light water reactor waste would be able to contain 2000 years of waste. In reality, you'd likely only contain the 300 years worth, as the waste coming out of the reactor is more radioactive than current, thus you'd want to spread it out more.
How anyone can rationalize this kind of sacrifice is beyond me.
Because we don't need to? Our governments do many stupid things, and the whole Yucca mountain things is one of the top ones.
I see some sort of recycling reactor coming to the fore within the next hundred years.
A breeder reactor can reuse almost all of the high-level nuclear waste. I hate to see them just bury some potentially useful fuel, especially when the future supply of fissionable material is limited.
It's limited only by the fact that we built up quite a stockpile during the cold war and that's limited continued exploration.
For that matter I've always figured that if they interred used reactor rods in Yucca Mountain or elsewhere that we'd end up digging them up again. Now wouldn't that be hilarious? 'They spent an extra billion to make sure the facility would last 20k years. We ended up pulling all the waste out for reuse in under 200.'
Heh... On more than one of my online 'profiles' (read:required registration), I'm a 90 year old female from albania. Or Afghanistan.
I also stick 90210 in for zip codes, sometimes I'll put in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, 20500
If they wanted accuracy, they'd be better off making it not required.
1st: Something with a 10k half-life actually isn't that dangerous, especially if you spread it around(dilution), rather than trying to keep it concentrated. It even neglects that there's still 90-99% usable fuel in that 'waste', it just needs some reprocessing. Some of the newer designs are even capable of using it with minimal reprocessing.
Should the last 65 years* be considered statically significant on the performance for the next 100,000?
* By the way, it's not good:
Not good? Compared to what? Coal power?
Particulate emissions from power blamed for 30,000 deaths/year
Coal power blamed for 22,000 premature deaths, in the USA, per year
From your links:
2000-2006: 13 workers exposed to 'slight' or 'trace' levels of radiation, one plant had increased radioactive levels about 10% over ambient for "several days" in Hungary. This was considered a critical event. Overall level probably still less than ambient in Colorado Springs. Deaths: None.
1990's: Deaths: 2 Japanese workers at a uranium reprocessing facility who violated procedures. Will likely increase to 3 eventually. Exposed: 2k or so Russian workers exposed to up to 50mSv(half the allowed 5 year dosage). Happened at a plutonium reprocessing facility; most likely nuclear weapons related. Unknown number(but probably under ten) Georgian soldiers; from a military training source, not nuclear power.
1980s: Chernobyl, currently blamed for 93k possible future deaths by Greenpeace(hardly a dispartial source), current death toll by the other side is placed at just over a hundred. The models predicting thousands of deaths use the linear no-threshold model, which is in dispute. Studys on low level radiation exposure actually suggest a negative correlation with cancer(IE more radiation, up to a point, leads to less cancer). Besides Chernobyl, there was 1 other civilian fatality, and 13 Russian navy members died in two submarine accidents. There were four other exposure incidents; half military half civilian, two escaped containment.
I'm skipping earlier than the 1980s. Nuclear power in the '70s was just under development, it'd be like using the model-T to express car safety. The models are just that different.
Even if we take greenpeace's number, pad to to 100k for two decades, that's still 1/6th the death toll as experienced in the USA ALONE for coal power over the same time. And Chernobyl was a worse than worst case scenario; especially when compared to the safety of US plants.
Even Russian power plants are far safer today; Chernobyl was their wakeup, as TMI was ours.
Sometimes the solution is not cut and dried. And while a national increase in the minimum wage may not be needed, I would prefer to see federal legislation requiring a minimum Living wage for each local. That way the rate would vary based on the area, but you could get by on the minimum if need be....perhaps even being able to take classes to imporve your skill set and so eventually get a better job.
I oppose the minimum wage on the grounds that it pretty much only increases unemployment and inflation. However, by the same token I support initiatives to increase education levels.
Though I've proposed the idea to have a 'federal jobs program', that'll hire anybody for 40hours a week and provide a livable amount of food, shelter, and health care, plus a minimal stipidend. Plus, once certain levels of hours worked are met, credits for additional education/training would be awarded(and count, at least partially, to the 40hr/wk requirement).
As for your situation, it's amazing how many situations like yours crop up; but you don't really need help because you had some margin. Sure, you lost money on the rental(welcome to self employment); but you have health care, and didn't need to depend upon government assistance outside of your job's benefits. Remember, part of prudent financial planning is building up a reserve.
Right! And nuclear waste is NOT pollution!
I make a distinction between waste and pollution.
A barrel of waste in a containment facility isn't pollution. Mercury, in a container, is a valuable product for commercial use. Mercury that's escaped the smokestack of a coal power plant is pollution.
Basically, since we contain all the nuclear waste quite successfully(esp compared to coal power), it's not pollution.
Having seen the figures for realworld deaths caused by the pollution of coal power, combined with it's safety record and the figures screamed by the greens for worst-case nuclear disasters*, I'd rather go with the proven safety record of nuclear.
*That aren't even panned out for the worst nuclear power disaster in history, Chernobyl.
And those washers are how different than a hundred dollar bill is for humans? Both have little intrinsical value of itself. A c-note is simply a piece of paper with some artwork and a serial number on it. Heck, go back in time and you can find money, used by humans, that are little more than fancied up washers.
Both can be traded for items of larger intrinsical value(food in the money case). For highly developed creatures, this can lead to a secondary market. In this case the monkey trades ring for sex; prosititute monkey buys food with it. Heck, it's hard to tell what items the monkeys might create a secondary washer market for other than sex, it's not like they need clothing, pots or pans, and shelter is more or less provided for already.
Heck, we don't even know if they have a sense of property rights beyond what they're holding. That's actually a pretty recent development human wise as well. There are tribes that still don't have that concept today.
And lastly, he watched capuchin prostitution!
Proof positive that it's the oldest profession?
I find it interesting how monkeys can be compared to day traders. I think to goes to show how similar us humans really are to other animals. In many ways we're more a fortunate combination of traits than having truly unique traits.
So I go to apply for food stamps to feed my family, it's not based on your monthly earnings, but rather HOW MUCH YOU MAKE AN HOUR, becuase of this I'm left wondering if I wouldn't be better off working in fast food.
That's a messed up system. Still, it looks like the federal system is a monthly income level
Still, while your situation is tough, there is assistance out there as you mentioned. Your situation is difficult, as while you're making more than minimum wage; you're still 'underemployed' in the sense that you're working less than 40 hours/week.
I'd personally recommend trying to branch out a bit. Even something piecework could help. I'd see if you could find a scholarship.
First thanks for the corrected quote. I was scratching my head about the 'Eurotrash' stuff. If asked to define 'Eurotrash' it'd probably be something along the lines of europeans, mostly living on public assistance, that still commit petty criminal acts. Basically a copy of PWT here in the states.
I agree with you except one thing that really pisses me off is the assumption by many here (not you) that is only they had been there they would have saved the day (despite many of them never firing to kill another living human or dealing with the fear/confussion/adrenilin rush that goes on). You at least used the word chance, however I disagree that it was a "very good" chance. Sometimes shit happens and nothing can stop it.
Which is why I said 'Chance'. Nothing's certain, even if I could travel back in time and be standin in the first classroom with an alarm clock and my AR, fully loaded, I'm still not guarenteed to get him. I'll stand by my 'very good' chance, though. Reports have him shooting through doors and trying to force his way into a number of classrooms. By the sounds of it, he probably killed somebody, on average, every four-five shots. A defensive shooter, scoring the same 'hit ratio', would kill him on average three times over with a single magazine. As for the adrenaline or killing another human being, it happens in defensive fire frequently enough that it usually only makes the local news, when it makes even that. I'd hope to score more, but that's part of why I frequently visit the range. I'm well aware of my limits, but I only have one target(hopefully). He has dozens to choose from. Part of my mental prep for a situation like this is that yes, I would shoot him from behind, in the back of the head if possible. There's no need, no benefit, no sport to giving a murderer like this a chance.
Since we are playing fantasy what if. What if there was one or more armed students/teachers in the room and they were part of the initial group that was wounded/killed. He wouldnt have been slowed down or prevented from continueing in that scenario. I frankly think it's almost as insulting to spout all these hero fantasy scenarios as the one poster in this thread who blames the victims for being pussies and not overpowering him.
I listed that possibility in one of my earlier posts, in response to somebody implying that a defensive shooter would of probably increased the body count. Generally speaking, the worst case scenario is what happened. It wouldn't of been any worse if there had been a CCW permit holder or police officer there, but were shot and disabled before they could draw their weapon. It's just that with the number of people involved, the odds of him getting the armed people first would be remote. After all, I look no different than others when I'm carrying concealed. It only takes a couple seconds for me to draw and fire.
Depends on the business. Some only expect students (high-school) or stay at home parents whose kids just started at school and so are now bored, and the extra cash gives them some play money...or perhaps money for the kids' college fund. Or they are in the Hollywood industry between gigs which may a hell of a lot more, but the only job which lets you go to auditions and interviews is one which pays less per hour.....because YOU are not an investment to them as you will leave for periods of time for your "real" career.
Where my parents live even the fast food joints are having to pay better than minimum in order to get even high school students. But I'll note that you're listing pretty much bottom grade employees. Though the stay at home parent is iffy; if he or she does have skills they should be able to do better. As for the Hollywood gigs; well, that's something of a distortion, and if you expect to be able to take off pretty much at whim for unknown durations you are indeed a less valuable employee for many jobs.
And if you are a person who just a a streak of bad luck/choices, then you are in tough position. Take the job and starve...not take the job, live on welfare and still be bad off, but now get demonized by the right wing. In 20+ years of military service, I have lived in 8 states, Guam, and Korea. This does not count my time as a military brat and the places I lived at as a child. I have seen wildly differing cost of living throughout the US. A wage that would barely be survivable in Los Angeles would make you upper middle class in southern New Mexico.
On of the reasons I object to increasing the minimum wage for the whole USA is that there are many areas where even minimum has a fairly good lifestyle as long as you're fiscally careful. From my experience; 'bad luck' is usually more a matter of the person's choices than true random events. And, while I don't consider myself right-wing, I do indeed dislike the idea of people being on welfare. This nation has a low enough unemployment rate that there are labor shortages in some areas. If necessary, go back to school, get new skills, and move to where there are jobs.
I think the show "30 Days" showed that living on minimum wage is a constant cycle of simply keeping your head above water, deciding which bill is more important this month (is power going to be cut off if I don't pay.....or is eating more important?) Especially for a person with a family....especially if they are young (diapers, formula, etc). It is real easy to go over the income threshhold to NOT get benefits from the state...and it only takes that penny extra to cost you serious help. And while WIC and other programs help, they don't cover the total cost of a young child's needs, but the loss of those programs can send a person into a death spiral of debt.
I haven't seen the show, but I know of many people having trouble financially, of many income levels. While it's far easier to get into trouble the lower your pay, people with 100 times the income still end up bankrupt. It's more about fiscal responsability and financial planning than raw income.
But my whole point is what the heck are adults doing on minimum wage? They can move to my parent's area of the midwest, walk into a McDonalds and get hired at $7.50/hour assuming that they're worth anything at all. While not the cheapest part of the midwest by any means, it is far cheaper than California.
Ultimatly though, their best option is to get education. Finish that high school degree if possible, get the GED if not. Go to a trade school*, learn some skills. Electricians and plumbers are always in demand.
*Actually a better chance at a steady income than many college degrees.
It actually makes sense once you're shipping enough power. Sure, it's more expensive than all but the largest underground power lines, but there's still a break even point.
From my understanding, when Chicago installed 3 of them they actually made money on selling the copper wire pulled out, while substantially increasing capacity. So while expensive, there is a break even point on install cost. As for the nitrogen requirements, that's offset by the requirements for these huge underground lines to be oil cooled and the electricity requirements to get the LN by compression are actually offset by the loss of resistance. The amount of copper in a meter thick cable isn't cheap. Heck, 000 copper cable is over $10/foot, and that's light compared to what those distribution lines are.
As for the 'cooling pipe break'; the design is a multilayer design that's liquid proof but deliberately lets gaseous nitrogen out; that way they only have to keep pumping fresh LN in. The superconductive core is in the center; the LN is around it.
For a shared tunnel, I'd simply double pipe it. That'd keep the LN boiling off from getting into the tunnel proper while still letting it vent. Nitrogen isn't something to be too terribly afraid of. While it can displace oxygen in sufficient quantities, it's neither corrosive nor poisonous. A simple airline oxygen mask type setup would be sufficient. Depending upon design, turning on extra ventilators until repairs are done might be sufficient. The amound of nitrogen released is limited; the insulation is extremely thick.
One of the most widely reported Swedish nutjobs recently was a guy who snapped and drove a car at 60 miles per hour through a pedestrian precinct full of people. How many people died again? Oh, 2. If he'd had a gun instead of a car? Not 2.
Poser
An 86 year old hit over 50 people and killed 10 in a tragic accident here in the states.
As for the rest of it, I'd argue that your culture has much more to do with your low crime and murder rates as your gun control. After all, you're relativly next door to Sweden, which has some of the most lax gun control laws in the world, and they do just as good as you.
Personally, I mostly blame the drug war here in the states. That and we're further south*.
*Statistically speaking, the further south you are, on average, the higher the crime rate.
Please note that I said 'minimum'.
.22. I've learned to expect these mistakes. Rather than worry about the blow by blow, I'll wait until the dust settles a bit.
.223 rather than an AR. The officials were looking for a white van/panel truck, and it turned out to be a car with a trunk turned into a sniper post.
A single gunshot wound, even to the chest, is fatal less than half the time given prompt medical treatment. Given the preliminary descriptions, I figured he fired far more often than that.
I figure that it'll be at least a month before there'll be a report out on what happened. For example, I've heard 'two 9mm pistols', that later turn out to be a 9mm and a
After all, my dad expected the East coast snipers to be using a varmit type bolt action
The extra shots would explain the large number of dead vs wounded. But it just reinforces my point - a defensive shooter would of had a very good chance of getting this guy before he managed over thirty murders.
You'd still have the problem of water resistance, as well as having to load and unload the submarine cars. You might as well use traditional cargo craft at that point.
The idea of the tunnel is to avoid having to load everything onto boats; which have to fight far more resistance than an equivalent cargo capacity of railroad cars.
Build it right and you can even jack the speed up quite a bit and make it a faster bulk movement system.
I'm not sure how you'd deal with the issue of water pressure
The pretty much standard engineering answer? Lots and lots of steel-reinforced concrete. As long as each individual section is still light enough to be hauled by boat and usefully long, you're good to go. Besides, you don't really have to worry about water pressure until you go to evacuate the water out of the tunnel and fill it with air.
Even better, for that much power you could go super-conductive and save even more.
Hmmm... superconductive super-high voltage DC power lines... Neato.
Hmm... Makes me wonder which is better? 5' Russian track or 4'8" US Standard? Would the extra ~4" result in a more stable vehicle, while not signifcantly increasing turn radius?
I could very well make the same arguement for entirely NATURAL crops. Intrinsically safe is an incredably high bar. Not even over the counter pain relievers are that safe. You can kill yourself with aspirin if you try hard enough.
Look at the whole spinach situation a while back.
Sure, some dangers may be slightly different; but it wouldn't be approved if studies don't point towards it as being as safe as current methods.
Correct. At most, cloning would be used to extend breeding stock; I believe that while dolly had issues, her offspring didn't.