I remember hearing about a new capacitor technology that used nanoparticles to allow far more power storage and almost instant recharge rates. Better/worse?
After some consideration, and re-reading my original post, I decided to reply one more time and this will be the last one because... what. the. heck?
My original objection was about poor planning: 'I've always thought that the nuclear power plant disaster in Japan was the result of poor planning, not the fault of the technology itself.' A lot of the last post by angel'o'sphere is talking about the poor planning (or outright corruption, negligence, ignorance, etc..) of the government (s?) so, yes, I'll obviously agree with you there.
It was NOT about the 'wonders' of nuclear power. Personally, I'll love it when solar becomes more efficient and environmentally safe capacitors can hold enough of a charge to be used more. Apparently, Germany is installing a lot of solar and more power to them. I was more worried about a lack of power than keeping anything nuclear up. If the plants are too old and need taking down then, yes, they should be taken down in a safe manner.
As for coal... dunno. I mostly dislike it because it can run out not because of any possible radioactivity which, as you say, doesn't appear to be a problem. When it does renewable biofuels will have to ramp up more production.
It surprises me that you can correctly point out facts but still draw wrong conclusions. The quake in Japan in the seas east of the plant was 9.x... The quake at the plant side was perhaps 6.x (and that is what we are talking about) The quake in Japan destroyed the power lines connecting the plant to the national grid. Hence it could not use external power for cooling. Hence it was relying on its emergency power generators. The Tsunami destroyed those emergency power generators. If we have a magnitude 6.x quake in germany we can expect also that some of the power lines fail.
So... if it weren't for the much larger than planned for tsunami--which was my original beef as they didn't plan for the wave created by the 9.0 quake from a predicted point at sea--the plant would have had emergency power, and thus be able to shut down, because the quake didn't knock those out. Glad you agree with my wrong conclusion? *facepalm*
First of all this are not earthquakes. It is collapsing mine shafts hundreds of years old that cause those problems.
Causing the earth to vibrate but I suppose the chances of them triggering a larger earthquake in the unstable region is remote. What are the odds, right?
Secondly, as pointed out often enough: german coal plants dont emit radiation, basically none in the western hemisphere does, except perhaps in the USA. The ages old reports, how dangerous coal plants are, are all debunked since decades. German plants use air filters to scrub out all dust, that includes uranium. Above that we mainly burn coal that contains not much uranium.
Finally: it is a difference to weather an 6.x earthquake that is dozens or 100ds of km away or to weather one that is directly below you and causes chasm directly under your plant (the latter is the situation in germany)
So, more advanced coal plants are more environmentally friendly (somehow neutralizing all radiation from natural isotopes they are made from). Gotcha. Same would thus apply to nuclear plants too.(except for being completely radiation free like coal plants) As for building power plants over known earthquake points... er... I assume there would be a really, really good reason for it?
A quick wiki look shows that, yes, you are right that part of Germany has earthquakes up to the 6 range. (6.5 is the current max, it seems).
However, given that the Richter scale is based on magnitudes, a 7.0 being ten times stronger than 6.0 so a 9.0 is a thousand times stronger, comparing the strength of quakes in Germany to the one that damaged the nuclear reactor in Japan.... Plus, it was the tsunami that caused the problem not the 9.0+ earthquake. Given that an old design was able to handle a 9.0 quake I would think Germany is relatively safe unless they are even older or someone's skimping safety measures. If they don't like the old designs then build one of the much more safer reactors of the newest generation not coal!
Not to mention that apparently mining for coal in Germany seems to trigger those same earthquakes enough for local people to protest. >_ So, not only does burning coal release more radiation per day than a new modern nuclear plant MINING it via blasting triggers earthquakes in Germany.
Nod. Thought so. People tend to forget radiation is in everything, even living things, and since coal is compressed plant matter there's more of it. Burning it, and thus releasing more and more radiation in one spot, just makes things worse. A certain amount of rads is normal but that much over time....? Funny, how the Germans spouting coal as 'safe', as in 'less radiation' do not mention this little fact....
Heck, even dense enough stone can be measureably higher. Measure the rads coming from a desk that has a thick marble top and you may be surprised.
Owch! Didn't realize it was that old. Much better design, obviously, but I'd worry about a reactor that old given they weren't designed to be as safe as more modern systems. As was proven when the tsunami hit.
And I've heard that coal can be quite surprisingly radioactive, especially when burned in such amounts. True?
I really am looking forward when solar cells and capacitor storage batteries get better. I've heard a lot of new stuff over the last few years that give me hope but still not out yet.
Oh, certainly, there are all manner of things that could happen that are unlikely. Ten mile meteor into the ocean would overwhelm pretty much anything as would an unlikely volcano.
My annoyance is that the location where the earthquake happened was a possible but known threat and so close that if it ever did go off at the top strength quake then the plant would be in severe trouble since the wave would strike very, very quickly. They did have safeguards for tsunami but only planned for locations that quake more often on a geological scale. Problem is, a problem spot that does not quake often is more likely to have more pressure and thus be more dangerous when it does go off. When it comes to a nation's critical power supply, especially a nation that has to import fuel as much as Japan, there should be no such thing as overkill. For such earthquake conscious people I find the skeptical dismissal of such a threat in the plant's design odd, to say the least. I assume the problem spot was discovered after the plant was built given the age of the plant or else politics got involved.
I agree that planning for everything would be impossible but I have the feeling that future Japanese projects are going to be a little bit more aware of 'unlikely' quake sources for disaster prevention after this costly lesson and be more in line with my thinking. While nuclear scares a lot of people Japan's options for power generation are limited due to its island status. There is some justified fear, yes, but the reality is that nuclear is one of the few options the nation has for reasonable power. You can bet Japan will be funding a lot more research into even more safer nuclear power solutions though there are a lot of much better designs. Perhaps I should be complaining that they left such an old design running instead of building a better, far safer reactor.
I've always thought that the nuclear power plant disaster in Japan was the result of poor planning, not the fault of the technology itself. The plant went into emergency shutdown because of the quake but it was the tsunami that really did the damage because... they didn't think a tsunami that high was likely?!?!
I mean, come ON! Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world due to their location by the Ring of Fire. The place where the quake happened was only a possible location for a quake and unlikely to earthquake predictors but given the still uncertain nature of earthquake prediction 'possible' should mean 'most likely to catch you with pants down'.
Which it did and rather spectacularly at that. So instead of a smaller tsunami from further away like they hoped--yes, hoped since they had to know about the place that did quake--they got a much larger tsunami that overwhelmed their protection. So instead of covering ALL possibilities they went for a cheaper solution to protect their coastal nuclear power plant.
Lesson learned? Find worst possible point where an earthquake COULD happen (no matter how remote), plan for something in the 9.0-9.3 range, then add a safety margin on top of that ESPECIALLY when you have a vulnerable nuclear power plant by the water. Do not say--oh, but that's unlikely to happen there. It DID so that is not something you had ever hear from a manager under your employ. Also, make plans so that your fuel rods can be immediately neutralized if your coolant feed is buggered. I'm pretty sure there are new designs that take that into account but the Tokyo plant was an older design.
However, the government's reaction in Germany is way overboard. Germany isn't part of the Ring of Fire, unlikely to have tsunamis or powerful earthquakes. Unless someone's been heavily skimping on safety measures I see no reason to shut them down on the basis of environmental disasters that are unlikely to occur there. Also, isn't coal itself somewhat radioactive (all things are but remember this is compressed plant matter) and that burning large amounts will be dumping free radiation as well as CO into the environment? (and unlikely to be considered because who thinks coal is nuclear?) That's what shutting down the nuclear reactors was supposed to prevent, right? Gah.
Quite frankly, if they are that scared of the old designs, they are fairly old in tech terms, there are much more safer nuclear reactor designs now with the intent of ensuring meltdown is far, far less likely to happen if not impossible. The fact that I don't hear anything about such new designs is likely someone's either terrified of shadows or getting paid off or plain stupid or all of the above.
Create a fusion of Heathkit kits and the Minecraft game, devise ways to make it interesting for all ages, and watch 'crafters create project kits online. If Heathkit could actually create kits on demand to allow the makers to build their simulated kit in real life that would be awesome!
Hey, Minecrafters are already building redstone ALUs and printers--this is just the next step.
Forget Earth--go to the Moon or Mars for getting the goodies closer to or at the core. Sure, both still have molten gooey centers but we can get a lot closer to the center than here on Earth. After all, if one says meteorites brought metals to Earth the same deal applies to the Moon especially since it used to be part of Earth. (No doubt stirring the pot when that happened...)
Heck, digging deep enough to get heat and power from the core would make it much less likely for a stray meteorite to wipe out your living area. Decompression would also be unlikely given all the doors from there to the surface. Only problem would be gravity and possible moon quakes as water and air would be unlikely to escape.
Find some super-thermally conductive material, punch holes through the new bricks in several places (planning ahead of time to avoid stuff like, oh, circuits), place or thread the material into the holes and do a quick compress to ensure it fills up the hole and touches the entire length. Then connect the outside part of the conductor to whatever cheaper heat sink you want. Even if the inner conductor material is expensive at least it transfers the heat outside and away from the inner core.
It would be even neater if the interfacing between the chips was incorporated into the sides of the holes somehow.
Even if it needs liquid nitrogen cooling at least nitrogen is abundant unlike helium.
If the cost for cooling per mile/kilometer is less than the profit generated by solar power from a desert region then I can see someone giving it a go. Unfortunately, there isn't any rough costs for doing so in the article.
I wonder if they are using electric blue sapphires?
Forget cows. If the enemy already knows the tanks are there and have nothing to hit them with make the tank sides look like bull's eyes just to tick the enemy off.
Better yet, have a line of tanks, assign a letter to each, and have 'USA RULEZ' visible only in infrared.
Things are bound to get more interesting with Harper in majority and not in a good way. This is the Prime Minister who loves preventing the public to find out what's going on in 'his' government and is apparently going to move a bill that allows spying on the public's Internet.
Yea. I didn't know that and I am most certainly displeased by that little trick. It's like 'put this like button on your webpage so Facebook can track everyone who looks at your webpage for free even if they don't use the button'.
That kind of accurate info like how many people are visiting certain websites and which pages could be sold to competing websites by Facebook. I'm not surprised the site did that if they realized the implications of the buttton.
Or perhaps a mile radius circular sheet of tightly woven carbon nanotubes kept taut by rotation and weighted ends. (Rocket in middle like big umbrella?) Spin up in high orbit and let fly. It should hit and slow down a lot of space debris before falling to earth.
Or a several mile long, half mile wide sheet of similar stuff with maneuvering rockets at both ends.
Or an array of mirrors to reflect enough sun at enough of the worst junk to burn it up or slow it down.
Sure, if CBS lawyers are suddenly saying 'Mine! Mine! Mine!' then first see if they actually DO own it. Would NOT be the first time DMCA has been abused by persons who do not own the stuff they're complaining about.
If they do, or close enough that you can't afford to buy enough justice to protest, then simply redesign the interface. The options in the app seem quite cool and it would be interesting to see what would be possible by linking two 'tricorders' together for triangulation of local sensor readings. LOL. Personally, I'd also come up with something other than 'tricorder' just to forestall potential other crud from these guys.
I really hate the 'sue or lose it' legal stuff that brings this knee jerk reaction about. DMCA is also a mess that needs serious fixing.
Create a compound mixed with air under extreme pressure that when launched into orbit and released becomes a hundred foot wide(or more), NERF-like object that can absorb massive kinetic impacts of micro-sized objects. (Carbon nanotubes?)
Even better, keep it attached to the rocket so you have a mobile orbit cleaner or have the missile detach a half-dozen smaller 'cleaners' once in position. After a few calculated orbits the controllers can use the rockets to speed up the sponges into a slightly higher position and repeat.
Or perhaps create world's largest geosynchronous NERF ball (300 ft?) and have it absorb every object in that orbital space.
Seriously, is this workable?
Slashdot Mirror
I remember hearing about a new capacitor technology that used nanoparticles to allow far more power storage and almost instant recharge rates. Better/worse?
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7990679.html
After some consideration, and re-reading my original post, I decided to reply one more time and this will be the last one because... what. the. heck?
My original objection was about poor planning: 'I've always thought that the nuclear power plant disaster in Japan was the result of poor planning, not the fault of the technology itself.' A lot of the last post by angel'o'sphere is talking about the poor planning (or outright corruption, negligence, ignorance, etc..) of the government (s?) so, yes, I'll obviously agree with you there.
It was NOT about the 'wonders' of nuclear power. Personally, I'll love it when solar becomes more efficient and environmentally safe capacitors can hold enough of a charge to be used more. Apparently, Germany is installing a lot of solar and more power to them. I was more worried about a lack of power than keeping anything nuclear up. If the plants are too old and need taking down then, yes, they should be taken down in a safe manner.
As for coal... dunno. I mostly dislike it because it can run out not because of any possible radioactivity which, as you say, doesn't appear to be a problem. When it does renewable biofuels will have to ramp up more production.
Ho... kay. Didn't know that the German government has apparently completely blown it with nuclear.
Frankly, given your response, I wouldn't trust them not to screw up coal powered power plants either even if the tech is proven.
It surprises me that you can correctly point out facts but still draw wrong conclusions. ... The quake at the plant side was perhaps 6.x (and that is what we are talking about) The quake in Japan destroyed the power lines connecting the plant to the national grid. Hence it could not use external power for cooling. Hence it was relying on its emergency power generators. The Tsunami destroyed those emergency power generators.
The quake in Japan in the seas east of the plant was 9.x
If we have a magnitude 6.x quake in germany we can expect also that some of the power lines fail.
So... if it weren't for the much larger than planned for tsunami--which was my original beef as they didn't plan for the wave created by the 9.0 quake from a predicted point at sea--the plant would have had emergency power, and thus be able to shut down, because the quake didn't knock those out.
Glad you agree with my wrong conclusion? *facepalm*
First of all this are not earthquakes. It is collapsing mine shafts hundreds of years old that cause those problems.
Causing the earth to vibrate but I suppose the chances of them triggering a larger earthquake in the unstable region is remote. What are the odds, right?
Secondly, as pointed out often enough: german coal plants dont emit radiation, basically none in the western hemisphere does, except perhaps in the USA. The ages old reports, how dangerous coal plants are, are all debunked since decades. German plants use air filters to scrub out all dust, that includes uranium. Above that we mainly burn coal that contains not much uranium.
Finally: it is a difference to weather an 6.x earthquake that is dozens or 100ds of km away or to weather one that is directly below you and causes chasm directly under your plant (the latter is the situation in germany)
So, more advanced coal plants are more environmentally friendly (somehow neutralizing all radiation from natural isotopes they are made from). Gotcha. Same would thus apply to nuclear plants too.(except for being completely radiation free like coal plants)
As for building power plants over known earthquake points... er... I assume there would be a really, really good reason for it?
A quick wiki look shows that, yes, you are right that part of Germany has earthquakes up to the 6 range. (6.5 is the current max, it seems).
However, given that the Richter scale is based on magnitudes, a 7.0 being ten times stronger than 6.0 so a 9.0 is a thousand times stronger, comparing the strength of quakes in Germany to the one that damaged the nuclear reactor in Japan.... Plus, it was the tsunami that caused the problem not the 9.0+ earthquake. Given that an old design was able to handle a 9.0 quake I would think Germany is relatively safe unless they are even older or someone's skimping safety measures. If they don't like the old designs then build one of the much more safer reactors of the newest generation not coal!
Not to mention that apparently mining for coal in Germany seems to trigger those same earthquakes enough for local people to protest. >_ So, not only does burning coal release more radiation per day than a new modern nuclear plant MINING it via blasting triggers earthquakes in Germany.
Yeah, that ought to get votes...
Nod. Thought so. People tend to forget radiation is in everything, even living things, and since coal is compressed plant matter there's more of it. Burning it, and thus releasing more and more radiation in one spot, just makes things worse. A certain amount of rads is normal but that much over time....? Funny, how the Germans spouting coal as 'safe', as in 'less radiation' do not mention this little fact....
Heck, even dense enough stone can be measureably higher. Measure the rads coming from a desk that has a thick marble top and you may be surprised.
Owch! Didn't realize it was that old. Much better design, obviously, but I'd worry about a reactor that old given they weren't designed to be as safe as more modern systems. As was proven when the tsunami hit.
And I've heard that coal can be quite surprisingly radioactive, especially when burned in such amounts. True?
I really am looking forward when solar cells and capacitor storage batteries get better. I've heard a lot of new stuff over the last few years that give me hope but still not out yet.
Oh, certainly, there are all manner of things that could happen that are unlikely. Ten mile meteor into the ocean would overwhelm pretty much anything as would an unlikely volcano.
My annoyance is that the location where the earthquake happened was a possible but known threat and so close that if it ever did go off at the top strength quake then the plant would be in severe trouble since the wave would strike very, very quickly. They did have safeguards for tsunami but only planned for locations that quake more often on a geological scale. Problem is, a problem spot that does not quake often is more likely to have more pressure and thus be more dangerous when it does go off. When it comes to a nation's critical power supply, especially a nation that has to import fuel as much as Japan, there should be no such thing as overkill. For such earthquake conscious people I find the skeptical dismissal of such a threat in the plant's design odd, to say the least. I assume the problem spot was discovered after the plant was built given the age of the plant or else politics got involved.
I agree that planning for everything would be impossible but I have the feeling that future Japanese projects are going to be a little bit more aware of 'unlikely' quake sources for disaster prevention after this costly lesson and be more in line with my thinking. While nuclear scares a lot of people Japan's options for power generation are limited due to its island status. There is some justified fear, yes, but the reality is that nuclear is one of the few options the nation has for reasonable power. You can bet Japan will be funding a lot more research into even more safer nuclear power solutions though there are a lot of much better designs. Perhaps I should be complaining that they left such an old design running instead of building a better, far safer reactor.
I've always thought that the nuclear power plant disaster in Japan was the result of poor planning, not the fault of the technology itself. The plant went into emergency shutdown because of the quake but it was the tsunami that really did the damage because... they didn't think a tsunami that high was likely?!?!
I mean, come ON! Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world due to their location by the Ring of Fire. The place where the quake happened was only a possible location for a quake and unlikely to earthquake predictors but given the still uncertain nature of earthquake prediction 'possible' should mean 'most likely to catch you with pants down'.
Which it did and rather spectacularly at that. So instead of a smaller tsunami from further away like they hoped--yes, hoped since they had to know about the place that did quake--they got a much larger tsunami that overwhelmed their protection. So instead of covering ALL possibilities they went for a cheaper solution to protect their coastal nuclear power plant.
Lesson learned? Find worst possible point where an earthquake COULD happen (no matter how remote), plan for something in the 9.0-9.3 range, then add a safety margin on top of that ESPECIALLY when you have a vulnerable nuclear power plant by the water. Do not say--oh, but that's unlikely to happen there. It DID so that is not something you had ever hear from a manager under your employ. Also, make plans so that your fuel rods can be immediately neutralized if your coolant feed is buggered. I'm pretty sure there are new designs that take that into account but the Tokyo plant was an older design.
However, the government's reaction in Germany is way overboard. Germany isn't part of the Ring of Fire, unlikely to have tsunamis or powerful earthquakes. Unless someone's been heavily skimping on safety measures I see no reason to shut them down on the basis of environmental disasters that are unlikely to occur there. Also, isn't coal itself somewhat radioactive (all things are but remember this is compressed plant matter) and that burning large amounts will be dumping free radiation as well as CO into the environment? (and unlikely to be considered because who thinks coal is nuclear?) That's what shutting down the nuclear reactors was supposed to prevent, right? Gah.
Quite frankly, if they are that scared of the old designs, they are fairly old in tech terms, there are much more safer nuclear reactor designs now with the intent of ensuring meltdown is far, far less likely to happen if not impossible. The fact that I don't hear anything about such new designs is likely someone's either terrified of shadows or getting paid off or plain stupid or all of the above.
Create a fusion of Heathkit kits and the Minecraft game, devise ways to make it interesting for all ages, and watch 'crafters create project kits online. If Heathkit could actually create kits on demand to allow the makers to build their simulated kit in real life that would be awesome!
Hey, Minecrafters are already building redstone ALUs and printers--this is just the next step.
Being able to find out how is what research is for. Current chips shown to someone 40 years ago would cause this sort of reaction -> @_@
Forget Earth--go to the Moon or Mars for getting the goodies closer to or at the core. Sure, both still have molten gooey centers but we can get a lot closer to the center than here on Earth. After all, if one says meteorites brought metals to Earth the same deal applies to the Moon especially since it used to be part of Earth. (No doubt stirring the pot when that happened...)
Heck, digging deep enough to get heat and power from the core would make it much less likely for a stray meteorite to wipe out your living area. Decompression would also be unlikely given all the doors from there to the surface. Only problem would be gravity and possible moon quakes as water and air would be unlikely to escape.
Makes me wonder if anyone would buy an app promising to allow your cell phone to generate an EM force field by oscillating it's transmission signal.
Hey, it would be handy when--oops, I mean 'if'--the aliens with particle beam blasters come.
Find some super-thermally conductive material, punch holes through the new bricks in several places (planning ahead of time to avoid stuff like, oh, circuits), place or thread the material into the holes and do a quick compress to ensure it fills up the hole and touches the entire length. Then connect the outside part of the conductor to whatever cheaper heat sink you want. Even if the inner conductor material is expensive at least it transfers the heat outside and away from the inner core.
It would be even neater if the interfacing between the chips was incorporated into the sides of the holes somehow.
Even if it needs liquid nitrogen cooling at least nitrogen is abundant unlike helium.
If the cost for cooling per mile/kilometer is less than the profit generated by solar power from a desert region then I can see someone giving it a go. Unfortunately, there isn't any rough costs for doing so in the article.
I wonder if they are using electric blue sapphires?
Forget cows. If the enemy already knows the tanks are there and have nothing to hit them with make the tank sides look like bull's eyes just to tick the enemy off.
Better yet, have a line of tanks, assign a letter to each, and have 'USA RULEZ' visible only in infrared.
Things are bound to get more interesting with Harper in majority and not in a good way. This is the Prime Minister who loves preventing the public to find out what's going on in 'his' government and is apparently going to move a bill that allows spying on the public's Internet.
Two Face is alive and well. We need Batman.
It's Facebook so, no, not really. Just never used Like buttons.
Yea. I didn't know that and I am most certainly displeased by that little trick. It's like 'put this like button on your webpage so Facebook can track everyone who looks at your webpage for free even if they don't use the button'.
That kind of accurate info like how many people are visiting certain websites and which pages could be sold to competing websites by Facebook. I'm not surprised the site did that if they realized the implications of the buttton.
Or perhaps a mile radius circular sheet of tightly woven carbon nanotubes kept taut by rotation and weighted ends. (Rocket in middle like big umbrella?) Spin up in high orbit and let fly. It should hit and slow down a lot of space debris before falling to earth.
Or a several mile long, half mile wide sheet of similar stuff with maneuvering rockets at both ends.
Or an array of mirrors to reflect enough sun at enough of the worst junk to burn it up or slow it down.
Sure, if CBS lawyers are suddenly saying 'Mine! Mine! Mine!' then first see if they actually DO own it. Would NOT be the first time DMCA has been abused by persons who do not own the stuff they're complaining about. If they do, or close enough that you can't afford to buy enough justice to protest, then simply redesign the interface. The options in the app seem quite cool and it would be interesting to see what would be possible by linking two 'tricorders' together for triangulation of local sensor readings. LOL. Personally, I'd also come up with something other than 'tricorder' just to forestall potential other crud from these guys. I really hate the 'sue or lose it' legal stuff that brings this knee jerk reaction about. DMCA is also a mess that needs serious fixing.
Substitute Ferengi (fused with tribble DNA) for MPAA and that should help the conceptualization.
Create a compound mixed with air under extreme pressure that when launched into orbit and released becomes a hundred foot wide(or more), NERF-like object that can absorb massive kinetic impacts of micro-sized objects. (Carbon nanotubes?) Even better, keep it attached to the rocket so you have a mobile orbit cleaner or have the missile detach a half-dozen smaller 'cleaners' once in position. After a few calculated orbits the controllers can use the rockets to speed up the sponges into a slightly higher position and repeat. Or perhaps create world's largest geosynchronous NERF ball (300 ft?) and have it absorb every object in that orbital space. Seriously, is this workable?