If you don't, you are, in fact, being a snarky little jackass.
I've clearly stated the basis for my theories. It's more relevant than the crap you're getting from most news articles or many other Slashdot posters. The actual nuclear physics PHD's are mostly too busy trying to help out in Japan to post here on Slashdot, so you get me instead. Maybe a couple other knowledgeable posters, too.
Your wikipedia link on corium was unmoving. It was a problem at Chernobyl, because they blew open their reactor vessel with a power spike 100x normal. It wasn't a problem at TMI (in terms of vessel breach) because the reactor had tripped properly, and they had problems cooling after that- which is similar to what's happening in Japan. Maybe Japan is worse, but it's going to be a lot closer to TMI than Chernobyl.
You could keep going, but there's no point. You insulted me, I rebuked you, and you just tried to dig the hole deeper. I'm adding useful though imperfectly based information to the discussion. You're just adding noise.
As I understand it, the core is inside 6 inches of stainless steel, so heat removal from the RV is so close to zero that it can be neglected. Am I missing something -- is there any significant heat removal mechanism aside from (heat) radiation from the containment vessel?
One possible accident mitigation strategy is to flood the primary containment structure around the reactor vessel with water. In such a case, the heat would transfer through the 6" of steel, heat up and boil water, and remove heat that way. Of course, they'd have to vent off the primary containment structure, but it's one way.
Without flooding the primary containment structure, you're right, they'd only have radiation to the surrounding (probably hot) area, and it might not be enough.
Before you get to any of that, however, I'm hoping they can inject water into the reactor (and it looks like they have at this time). This would cool the uranium directly. I'm not sure how they would cool the water or recondense the steam after that point, because I'm not sure what equipment they have available.
If you've got a question, son, just go ahead and ask it. There's no need to be a snarky little jackass.
Now, more folks know a large amount about nuclear power without being a D.O.P.E. (Doctor Of Pile Engineering), but apparently you can't fathom such a thing. I'll try to help you out.
The comment about not being a nuclear physicist relates to not being certain about nuclear power generation in a disorganized pile of uranium in the bottom of a reactor vessel.
What I do know, however, is that for a nuclear chain reaction to occur, you need neutrons splitting off of uranium, and then those neutrons need to cause fission of other uranium atoms.
However, these neutrons from a fission event are traveling at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, and at such speeds, they are unlikely to cause fission of another uranium atom. These neutrons need to be slowed to a 'thermal' state (near the kinetic energy of, say, water in an operating reactor) in order to cause the next fission event.
This is where the water comes in. The neutrons are slowed by the water to a thermal state, and in such a state, they are likely to cause the fission of another uranium atom, creating power and continuing the nuclear chain reaction.
When you've got a mass of molten uranium in the bottom of a pressure vessel, you don't have water in between the uranium atoms, so you can't slow down the neutrons to cause the next chain event.
Now, as to the heat conduction angle, normally the ratio of surface area to mass is high in normal geometry. A fuel pellet is about the size of a pencil eraser, a fuel rod is a stack of these in zircaloy cladding, and a fuel assembly is a cluster of these rods with space in between them (for the water to slow down the neutrons and carry heat away for power production.)
Now if you've got a molten pool of this stuff, the surface area vs the mass ratio is much lower. This means that heat removal (which is done with surface area) is degraded. As a consequence, the fuel heats up incredibly (until the decay heat falls off), but relatively little sensible heat is transferred to the steel reactor vessel- which can conduct heat away from the uranium pool at the bottom rapidly, especially if they flood the primary containment structure.
I have not, however, ran sophisticated computer simulations to these ends, nor am I qualified to perform a back of the envelope calculations to the same effect.
I am, however, intimately familiar with the normal and emergency operating parameters of a certain pressurized water reactor, and many of the physical principles are similar to that of the boiling water reactor in question. As such, I can compare the likely conditions in this reactor with the normal and emergency operating conditions in the reactor that I am familiar with, and make reasonably credible predictions- certainly moreso than you, or 95% of the stuff you've read so far.
But hey, there's no PHD in nuclear physics after my name. How could I possibly know anything relevant?
Now if you can just get the wind to blow when it's told to, we'll be all set. Seriously, if a nuclear plant goes down, it'll be replaced by coal. It's the next economical way to create massive amounts of electricity on demand.
If the RV does rupture then we'll have molten corium pooling on the concrete floor uncovered before God and everyone. All bets are off at that point.
I'm hopeful that won't happen. The uranium fuel inside the reactor is a ceramic- you know, the type of material with very poor heat conduction. The steel RV has much better heat conduction, and flooding the primary containment (another pressure vessel between the RV and the outside rectangular building) should be a successful strategy.
Now, it may sound strange that the heat source in a massive heat engine has poor heat conduction, but it is the case. It takes a very specific geometry to both reach criticality (criticality = stable power generation in Nuke terms) and remove heat via the coolant.
Obviously there's not much in the way of coolant left, and the geometry is (ahem) 'suspect' at this point. However, the decay heat will continue to decrease as days go by, and little nuclear heat should be generated in a disorganized pile of molten ceramic. The bottom of the RV should hold.
(I am not a nuclear physicist, but I know a lot about making nuclear power)
Yeah, right. Take one of these foo-foo boards out and get the **** beaten out of you by "locals only" townies.
One of my brothers was a Santa Cruz surfer and another friend still is and it doesn't matter what kind of board you have, if you're not there with a local and/or you're not everything they think you should be then you're getting that ass-kicking.
I wasn't aware surfers were such violent degenerates, in addition to being the airheads they're traditionally portrayed as.
You'll notice, perhaps, that I didn't advocate anything, only posited theories as to why no one has acted. #4 and #6 are faults applicable to any potential approach.
But please, carry on about how enlightened and awesome the world is compared to my barbarian country. Continue to lecture me on your obviously superior ways. God knows you folks need to rant about that kind of stuff on a frequent basis.
and yet Europe is not doing anything because 9-10% of their oil was coming from Libya.
Are you sure it's about oil? Perhaps it's more standard things like: 1) Cowardice 2) Unwillingness to put their soldiers lives and their nations funds on the table for something that isn't vital to their interests 3) In combination with number 2, unwilling to sign up for a multi-year commitment to see through what they start 4) Unable to react competently to such a rapidly unfolding scenario 5) Materially unprepared to intervene with military might 6) Suffering from plain old paralysis by analysis and/or standard indecision
"It's all about oil" is rather bland fare, given how long that worthless sentiment has been floating around.
One frequent fault of 'green' energy fans is the inability to comprehend the massive amounts of electrical power we need on demand. One of the insurmountable (in terms of economics) advantages of fossil fuel and nuclear plants is they output power on demand, regardless of when the sun is up, the sky is clear, the wind is blowing, or the spring melt-off is sufficient.
These researchers essentially gloss over this fact, treating it as a minor issue worth only a paragraph, and certainly not worthy of any serious economic or environmental evaluation. These folks have the numbers for national electrical demand, but no concept of what those numbers actually mean on the ground.
The article:
The analysis shows... What will be needed is a much more robust electrical grid.
The best thing I could find while skimming the report:
He proposed to address the hourly and seasonal variability of WWS power by interconnecting geographically disperse renewable energy sources to smooth out loads, using hydroelectric power to fill in gaps in supply. He also proposed using battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) together with utility controls of electricity dispatch to them through smart meters, and storing electricity in hydrogen or solar-thermal storage media.
And then nothing else. This is a massive oversight and represents an omitted capital expense of this plan on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more.
I'll try to illustrate what they omit.
Let's start with a nuclear power plant I'm familiar with. It puts 1240 MWe onto the grid 24/7 for an 18 month fuel cycle. If you want to replace this output, you can choose: 1) another hoover dam, 2) a few thousand wind turbines in geographically dispersed areas (to cover when the wind dies) 3) 20,000 acre solar concentrating plant (8,000 acres direct electricity generation, 12,000 acres to store heat to continue production at night.) (These are rough examples from quick wikipedia references)
The material and labor (and hence capital) requirements of all those projects are massive. (and considered by the authors) The land or river requirements of those projects are incredible, and glossed over by the Stanford professors. If the authors are concerned about the environment, they sure have a funny way of showing it- and other environmentalists will certainly take issue if any of these grand plans start to move forward.
Now, we've just talked about replacing the output of this particular nuclear power plant. The other challenge is getting that 1240 MWe to New England, and providing it constantly. 'A more robust electrical grid is required' is presented as an after thought, when it's just as central to the issue as generation.
First, adding grid capacity to move large amounts of electricity over massive distances is incredibly expensive. You either need to obtain 600' rights of way over several states and build massive steel towers every several hundred feet, or you need to buy a 60' right of way over the same distances, bury superconducting lines and put in refrigeration terminals ever few miles. (This latter technology is still in it's infancy, and while it will ultimately be cheaper than massive steel towers, it's still a large investment.)
Then you need to install Voltage Source Converters (VSC) at each end of these massive lines, because it pays off to transmit the electricity in DC and the VSC's help manage things like grid voltage and VAR loading. You can figure $200 million dollars for these end terminals. They're worth it if you decide to build the project, but the capital cost can't be ignored.
Now you need to build lines of this capacity into New England from a number of locations, to ensure reliability. Some existing lines can be used, some new lines are already underway, but you're still not going to find buildable lands or rivers to replace this particular nuclear power plant up here in the Northeast. More will
I never claimed physical sciences are perfectly understood. I simply stated it's far easier to positively identify bullsh*t theories in the physical sciences than in the softer fields.
I'm sure a genuine student of philosophy- instead of some sophist jackass- would possess more refined logic, such that they wouldn't make the absurd jump between what I posted and what you responded with.
Now calm down, and go fetch me some fries. It's not my fault you're $100k in debt, the world doesn't recognize your 'genius', and fast food is your best career choice.
I thought professors were people who couldn't hack it in the real world, but it turns out academia is behind most innovation in one way or another? Color me retarded.
Note that this is a Professor of Chemistry, and we're talking about physical sciences here.
Your sarcastic criticism refers to something still quite true for all the sophists in the 'Women's studies', 'philosophy', and similar departments.
In the physical sciences, bullsh*t is bullsh*t and often readily identifiable as such. In the 'softer' fields, there is no physical reality that must be lived up to. All one must do for such academic credentials is to spin reams of crap that tickles the egos of their predecessors. In cases where the reality of human civilization indicates some grand social theory is useless, it's authors can claim 'Well the conditions aren't quite what I prescribed.....' and still be lauded if that theory fits the prejudices of said ivory-tower academics.
Why would you claim someone is not the brightest of applicants, just because they partied when they were in college? That is exactly the sort of attitude that created this problem in the first place: employers who have this notion that anyone who doesn't conform to the ideal defined by US government propaganda is somehow less desirable. Why does it matter to you that an applicant to whatever sort of job you might employ them for smoked pot when they were in college? Why would you go digging through someone's Facebook profile to find evidence of what sort of partying they did in college?
Your basic premise is that doing stupid stuff in college shouldn't prevent you from getting a good job, and I agree with that.
However, posting images of various wild or illegal activities in college could be seen as lacking good judgment and discretion, which are separate aspects from 'bright' (or raw intelligence), but every bit as important. If not moreso.
So I'm saying that young people should avoid posting images of illegal or wild adventures, not because those activities should bar them from employment, but because posting those images shows indiscretion and a lack of foresight that goes beyond the act in question. Those images could reflect badly on you, so you shouldn't post them. If you did post them, you're a dumbass.
Yes, the reasoning is a little recursive. The potential employee will need to bend themselves, to a certain extent, to the way the world is, not the way it ideally should be.
Being 'bright' isn't enough. I'm one of the most intelligent people I know, and I've figured out that raw intelligence alone counts for little.
Most of your post is actually pretty reasonable, but I'm going to pick a bone or two anyway.
While he was paying in, he enjoyed a lower crime rate and other benefits that comes from not throwing people to the street to do whatever they imagine in order to survive.
A good, decent person doesn't become a desperate criminal when they lose their job, and a degenerate crook probably isn't all that employable anyway. Now you could argue that the presence of the benefits you (rightly) advocate is the reason they're not related, but I'd expect to see some sort of link, even if minor due to benefits.
I used to think as you did. Then I was in his position and found it wasn't as easy as pulling yourself up by your boot straps and doing something. Trust me, walk into a buger hut with a masters in anything and try to get a job flipping burgers. Not only is the pay much lower then you would get staying home, they are going to look at you like you are crazy and laugh you out the door.
This seems to reflect a bit of a peasant's mentality, if you'll allow me a bit of rhetorical flourish. Asking someone else for a job isn't the only way to make money.
When you work for someone else, you're relying on them to create or discover a market for their product or services, arrange the skills & implements required to fill that need, and then sell that need to the customers. When you're an employee, you only perform the function after all those 'employer' tasks are done, and now the product needs to be delivered.
Now there's nothing wrong with that, unless you think you are only capable of performing the end-stage labor to deliver the product. That's what I'm calling the 'peasant mentality'- the underlying belief that you are only good enough to be a cog in someone else's machine.
When I was in college I hooked up with one of those student painting companies during the summers. I hired people, I sold house painting contracts, I trained my employees, and I oversaw painting jobs, and collected the final payments. The franchise company taught me how to paint, how to sell, and provided me with some service links for supplies, payroll processing and the like.
At the end of the day, it was still up to me to deliver the results, get the customer, make sure the house got painted, and keep my guys working so I could keep paying them.
Honestly I was terrible at it until my third year (given that it was a summer thing, it was 8 months of 'practice' before I proficient.)
Now I'm a well-paid cog in someone else's machine, but the experience was invaluable- because it taught me that I have options, and that I can find ways to sell my services without having to work for someone else.
This provides me with a great deal of confidence, that when combined with financial modesty, helps me know that I don't need my current job. Since I don't need the job, I don't feel like a wage slave, so I work to be good at it and deliver results. Since I don't need the job, I can be honest (though diplomatic) at all times, and not worry about covering my ass or kissing the right ass.
Those factors make me a valuable employee, and higher-paying positions have opened easily for me.
israel has terrible security. who ever is pushing this myth it is better needs to actually understand they are pushing a worse system.
And how is that? They don't finger-bang your wife in the name of racial equality or irradiate you so Chertoff can make a buck.
They look for evil people intent on doing evil things.
Suicide terrorists aren't recruited for their Shakespearean acting technique. Go look up the story about that Maine Gate agent (Michael Tuohey) who let Mohammed Atta on the plane. He knew evil when he saw it, but chastised himself in the name of political correctness and let him on board.
Then what should we do with such monsters? It's easy to toss off some line like 'a human is not a dog', but you probably haven't considered the actual alternatives that have resulted from cheap bromides becoming law. So here are your alternatives:
1) Execute someone for heinous, inhuman acts.
2) Imprison them forever. The result is supermax prisons, because monsters jailed for life entertain themselves by attacking their guards and fellow inmates.
3) Keep them dazed and drugged for the rest of their lives. Again, decades.
4) Pretend you can 'rehabilitate' them, and let them out, so they'll kill again.
Which one of those options puts your conscience most at ease?
Now get rid of torture and death sentence and you'll upgrade from stone age to bronze age!
Do advanced civilizations still put down rabid dogs? Because that's the level we're talking about with the death sentence.
I don't care why a dog is rabid. I'm not angry at it for being rabid. I don't enjoy killing it, as a consequence of rabies- but it has no place amongst us, and the deed must be done.
So it is with the most depraved human members of our society. We might wish otherwise, but wishes don't make sociopaths decent people.
Exactly. It's something you have to gauge as an intelligent adult.
If it's just a routine traffic stop, then your best bet is to treat him like a human being, and possibly 'confess' to whatever minor transgression you probably actually committed.
You might actually get away without a ticket. Following this strategy has resulted in me avoiding a ticket 85% of the time, when I've been pulled over in my 14 year driving history.
'Misjudging' the situation only ever resulted in a ticket I technically deserved anyway, and which the officer might have given me regardless.
Now if the stakes are higher, you bet your ass I'm going to clam up. But if it's low level stuff your best bet is to play nice.
At that level, it's not so much about your 'rights' as human interaction
The word ‘profiling’ is a political invention by people who don’t want to do security,” he said. “To us, it doesn’t matter if he’s black, white, young or old. It’s just his behavior. So what kind of privacy am I really stepping on when I’m doing this?”
Naval reactors are designed to operate on a ship that may be shot at, and have to continue to operate on a ship that's been damaged, and may be required to operate in excess of routine limits under those conditions.
Oh yeah, and they're operated by 19 year-olds. Those are rigorously trained and drilled 19 year olds, but still late teenagers.
Did I mention they also run twenty years between refueling?
Any Nuclear Reactor is massively over-designed (rightfully so), and Naval reactors are quadruply so.
Fact is if you put a 'normal', modern safe reactor on a ship, you could get your money back pretty quick. Shipping vessels burn upwards (SWAG) of 60,000 gallons of bunker fuel on a trip across the ocean. That's probably $180,000 or more a trip- millions and millions of dollars in fuel each year.
Eliminating that expense can justify an engine much more expensive than a massive diesel, fund armed security guards for the Somali pirates, and still leave room for massive profits.
The underlying presumption is that the development & implementation process is left largely to mature level-headed business people, engineers, and experienced reactor operators from the Navy and the electric fleet, not panic-stricken tree hugging hippies afraid of splitting an atom.
The Savannah was a political kludge, not a serious shipping vessel. It was half of this, half of that, a third of this, and ran around subsidized by the US government for a few years because something had to be done with it after it was built.
Your argument is against an anti-tax libertarian, which I'm not.
No one I know goes into a McDonald's, asks for a Whopper, offers to pay $0 for it, then gets incensed and starts whining about their rights being infringed when everyone laughs at them........ Well, our mutual benefit society doesn't want to serve freeloaders. You do NOT have the right to demand free services.
I think you're getting confused and making my point for me. Are you saying that in your 'true socialist state', people have to work to get things and gain benefits?
That's what they have to do in the United States, and you called it 'forced' and 'slavery.' You did intersperse some nonsense about libertarians and society's deal, which made me doubt if you read and understood what I was getting at.
In a true socialist state, no one can force anyone to do anything, unlike a capitalist state, where those with capital control and dominate those without.
So in a socialist state, if I actually work and produce something of value, the state won't force me to share that with an able-bodied person who chooses to sit on his ass all day?
Do you imagine the 'true socialist state' as one where everyone is guaranteed a reasonable standard of living while not being required to produce anything of value for their fellow man?
How long do you think a system of mandatory benefits but voluntary contribution would last?
This is no 'Robin Hood' scenario, it's straight up theft & fraud. They should go to jail.
Someone foolish enough to buy this sort of nonsense will lose all their money soon enough anyway. I'd rather that cash go to the engineers and line workers who produce fancy cars in Italy than a couple of con artists.
I'm not sure where you have to hang out, and for how long, before you get confused about fraud, theft, lies and deceit, and why we shouldn't encourage this sort of thing.
Slashdot Mirror
....Is to stop putting corn in our gas tanks. We could resume drilling for oil in the US to make up the difference.
If you've got something better to add, do so.
If you don't, you are, in fact, being a snarky little jackass.
I've clearly stated the basis for my theories. It's more relevant than the crap you're getting from most news articles or many other Slashdot posters. The actual nuclear physics PHD's are mostly too busy trying to help out in Japan to post here on Slashdot, so you get me instead. Maybe a couple other knowledgeable posters, too.
Your wikipedia link on corium was unmoving. It was a problem at Chernobyl, because they blew open their reactor vessel with a power spike 100x normal. It wasn't a problem at TMI (in terms of vessel breach) because the reactor had tripped properly, and they had problems cooling after that- which is similar to what's happening in Japan. Maybe Japan is worse, but it's going to be a lot closer to TMI than Chernobyl.
You could keep going, but there's no point. You insulted me, I rebuked you, and you just tried to dig the hole deeper. I'm adding useful though imperfectly based information to the discussion. You're just adding noise.
As I understand it, the core is inside 6 inches of stainless steel, so heat removal from the RV is so close to zero that it can be neglected. Am I missing something -- is there any significant heat removal mechanism aside from (heat) radiation from the containment vessel?
One possible accident mitigation strategy is to flood the primary containment structure around the reactor vessel with water. In such a case, the heat would transfer through the 6" of steel, heat up and boil water, and remove heat that way. Of course, they'd have to vent off the primary containment structure, but it's one way.
Without flooding the primary containment structure, you're right, they'd only have radiation to the surrounding (probably hot) area, and it might not be enough.
Before you get to any of that, however, I'm hoping they can inject water into the reactor (and it looks like they have at this time). This would cool the uranium directly. I'm not sure how they would cool the water or recondense the steam after that point, because I'm not sure what equipment they have available.
If you've got a question, son, just go ahead and ask it. There's no need to be a snarky little jackass.
Now, more folks know a large amount about nuclear power without being a D.O.P.E. (Doctor Of Pile Engineering), but apparently you can't fathom such a thing. I'll try to help you out.
The comment about not being a nuclear physicist relates to not being certain about nuclear power generation in a disorganized pile of uranium in the bottom of a reactor vessel.
What I do know, however, is that for a nuclear chain reaction to occur, you need neutrons splitting off of uranium, and then those neutrons need to cause fission of other uranium atoms.
However, these neutrons from a fission event are traveling at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, and at such speeds, they are unlikely to cause fission of another uranium atom. These neutrons need to be slowed to a 'thermal' state (near the kinetic energy of, say, water in an operating reactor) in order to cause the next fission event.
This is where the water comes in. The neutrons are slowed by the water to a thermal state, and in such a state, they are likely to cause the fission of another uranium atom, creating power and continuing the nuclear chain reaction.
When you've got a mass of molten uranium in the bottom of a pressure vessel, you don't have water in between the uranium atoms, so you can't slow down the neutrons to cause the next chain event.
Now, as to the heat conduction angle, normally the ratio of surface area to mass is high in normal geometry. A fuel pellet is about the size of a pencil eraser, a fuel rod is a stack of these in zircaloy cladding, and a fuel assembly is a cluster of these rods with space in between them (for the water to slow down the neutrons and carry heat away for power production.)
Now if you've got a molten pool of this stuff, the surface area vs the mass ratio is much lower. This means that heat removal (which is done with surface area) is degraded. As a consequence, the fuel heats up incredibly (until the decay heat falls off), but relatively little sensible heat is transferred to the steel reactor vessel- which can conduct heat away from the uranium pool at the bottom rapidly, especially if they flood the primary containment structure.
I have not, however, ran sophisticated computer simulations to these ends, nor am I qualified to perform a back of the envelope calculations to the same effect.
I am, however, intimately familiar with the normal and emergency operating parameters of a certain pressurized water reactor, and many of the physical principles are similar to that of the boiling water reactor in question. As such, I can compare the likely conditions in this reactor with the normal and emergency operating conditions in the reactor that I am familiar with, and make reasonably credible predictions- certainly moreso than you, or 95% of the stuff you've read so far.
But hey, there's no PHD in nuclear physics after my name. How could I possibly know anything relevant?
Now if you can just get the wind to blow when it's told to, we'll be all set.
Seriously, if a nuclear plant goes down, it'll be replaced by coal. It's the next economical way to create massive amounts of electricity on demand.
If the RV does rupture then we'll have molten corium pooling on the concrete floor uncovered before God and everyone. All bets are off at that point.
I'm hopeful that won't happen. The uranium fuel inside the reactor is a ceramic- you know, the type of material with very poor heat conduction. The steel RV has much better heat conduction, and flooding the primary containment (another pressure vessel between the RV and the outside rectangular building) should be a successful strategy.
Now, it may sound strange that the heat source in a massive heat engine has poor heat conduction, but it is the case. It takes a very specific geometry to both reach criticality (criticality = stable power generation in Nuke terms) and remove heat via the coolant.
Obviously there's not much in the way of coolant left, and the geometry is (ahem) 'suspect' at this point. However, the decay heat will continue to decrease as days go by, and little nuclear heat should be generated in a disorganized pile of molten ceramic. The bottom of the RV should hold.
(I am not a nuclear physicist, but I know a lot about making nuclear power)
Yeah, right. Take one of these foo-foo boards out and get the **** beaten out of you by "locals only" townies.
One of my brothers was a Santa Cruz surfer and another friend still is and it doesn't matter what kind of board you have, if you're not there with a local and/or you're not everything they think you should be then you're getting that ass-kicking.
I wasn't aware surfers were such violent degenerates, in addition to being the airheads they're traditionally portrayed as.
You learn something new every day.
You'll notice, perhaps, that I didn't advocate anything, only posited theories as to why no one has acted. #4 and #6 are faults applicable to any potential approach.
But please, carry on about how enlightened and awesome the world is compared to my barbarian country. Continue to lecture me on your obviously superior ways. God knows you folks need to rant about that kind of stuff on a frequent basis.
and yet Europe is not doing anything because 9-10% of their oil was coming from Libya.
Are you sure it's about oil? Perhaps it's more standard things like:
1) Cowardice
2) Unwillingness to put their soldiers lives and their nations funds on the table for something that isn't vital to their interests
3) In combination with number 2, unwilling to sign up for a multi-year commitment to see through what they start
4) Unable to react competently to such a rapidly unfolding scenario
5) Materially unprepared to intervene with military might
6) Suffering from plain old paralysis by analysis and/or standard indecision
"It's all about oil" is rather bland fare, given how long that worthless sentiment has been floating around.
One frequent fault of 'green' energy fans is the inability to comprehend the massive amounts of electrical power we need on demand. One of the insurmountable (in terms of economics) advantages of fossil fuel and nuclear plants is they output power on demand, regardless of when the sun is up, the sky is clear, the wind is blowing, or the spring melt-off is sufficient.
These researchers essentially gloss over this fact, treating it as a minor issue worth only a paragraph, and certainly not worthy of any serious economic or environmental evaluation. These folks have the numbers for national electrical demand, but no concept of what those numbers actually mean on the ground.
The article:
The best thing I could find while skimming the report:
And then nothing else. This is a massive oversight and represents an omitted capital expense of this plan on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more.
I'll try to illustrate what they omit.
Let's start with a nuclear power plant I'm familiar with.
It puts 1240 MWe onto the grid 24/7 for an 18 month fuel cycle.
If you want to replace this output, you can choose:
1) another hoover dam,
2) a few thousand wind turbines in geographically dispersed areas (to cover when the wind dies)
3) 20,000 acre solar concentrating plant (8,000 acres direct electricity generation, 12,000 acres to store heat to continue production at night.)
(These are rough examples from quick wikipedia references)
The material and labor (and hence capital) requirements of all those projects are massive. (and considered by the authors) The land or river requirements of those projects are incredible, and glossed over by the Stanford professors. If the authors are concerned about the environment, they sure have a funny way of showing it- and other environmentalists will certainly take issue if any of these grand plans start to move forward.
Now, we've just talked about replacing the output of this particular nuclear power plant. The other challenge is getting that 1240 MWe to New England, and providing it constantly. 'A more robust electrical grid is required' is presented as an after thought, when it's just as central to the issue as generation.
First, adding grid capacity to move large amounts of electricity over massive distances is incredibly expensive. You either need to obtain 600' rights of way over several states and build massive steel towers every several hundred feet, or you need to buy a 60' right of way over the same distances, bury superconducting lines and put in refrigeration terminals ever few miles. (This latter technology is still in it's infancy, and while it will ultimately be cheaper than massive steel towers, it's still a large investment.)
Then you need to install Voltage Source Converters (VSC) at each end of these massive lines, because it pays off to transmit the electricity in DC and the VSC's help manage things like grid voltage and VAR loading. You can figure $200 million dollars for these end terminals. They're worth it if you decide to build the project, but the capital cost can't be ignored.
Now you need to build lines of this capacity into New England from a number of locations, to ensure reliability. Some existing lines can be used, some new lines are already underway, but you're still not going to find buildable lands or rivers to replace this particular nuclear power plant up here in the Northeast. More will
I never claimed physical sciences are perfectly understood. I simply stated it's far easier to positively identify bullsh*t theories in the physical sciences than in the softer fields.
I'm sure a genuine student of philosophy- instead of some sophist jackass- would possess more refined logic, such that they wouldn't make the absurd jump between what I posted and what you responded with.
Now calm down, and go fetch me some fries. It's not my fault you're $100k in debt, the world doesn't recognize your 'genius', and fast food is your best career choice.
I thought professors were people who couldn't hack it in the real world, but it turns out academia is behind most innovation in one way or another? Color me retarded.
Note that this is a Professor of Chemistry, and we're talking about physical sciences here.
Your sarcastic criticism refers to something still quite true for all the sophists in the 'Women's studies', 'philosophy', and similar departments.
In the physical sciences, bullsh*t is bullsh*t and often readily identifiable as such. In the 'softer' fields, there is no physical reality that must be lived up to. All one must do for such academic credentials is to spin reams of crap that tickles the egos of their predecessors. In cases where the reality of human civilization indicates some grand social theory is useless, it's authors can claim 'Well the conditions aren't quite what I prescribed.....' and still be lauded if that theory fits the prejudices of said ivory-tower academics.
Your basic premise is that doing stupid stuff in college shouldn't prevent you from getting a good job, and I agree with that.
However, posting images of various wild or illegal activities in college could be seen as lacking good judgment and discretion, which are separate aspects from 'bright' (or raw intelligence), but every bit as important. If not moreso.
So I'm saying that young people should avoid posting images of illegal or wild adventures, not because those activities should bar them from employment, but because posting those images shows indiscretion and a lack of foresight that goes beyond the act in question. Those images could reflect badly on you, so you shouldn't post them. If you did post them, you're a dumbass.
Yes, the reasoning is a little recursive. The potential employee will need to bend themselves, to a certain extent, to the way the world is, not the way it ideally should be.
Being 'bright' isn't enough. I'm one of the most intelligent people I know, and I've figured out that raw intelligence alone counts for little.
Most of your post is actually pretty reasonable, but I'm going to pick a bone or two anyway.
Crime rate and unemployment aren't linked .
A good, decent person doesn't become a desperate criminal when they lose their job, and a degenerate crook probably isn't all that employable anyway. Now you could argue that the presence of the benefits you (rightly) advocate is the reason they're not related, but I'd expect to see some sort of link, even if minor due to benefits.
This seems to reflect a bit of a peasant's mentality, if you'll allow me a bit of rhetorical flourish. Asking someone else for a job isn't the only way to make money.
When you work for someone else, you're relying on them to create or discover a market for their product or services, arrange the skills & implements required to fill that need, and then sell that need to the customers. When you're an employee, you only perform the function after all those 'employer' tasks are done, and now the product needs to be delivered.
Now there's nothing wrong with that, unless you think you are only capable of performing the end-stage labor to deliver the product. That's what I'm calling the 'peasant mentality'- the underlying belief that you are only good enough to be a cog in someone else's machine.
When I was in college I hooked up with one of those student painting companies during the summers. I hired people, I sold house painting contracts, I trained my employees, and I oversaw painting jobs, and collected the final payments. The franchise company taught me how to paint, how to sell, and provided me with some service links for supplies, payroll processing and the like.
At the end of the day, it was still up to me to deliver the results, get the customer, make sure the house got painted, and keep my guys working so I could keep paying them.
Honestly I was terrible at it until my third year (given that it was a summer thing, it was 8 months of 'practice' before I proficient.)
Now I'm a well-paid cog in someone else's machine, but the experience was invaluable- because it taught me that I have options, and that I can find ways to sell my services without having to work for someone else.
This provides me with a great deal of confidence, that when combined with financial modesty, helps me know that I don't need my current job. Since I don't need the job, I don't feel like a wage slave, so I work to be good at it and deliver results. Since I don't need the job, I can be honest (though diplomatic) at all times, and not worry about covering my ass or kissing the right ass.
Those factors make me a valuable employee, and higher-paying positions have opened easily for me.
And how is that? They don't finger-bang your wife in the name of racial equality or irradiate you so Chertoff can make a buck.
They look for evil people intent on doing evil things.
Suicide terrorists aren't recruited for their Shakespearean acting technique. Go look up the story about that Maine Gate agent (Michael Tuohey) who let Mohammed Atta on the plane. He knew evil when he saw it, but chastised himself in the name of political correctness and let him on board.
Then what should we do with such monsters? It's easy to toss off some line like 'a human is not a dog', but you probably haven't considered the actual alternatives that have resulted from cheap bromides becoming law.
So here are your alternatives:
1) Execute someone for heinous, inhuman acts.
2) Imprison them forever. The result is supermax prisons, because monsters jailed for life entertain themselves by attacking their guards and fellow inmates.
3) Keep them dazed and drugged for the rest of their lives. Again, decades.
4) Pretend you can 'rehabilitate' them, and let them out, so they'll kill again.
Which one of those options puts your conscience most at ease?
Now get rid of torture and death sentence and you'll upgrade from stone age to bronze age!
Do advanced civilizations still put down rabid dogs? Because that's the level we're talking about with the death sentence.
I don't care why a dog is rabid. I'm not angry at it for being rabid. I don't enjoy killing it, as a consequence of rabies- but it has no place amongst us, and the deed must be done.
So it is with the most depraved human members of our society. We might wish otherwise, but wishes don't make sociopaths decent people.
Exactly. It's something you have to gauge as an intelligent adult.
If it's just a routine traffic stop, then your best bet is to treat him like a human being, and possibly 'confess' to whatever minor transgression you probably actually committed.
You might actually get away without a ticket. Following this strategy has resulted in me avoiding a ticket 85% of the time, when I've been pulled over in my 14 year driving history.
'Misjudging' the situation only ever resulted in a ticket I technically deserved anyway, and which the officer might have given me regardless.
Now if the stakes are higher, you bet your ass I'm going to clam up. But if it's low level stuff your best bet is to play nice.
At that level, it's not so much about your 'rights' as human interaction
From Why They Don't Need to 'Touch Your Junk' At Israeli Airports.
Naval reactors are designed to operate on a ship that may be shot at, and have to continue to operate on a ship that's been damaged, and may be required to operate in excess of routine limits under those conditions.
Oh yeah, and they're operated by 19 year-olds. Those are rigorously trained and drilled 19 year olds, but still late teenagers.
Did I mention they also run twenty years between refueling?
Any Nuclear Reactor is massively over-designed (rightfully so), and Naval reactors are quadruply so.
Fact is if you put a 'normal', modern safe reactor on a ship, you could get your money back pretty quick. Shipping vessels burn upwards (SWAG) of 60,000 gallons of bunker fuel on a trip across the ocean. That's probably $180,000 or more a trip- millions and millions of dollars in fuel each year.
Eliminating that expense can justify an engine much more expensive than a massive diesel, fund armed security guards for the Somali pirates, and still leave room for massive profits.
The underlying presumption is that the development & implementation process is left largely to mature level-headed business people, engineers, and experienced reactor operators from the Navy and the electric fleet, not panic-stricken tree hugging hippies afraid of splitting an atom.
The Savannah was a political kludge, not a serious shipping vessel. It was half of this, half of that, a third of this, and ran around subsidized by the US government for a few years because something had to be done with it after it was built.
Your argument is against an anti-tax libertarian, which I'm not.
I think you're getting confused and making my point for me. Are you saying that in your 'true socialist state', people have to work to get things and gain benefits?
That's what they have to do in the United States, and you called it 'forced' and 'slavery.' You did intersperse some nonsense about libertarians and society's deal, which made me doubt if you read and understood what I was getting at.
So in a socialist state, if I actually work and produce something of value, the state won't force me to share that with an able-bodied person who chooses to sit on his ass all day?
Do you imagine the 'true socialist state' as one where everyone is guaranteed a reasonable standard of living while not being required to produce anything of value for their fellow man?
How long do you think a system of mandatory benefits but voluntary contribution would last?
This is no 'Robin Hood' scenario, it's straight up theft & fraud. They should go to jail.
Someone foolish enough to buy this sort of nonsense will lose all their money soon enough anyway. I'd rather that cash go to the engineers and line workers who produce fancy cars in Italy than a couple of con artists.
I'm not sure where you have to hang out, and for how long, before you get confused about fraud, theft, lies and deceit, and why we shouldn't encourage this sort of thing.
On the flip side, there are plenty of mediocre people who are enamored with their supposed intellect. They have way too much say as well.