Synroc is a method to make an mineral that locks the radioactive elements inside its strucure.
The crystal lattice inside a mineral *can* be sensitive to radioactive decay, with the lattice being broken or mutated, allowing the radioactive elements to escape.
By looking at very old and naturally occurring minerals it is very easy to determine if the mineral has indeed been damaged. Also, by looking at ratios of radioactive byproducts you can determine if any have escaped.
So... using these techniques you can say with certainty: "hmmmm, this natural hollandite has been around for 1000 million years and is completely intact and has contained all radioactive elements inside its crystal structure for this time period. All I need to do is make a synthetic hollandite that is identical to the natural one and lock inside my radioactive waste."
Can we make synthetic minerals that are as "good" as the natural ones? Well, yes! Petrologists all around the world do so everyday.
Any byproduct of a nuclear reaction, what you would call "waste" can be *safely* and *permanently* (100 million years) stored in Synroc.
Bury it in a geologically stable part of the world, Australia is perfect, and you've solved the Nuclear "waste" problem.
Why don't we do this at the moment?
1) Cost, it will cost more.
2) "Not in my backyard!" - Ignorant voters and scared politicians. No government would have a hope in hell of getting their populace to approve this, no matter how safe it actually is.
Why don't movies [appear to] suffer from the same problems as games when it comes to release dates?
If a studio can budget and plan to produce something as complex and costly as a movie then does this put game production studios in a whole different (and seemingly amature) league?
Damn we are sending signals since the 30s and even if they are weak, they must be quite far now.
Like perhaps, 30 light years? There are only a handful of stars (out of 70 sextillion) within 30 light years of us, I don't think we've got anything to be worried about.
While the filesystem may support such features, they don't necessarily work.
I'm running Win2K on NTFS and when I make "shortcuts" to the desktop they don't actually work for all programs. Some open the directory being pointed to, some load the link file, which sucks.
Good points, but I can assure you the cure for cancer will *not* be found by some doctor. It will done be a team of scientists specialising in various niche fields of biology.
The average doctor doesn't know anything about the *real* science behind a cure for cancer.
"I only see one problem with nuclear -- the small amount of waste that is generated needs to be handled properly. It can be done, but it just has to be done right."
This can be done right. Synroc developed by Ringwood and his friends here in Australia is the answer to displosal of radioactive waste.
I didn't believe this until I actually met a Japanese girl on exchange here in Australia.
The conversation turned to the war one day, specifically about the atrocities committed by Japan. I don't know much about this stuff but the student asking all the questions was an Asian Studies major at uni, and appeard to know her stuff pretty well. The poor Japanese girl was shocked and claimed to know nothing about such things! We were all appalled by the cover up that is taking place.
Sure thing, the command prompt is awesome. I do agree with everything in Daniel's post, I was just making a glib comment on his writing style, that's all...
You are correct, but they don't ever want to get to court. So far it's been bully tactics all the way and having a little more weight to throw around (eg: so and so payed, now it's *your* turn) will help them out.
I think your use of language is fucking awesome, and what you say about beating this shit is pure brilliance! Getting lame cunts off the internet to process them for you is pure gold.
The first thing I'd do if I got one of these letters is go out and buy the cheapest and crappest old mac that I could find and set it up with all my ISP details.
Would the ISP logs be able to verify that the mac you have now wasn't the machine you used previously??
Just a thought.
PS: If the server logs do differentiate between machines (Like MAC addresses for ethernet cards) then what if you used the same modem, somehow;-).
I'm a physicist and there is nothing that I have learn that tells me that this wouldn't be possible.
Obviously you don't stop the photons, but there are much cooler things that you can do that'd give the same effect.
Try this one: two coherent and high power laser beams are emitted from the handle. The power is selected so that a single beam doesn't do much, but when two cross they constructively interfere and the intensity is enough to ionise atoms in the air (which atoms and what wavelength laser to use would be a part of the design). Scan them back and forth across each other; two beams could do a pretty good triangular blade and with more you could make more complicated patterns.
The properties of ionised atoms are very well undertsood and these can be exploited to, surprise, surprise, give off light.
Perhaps you would need to shine a third laser (of undetermined wavelength - I'm obviously just thinking this idea over) through the cloud of ionised atoms to initiate photon emission at the frequency you want.
So there, it could be done. The only hard bit would be a power source for all that laser action and refining the beam control optics to give a good shape to the "blade".
One night while on the phone my dog chewed through the extension lead. Being in mid conversation I scooped up the wire and stripped the ends with my teeth so as to get back into the conversation.
The shock I got from the live wire was immense! It went through the roof of my mouth and my head snapped back very quickly.
That was worse than any of the 240V shocks I've ever got.
Hard to stabalize a material into non-radioactive elements......but what you could do is; take a dangerously radioactive isotope, something with a short half life, and do "something" to it so as to make its half life long, very very long.
This can be achieved using lots of funky nuclear processes (neutron bombardment for example) and there are isotopes only different by one neutron that exhibit remarkably different half lives.
The problem is that the process is so unpredictable! Contaminants in your sample end up being radioactive as well as the "safe" products getting whacked again and becoming dangerous.
Slashdot Mirror
Synroc is a method to make an mineral that locks the radioactive elements inside its strucure. The crystal lattice inside a mineral *can* be sensitive to radioactive decay, with the lattice being broken or mutated, allowing the radioactive elements to escape. By looking at very old and naturally occurring minerals it is very easy to determine if the mineral has indeed been damaged. Also, by looking at ratios of radioactive byproducts you can determine if any have escaped. So... using these techniques you can say with certainty: "hmmmm, this natural hollandite has been around for 1000 million years and is completely intact and has contained all radioactive elements inside its crystal structure for this time period. All I need to do is make a synthetic hollandite that is identical to the natural one and lock inside my radioactive waste." Can we make synthetic minerals that are as "good" as the natural ones? Well, yes! Petrologists all around the world do so everyday.
I thought ocean currents were caused when all the fish swam in the one direction?
For those curious: Hubbert curve.
Any byproduct of a nuclear reaction, what you would call "waste" can be *safely* and *permanently* (100 million years) stored in Synroc.
Bury it in a geologically stable part of the world, Australia is perfect, and you've solved the Nuclear "waste" problem.
Why don't we do this at the moment?
1) Cost, it will cost more.
2) "Not in my backyard!" - Ignorant voters and scared politicians. No government would have a hope in hell of getting their populace to approve this, no matter how safe it actually is.
Sorry mate, don't be a smartarse and correct someone for spelling it "tyre" when it *is* spelt that way by other english speaking countries.
Why don't movies [appear to] suffer from the same problems as games when it comes to release dates?
If a studio can budget and plan to produce something as complex and costly as a movie then does this put game production studios in a whole different (and seemingly amature) league?
Er, sorry, 70 light years. But that's still a small number of stars.
Like perhaps, 30 light years? There are only a handful of stars (out of 70 sextillion) within 30 light years of us, I don't think we've got anything to be worried about.
Good point, but then haven't you always dreamt of having hot sex in a jacoozie with a team of identical midget bitches?? Or is that just me?
Well, it's gotten him some action, She's Hot!
Spot on. I understand that you are refering to high schools and such but I'm at Uni and I just can not understand the decisions being made.
Someone decided to "upgrade" every general use (email, internet, word) computer on campus to an LCD screen.
Someone decided to "upgrade" every general use (email, internet, word) computer to a 3.2GHz P4.
What was wrong with the CRT monitors. Does this mean that a modern CRT dies in 5 years?
But you've got to blame a lot of software that was/is written with "Backup To Floppy" support!
In reality there should be programs that "Backup Floppy" to the HDD!
While the filesystem may support such features, they don't necessarily work.
I'm running Win2K on NTFS and when I make "shortcuts" to the desktop they don't actually work for all programs. Some open the directory being pointed to, some load the link file, which sucks.
Maybe they fixed this in XP?
Good points, but I can assure you the cure for cancer will *not* be found by some doctor. It will done be a team of scientists specialising in various niche fields of biology. The average doctor doesn't know anything about the *real* science behind a cure for cancer.
This can be done right. Synroc developed by Ringwood and his friends here in Australia is the answer to displosal of radioactive waste.
This "problem" has been solved.
I didn't believe this until I actually met a Japanese girl on exchange here in Australia. The conversation turned to the war one day, specifically about the atrocities committed by Japan. I don't know much about this stuff but the student asking all the questions was an Asian Studies major at uni, and appeard to know her stuff pretty well. The poor Japanese girl was shocked and claimed to know nothing about such things! We were all appalled by the cover up that is taking place.
Sure thing, the command prompt is awesome. I do agree with everything in Daniel's post, I was just making a glib comment on his writing style, that's all...
You are correct, but they don't ever want to get to court. So far it's been bully tactics all the way and having a little more weight to throw around (eg: so and so payed, now it's *your* turn) will help them out.
Is it me, or does this sound like it just came right from the marketing droids at apple??
This bit especially is marketing speak.
If this is a legit post then, oh well, you sound like a marketing droid Daniel.
Now why was my reply "flamebait"!! Does agreeing with flamebait (not that it was) make you flaimbait too???
Dude,
I think your use of language is fucking awesome, and what you say about beating this shit is pure brilliance! Getting lame cunts off the internet to process them for you is pure gold.
Rock on.
How did they verify that she had a Mac??
;-).
The first thing I'd do if I got one of these letters is go out and buy the cheapest and crappest old mac that I could find and set it up with all my ISP details.
Would the ISP logs be able to verify that the mac you have now wasn't the machine you used previously??
Just a thought.
PS: If the server logs do differentiate between machines (Like MAC addresses for ethernet cards) then what if you used the same modem, somehow
I'm a physicist and there is nothing that I have learn that tells me that this wouldn't be possible.
Obviously you don't stop the photons, but there are much cooler things that you can do that'd give the same effect.
Try this one: two coherent and high power laser beams are emitted from the handle. The power is selected so that a single beam doesn't do much, but when two cross they constructively interfere and the intensity is enough to ionise atoms in the air (which atoms and what wavelength laser to use would be a part of the design). Scan them back and forth across each other; two beams could do a pretty good triangular blade and with more you could make more complicated patterns.
The properties of ionised atoms are very well undertsood and these can be exploited to, surprise, surprise, give off light.
Perhaps you would need to shine a third laser (of undetermined wavelength - I'm obviously just thinking this idea over) through the cloud of ionised atoms to initiate photon emission at the frequency you want.
So there, it could be done. The only hard bit would be a power source for all that laser action and refining the beam control optics to give a good shape to the "blade".
What do you think?
One night while on the phone my dog chewed through the extension lead. Being in mid conversation I scooped up the wire and stripped the ends with my teeth so as to get back into the conversation.
The shock I got from the live wire was immense! It went through the roof of my mouth and my head snapped back very quickly.
That was worse than any of the 240V shocks I've ever got.
Hard to stabalize a material into non-radioactive elements... ...but what you could do is; take a dangerously radioactive isotope, something with a short half life, and do "something" to it so as to make its half life long, very very long.
This can be achieved using lots of funky nuclear processes (neutron bombardment for example) and there are isotopes only different by one neutron that exhibit remarkably different half lives.
The problem is that the process is so unpredictable! Contaminants in your sample end up being radioactive as well as the "safe" products getting whacked again and becoming dangerous.