Land ice is melting and flowing into the sea, floating on cold salt water
See the fresh water?
See the fresh water freeze?
Sea ice is growing in the south.
Looks like Climate Deniers are wrong again.
No doubt about that. Remember gaseous fission reactors? Real soon now, flying nuclear airplanes..any day now...soon. The LFTR's? Seems someone forgot to do their homework on self-sustaining Thorium and so, yet another failed effort before it even began (Sorenson notwithstanding). Breeders, all 5 nations who have worked there have all retreated. And off topic, the ITER. Same old same old Tokamak, any day now we'll beat all those nasty instabilities and have 'control' over these little suns...not.
There is no single H at stp. It is always H2 and the molecule, while weighing less than an He 'molecule', is larger than He atom, resulting in lower thermal transfer. THAT being said, single H does occur in elevated heat or electric field potential, thus invading grain boundries in iron alloys, and causing embrittlement thereof.
It's easier to use titanium than carbon composites, titanium being one of the worst hydride offenders. Iron, of course, suffers embrittlement in H2 as well. Neither of these problems is insurmountable.
So, let me guess. "Government IS the problem" right? Government created the reserve. Government paid for the refining of He from natural gas in Texas, Oaklahoma and Louisiana. Government found the program was 1.2 billion in debt. Government handed the business to Private Enterprise Private enterprise sold the product dirt cheap (they didn't inherit the outstanding debt, yet another Pro-Capitalist giveaway). and now, somehow, it is Congress fault?
Yep, and we're running short. Soon, all research into superconductivity will have to stop. Have to wonder why they aren't use H2. A little heavier, but not much and as long as you don't use Iron, titanium, vanadium or similar metals which form hydrides..... Has to be one of the ultralight gases though. Speed of sound and all that.
Re:Might want to tighten the bolts on those sabers
on
China's Island Factory
·
· Score: 0
I mean, do you think it's not sabre rattling
Yes, it is saber rattling Like when Bush sent our P-3U Orion spycraft into Chinese airspace, then had to publicly grovel and say he was "very, very sorry that our plane killed your fighter pilot" to get the Orion back...in bushel baskets. There will be more of it. The right needs a good war right now, before we de-fund the endless spy system called GWOT.
Yes, there are liquid metal reactors, and all of them currently use Be or C moderators and a more conventional 235U core with or without external augmentation of either 232Th or 238Pu. But the bottom line for this advertized 'breakthrough' is that it will burn semi-stable transuranics. That absolutely and always means relativisitic neutron bombardment, with concommitant low impact probability per neutron / cross sectional / meter, thus 'vast', as in a great mass, well in excess of 55 tons, of fuel, and it will probably have to be pure metal fuel at that, with the 'shudder' factor this produces What nuclear engineers and their users refuse to acknowledge is that control systems fail, in unexpected ways, when non-modeled behaviors are introduced...like tsunami in coastal waters which are seismically active subduction zones. And quite simply the allowable failure rate for a reactor in the unmodeled situations must be ZERO, none whatever. That requires passive safety, which is, necessarily, expensive and ordinarily unused. So now we speak of reactors without passive fission damping from loss of moderator (coolant) and just HOPE we never get another 'neutron wave' event like the experimental reactor failure at SL-1, caused then by a mis-application of withdrawal rate of the central control rod. These things have to be treated like chained volcanoes. We have all learned that the industry cannot be trusted to police itself and sadly, many of the scientists involved in pacifying the public while pushing the design envelope have proved to be, shall we say, less than trustworthy?
As mentioned by others, a reactor dependent on MeV neutrons will be VAST and your 10% 235U would make such a reactor subject to neutron pulse runaway. If made of 238Pu you just have vast and unmoderated (meaning loss of coolant does not halt fission, losing one failure mode defense in the process). Now you are down to less reliable active controls and...if Americans have learned anything they have learned not to trust active controls 'certified' by the Nuclear Industry of TMI fame. Seriously, catastrophes can not be tolerated and if Fukushima did not end the insanity of fission power, it is only due to the mega billion dollar propaganda blitz. Like all fission technologies, you are asking the people to trust those who have been shown willing liars and we're all done with that trust.
Do remember to tell that to the people of Fukushima, and TMI, and Chernobyl, and Brown's Ferry, won't you?
Nuclear power. Big promises, little results.
The Electorate at large has been asked "Do you want a nuclear reactor visible from your home?"
NO say 88% of people. THERE, no "special interest" involved, just rational people making rational choices having observed how ever promise of 'safe, clean power' turns out to be an expensive, dangerous lie.
I am curious, but I wonder why these earth shaking technical improvements are so lacking in details by the PR flacks. Could it be that nothing new has been added and they are just looking to restart the nuclear industry, which is, frankly, dead in the water for at least a generation thanks to Fukushima demonstrating how little regard the reactor industry has for safety. One spreading room for six reactors, and that below sea level. Seriously.
so are you thinking of an IMOX of 238Pu and heavier with some lighter element such as aluminum? Otherwise, the waste matrix will be in 238U, which will just produce more transuranics under relativistic neutron bombardment. I am thinking the mix will be the latter, since any reactor that doesn't produce enough power to pay for the costs of operation will necessarily go under. I am, naturally, hoping no one is thinking 100% transuranics with a 235U core to provide the bombardment....given that the operational word might very well become "bomb" under those circumstances.
238,000 TW sustained solar influx. 1% and we have no use at all for fission so, yes, there are alternatives and given the long storage times and costs, probably much less expensive / 500 years. A 20 year half life still has to be stored longer than the U.S. has existed as a state. Too expensive.
I would have to say not, given that transmutation will not 'blue shift' any more than it will increase fission, and so your pile of 238U will simply become more and more 239-Pu. NOT a solution given we have no way to dispose of the stuff.
All good right up to the liquid sodium that ignites on contact with air. Kind of kills the whole "safety first" claim. Witness Fermi I (actually, the ONLY thanks to the near-melt and fire).
There's a reason no one is talking liquid metal cooled reactors anymore.
Actually, 2H-3H energy loss fusion will do the job and is both throttleable and capable of the necessary density. We don't have to wait for energy gain since we're going for energy gain via fusion...someday.
Reactor #3, an IMOX fuel mix of 8% 238-Pu and standard 2% yellowcake, reignited fission after coolant shutdown.
This is the problem with all transuranic 'consumers', they make more of fissionable transuranics as they age, becoming more able to sustain the chain without moderator (water).
Result is as seen, steam overpressure, cladding reversion, hydrogen gas overpressure and explosions....except the reaction doesn't stop until the melted mass dilutes enough with low-fission-probable sand...and concrete...and steel. The fact that the 'lava' did not melt through containment is, at best, pure luck. So, please do ignore 50 years of breeder prototype results, just do it somewhere far from the growing land.
Baring that the new tech involves Neutron saturation transmutation, the end result will be MORE transuranics, as well as higher liklihood of meltdown, witness Fukushima Dai-Ichi's IMOX in #3. Total melt. Nothing new here, move along.
Yeah, by all means, use toxic materials in a place so unimportant that they have REFUSED to have a nuclear waste dump in their back yard. Oh, wait...there goes your argument Real reason for Reno? Land, labor are DIRT cheap since the opening of "indian" casinos in Cali. And we all know about the Laxault class influence buying in Wide Open Republican Nevada, the state built with Mob Money.
Agreed. There will be food. The rich will get it. The poor will riot, pillage and behead them. Patterns of history will not be denied for long and the Russian saying "hungry bellies make revolution" is exactly what the world cannot afford any longer But to avoid it, taxes now is a far better solution than military occupation later.
says those whose Scientific Objectivity is for sale to Exxon and the gaggle of Koch Brothers propagandists and those who quote ECONOMISTS as if they were actual climatologists.
Slashdot Mirror
Land ice is melting and flowing into the sea, floating on cold salt water
See the fresh water?
See the fresh water freeze?
Sea ice is growing in the south.
Looks like Climate Deniers are wrong again.
No doubt about that. Remember gaseous fission reactors? Real soon now, flying nuclear airplanes..any day now...soon.
The LFTR's? Seems someone forgot to do their homework on self-sustaining Thorium and so, yet another failed effort before it even began (Sorenson notwithstanding).
Breeders, all 5 nations who have worked there have all retreated.
And off topic, the ITER. Same old same old Tokamak, any day now we'll beat all those nasty instabilities and have 'control' over these little suns...not.
Be very hard to do since they took down their page
I stand corrected
There is no single H at stp. It is always H2 and the molecule, while weighing less than an He 'molecule', is larger than He atom, resulting in lower thermal transfer.
THAT being said, single H does occur in elevated heat or electric field potential, thus invading grain boundries in iron alloys, and causing embrittlement thereof.
It's easier to use titanium than carbon composites, titanium being one of the worst hydride offenders. Iron, of course, suffers embrittlement in H2 as well. Neither of these problems is insurmountable.
So, let me guess. "Government IS the problem" right?
Government created the reserve. Government paid for the refining of He from natural gas in Texas, Oaklahoma and Louisiana.
Government found the program was 1.2 billion in debt.
Government handed the business to Private Enterprise
Private enterprise sold the product dirt cheap (they didn't inherit the outstanding debt, yet another Pro-Capitalist giveaway).
and now, somehow, it is Congress fault?
Yep, and we're running short. Soon, all research into superconductivity will have to stop. Have to wonder why they aren't use H2. A little heavier, but not much and as long as you don't use Iron, titanium, vanadium or similar metals which form hydrides.....
Has to be one of the ultralight gases though. Speed of sound and all that.
I mean, do you think it's not sabre rattling
Yes, it is saber rattling
Like when Bush sent our P-3U Orion spycraft into Chinese airspace, then had to publicly grovel and say he was "very, very sorry that our plane killed your fighter pilot" to get the Orion back...in bushel baskets.
There will be more of it. The right needs a good war right now, before we de-fund the endless spy system called GWOT.
Yes, there are liquid metal reactors, and all of them currently use Be or C moderators and a more conventional 235U core with or without external augmentation of either 232Th or 238Pu.
But the bottom line for this advertized 'breakthrough' is that it will burn semi-stable transuranics.
That absolutely and always means relativisitic neutron bombardment, with concommitant low impact probability per neutron / cross sectional / meter, thus 'vast', as in a great mass, well in excess of 55 tons, of fuel, and it will probably have to be pure metal fuel at that, with the 'shudder' factor this produces
What nuclear engineers and their users refuse to acknowledge is that control systems fail, in unexpected ways, when non-modeled behaviors are introduced...like tsunami in coastal waters which are seismically active subduction zones.
And quite simply the allowable failure rate for a reactor in the unmodeled situations must be ZERO, none whatever.
That requires passive safety, which is, necessarily, expensive and ordinarily unused.
So now we speak of reactors without passive fission damping from loss of moderator (coolant) and just HOPE we never get another 'neutron wave' event like the experimental reactor failure at SL-1, caused then by a mis-application of withdrawal rate of the central control rod.
These things have to be treated like chained volcanoes. We have all learned that the industry cannot be trusted to police itself and sadly, many of the scientists involved in pacifying the public while pushing the design envelope have proved to be, shall we say, less than trustworthy?
As mentioned by others, a reactor dependent on MeV neutrons will be VAST and your 10% 235U would make such a reactor subject to neutron pulse runaway.
If made of 238Pu you just have vast and unmoderated (meaning loss of coolant does not halt fission, losing one failure mode defense in the process).
Now you are down to less reliable active controls and...if Americans have learned anything they have learned not to trust active controls 'certified' by the Nuclear Industry of TMI fame.
Seriously, catastrophes can not be tolerated and if Fukushima did not end the insanity of fission power, it is only due to the mega billion dollar propaganda blitz.
Like all fission technologies, you are asking the people to trust those who have been shown willing liars and we're all done with that trust.
Do remember to tell that to the people of Fukushima, and TMI, and Chernobyl, and Brown's Ferry, won't you?
Nuclear power. Big promises, little results.
Well that is why Pelosi is not speaker of the House despite the 5 million extra votes in 2012.
The Electorate at large has been asked "Do you want a nuclear reactor visible from your home?"
NO say 88% of people. THERE, no "special interest" involved, just rational people making rational choices having observed how ever promise of 'safe, clean power' turns out to be an expensive, dangerous lie.
I am curious, but I wonder why these earth shaking technical improvements are so lacking in details by the PR flacks.
Could it be that nothing new has been added and they are just looking to restart the nuclear industry, which is, frankly, dead in the water for at least a generation thanks to Fukushima demonstrating how little regard the reactor industry has for safety.
One spreading room for six reactors, and that below sea level. Seriously.
so are you thinking of an IMOX of 238Pu and heavier with some lighter element such as aluminum? Otherwise, the waste matrix will be in 238U, which will just produce more transuranics under relativistic neutron bombardment.
I am thinking the mix will be the latter, since any reactor that doesn't produce enough power to pay for the costs of operation will necessarily go under.
I am, naturally, hoping no one is thinking 100% transuranics with a 235U core to provide the bombardment....given that the operational word might very well become "bomb" under those circumstances.
238,000 TW sustained solar influx. 1% and we have no use at all for fission so, yes, there are alternatives and given the long storage times and costs, probably much less expensive / 500 years.
A 20 year half life still has to be stored longer than the U.S. has existed as a state. Too expensive.
I would have to say not, given that transmutation will not 'blue shift' any more than it will increase fission, and so your pile of 238U will simply become more and more 239-Pu. NOT a solution given we have no way to dispose of the stuff.
All good right up to the liquid sodium that ignites on contact with air. Kind of kills the whole "safety first" claim. Witness Fermi I (actually, the ONLY thanks to the near-melt and fire). There's a reason no one is talking liquid metal cooled reactors anymore.
Actually, 2H-3H energy loss fusion will do the job and is both throttleable and capable of the necessary density. We don't have to wait for energy gain since we're going for energy gain via fusion...someday.
Reactor #3, an IMOX fuel mix of 8% 238-Pu and standard 2% yellowcake, reignited fission after coolant shutdown. This is the problem with all transuranic 'consumers', they make more of fissionable transuranics as they age, becoming more able to sustain the chain without moderator (water).
Result is as seen, steam overpressure, cladding reversion, hydrogen gas overpressure and explosions....except the reaction doesn't stop until the melted mass dilutes enough with low-fission-probable sand...and concrete...and steel.
The fact that the 'lava' did not melt through containment is, at best, pure luck.
So, please do ignore 50 years of breeder prototype results, just do it somewhere far from the growing land.
Baring that the new tech involves Neutron saturation transmutation, the end result will be MORE transuranics, as well as higher liklihood of meltdown, witness Fukushima Dai-Ichi's IMOX in #3. Total melt. Nothing new here, move along.
Yeah, by all means, use toxic materials in a place so unimportant that they have REFUSED to have a nuclear waste dump in their back yard.
Oh, wait...there goes your argument
Real reason for Reno? Land, labor are DIRT cheap since the opening of "indian" casinos in Cali.
And we all know about the Laxault class influence buying in Wide Open Republican Nevada, the state built with Mob Money.
Agreed. There will be food. The rich will get it. The poor will riot, pillage and behead them.
Patterns of history will not be denied for long and the Russian saying "hungry bellies make revolution" is exactly what the world cannot afford any longer
But to avoid it, taxes now is a far better solution than military occupation later.
says those whose Scientific Objectivity is for sale to Exxon and the gaggle of Koch Brothers propagandists and those who quote ECONOMISTS as if they were actual climatologists.