It has nothing to do with how "hot" the used fuel is. There is no repository. None. Not a one. There are no fuel reprocessing plants either. ALL reactors are forced to store used fuel on-site. It is an engineering solution to a short sighted political problem.
Simple solution: everyone passes through a scanner on the way out. If they're carrying any form of flash drive (including smart phones or music players), hard drives, flash memory sticks, any form of CD/DVD media, tapes, floppy disks, or punch cards, then upon exit they are immediately electrocuted via metal plates in the floor. Problem solved.
Don't use plastic tape, use stainless steel. laser cut the pattern into it and it should last a long time, through floods and fire, hot and cold. Store it with a primer, in case you die and a future geek needs to decrypt the encoding. Avoid storing around people who like to play with thermite or explosives. Also avoid storing next to large vats of acid, unless treated with an acid resistant coating. I would recommend not living near a lava spewing volcano. Might want to avoid nuclear weapons detonation sites as well -- the steel might not survive that. Otherwise, I think it should be ok.
Until someone needs stone to build something. Old monuments were regularly torn down and the cut stone re-used. Inscribed tablets probably suffered similar fates. The Rosetta Stone was found in a wall.
Any and all IP which they claim to own. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, licenses, source, legal documentation, real assets, anything that can be registered to have value and used in future court cases. Every scrap of paper. Every disk. All of it. Then lock it in a vault labelled "Danger -- Zombies -- Do NOT Open"
This is one of those zombies that won't quit with a simple hit on the noggin. It's the kind you have to burn to ash, then scatter the ashes to the wind so that the ash won't try to reform a body and come after you. Hopefully, the courts will completely resolve all the claims in the case this round. It's not worth the legal cost; but, IBM should stand its ground and go after all the assets of SCO.
Review those designs and accident reports. Two too many failures; but, they could have been mitigated.
Graphite moderated reactors were considered too dangerous for commercial use by the late '50's or early '60's by every country except the U.S.S.R. It was cheap and they needed power so they built quite a few of them. It is difficult to know exactly what happened; but, it appears an ill advised and unauthorized experiment was run on the system, with all the safeties turned off. When the reactor crashed, the operator(s) panicked and they tried to do something which was known to cause explosive power surges which could result in catastrophic failures. And it did. This should not have happened.
Fukushima Diachi was a 1960's design that is considered quite dated and had a few known failure modes. The company operating the reactors basically refused to do all the expensive updates to improve the reactor's safety. They also ignored warnings that the sea wall was inadequate for worst case tsunami, which happened. It flooded their electrical system(s) and generators, which were at or below grade level. Because the earthquake knocked out their grid power supply, they had zero options for power. This led to the loss of cooling. Then, for political reasons, the operator tried to downplay the damage, rather than ask for help when they desperately needed it. It did not have to be this way.
Frankly, with the aging inventory of reactor systems operating in the world, I do not expect these to be the last. Having said that, for the purposed of full disclosure, I live near two large power reactors, a major naval base, and one of the two shipyards where they build, overhaul and test nuclear powered ships in the U.S. I don't fear it.
Waste storage is something we do need to solve. Either through re-use or through deep storage somewhere. I don't have an answer for you that's based on real engineering.
I like my Nook. I only use it for reading so it's limitations compared to a tablet never bothered me. Microsoft will likely rip out its basic Android underpinnings and replace them with Windows. The result will be a seemingly underpowered "general purpose" device that tries to do everything (but often not well). More importantly, the battery life will be cut substantially due to Windows lower efficiency. They'll effectively ruin the Nook as an e-reader.
It's not a jet turbine burning kerosene with oxygen, it is a hybrid rocket motor. It is burning a solid composite material with a nitrous oxide oxidizer. It will never be a "clean looking" burn; expect something closer to what the solid boosters on the shuttle produced.
Scaled Composites had to develop two separate vehicles... The lift vehicle and the sub-orbital vehicle. There was a substantial amount of testing for the White Knight 2 to complete before they could start testing the sub-orbital vehicle.
Xenon is most efficient because of its mass. you could also use argon, which is plentiful, or even hydrogen, which is the most abundant thing in the universe but a bit harder to ionize.
Which may all be true... While you and I know what an ion drive is, and you may have even been following along the development news for NSTAR, NEXT, HiPEP, and even the occasional blurb about VASMIR, the average U.S. citizen has no clue what you're talking about. Calling it a solar electric propulsion system helps with public outreach. You want public funding, you have to get public buy-in.
And so, they're on foot or using stolen fuel; and, they manage to hold out for 6 months like they did 60 years ago. The U.S. expends 6 months and thousands of lives getting to this point (in the Korean war the U.S. had 36,000 dead and 92,000 wounded). Then we have to spend a couple of years cleaning up the mess and ferreting out the remaining old guard military units. It took a couple of days to smash the Iraqi military and the Afghan military, true; but, how long was the U.S. really engaged there. If memory serves, we're still in Afghanastan...
For 60 years they've been instilling in their populous that their Dear Leader is a god (or god-like). While many fear and loath him, any that have shown open dissent have been killed or put in re-education camps. The population will not rise up against the NK leadership.
For 60 years NK has been digging in and building weapons. They may not be as technically sophisticated as their neighbor, they may not have the weapons technology available to the U.S., but they have weapons and personell in quantity. Technically, they have one of the largest armies in the world, with over a million active and eight million reserve. A conflict with NK could drag on for years.
OK, while this may be a cool idea, assuming you could get there... Why build a complete structure of limited size when there are numerous known lava tubes. You just need to seal a large one off and you could have as large a living space as you need.
If we didn't keep building nukes, forcing other countries to keep building nukes to compete....
We haven't built any new nuclear weapons in decades. In fact, we've been gradually decomissioning them, in step with Russia, as we reach new treaty agreements.
I'm sorry; but, you're wrong. Work for a sensor manufacturer that sells to the aerospace industry and I can tell you, commercial aircraft cabling is full of connectors. Same kind of locking connectors found on military aircraft.
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It has nothing to do with how "hot" the used fuel is. There is no repository. None. Not a one. There are no fuel reprocessing plants either. ALL reactors are forced to store used fuel on-site. It is an engineering solution to a short sighted political problem.
Only 7 million lines? That doesn't seem right for a government project at all... Way too small.
Simple solution: everyone passes through a scanner on the way out. If they're carrying any form of flash drive (including smart phones or music players), hard drives, flash memory sticks, any form of CD/DVD media, tapes, floppy disks, or punch cards, then upon exit they are immediately electrocuted via metal plates in the floor. Problem solved.
Don't use plastic tape, use stainless steel. laser cut the pattern into it and it should last a long time, through floods and fire, hot and cold. Store it with a primer, in case you die and a future geek needs to decrypt the encoding. Avoid storing around people who like to play with thermite or explosives. Also avoid storing next to large vats of acid, unless treated with an acid resistant coating. I would recommend not living near a lava spewing volcano. Might want to avoid nuclear weapons detonation sites as well -- the steel might not survive that. Otherwise, I think it should be ok.
Until someone needs stone to build something. Old monuments were regularly torn down and the cut stone re-used. Inscribed tablets probably suffered similar fates. The Rosetta Stone was found in a wall.
Any and all IP which they claim to own. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, licenses, source, legal documentation, real assets, anything that can be registered to have value and used in future court cases. Every scrap of paper. Every disk. All of it. Then lock it in a vault labelled "Danger -- Zombies -- Do NOT Open"
This is one of those zombies that won't quit with a simple hit on the noggin. It's the kind you have to burn to ash, then scatter the ashes to the wind so that the ash won't try to reform a body and come after you. Hopefully, the courts will completely resolve all the claims in the case this round. It's not worth the legal cost; but, IBM should stand its ground and go after all the assets of SCO.
Review those designs and accident reports. Two too many failures; but, they could have been mitigated.
Graphite moderated reactors were considered too dangerous for commercial use by the late '50's or early '60's by every country except the U.S.S.R. It was cheap and they needed power so they built quite a few of them. It is difficult to know exactly what happened; but, it appears an ill advised and unauthorized experiment was run on the system, with all the safeties turned off. When the reactor crashed, the operator(s) panicked and they tried to do something which was known to cause explosive power surges which could result in catastrophic failures. And it did. This should not have happened.
Fukushima Diachi was a 1960's design that is considered quite dated and had a few known failure modes. The company operating the reactors basically refused to do all the expensive updates to improve the reactor's safety. They also ignored warnings that the sea wall was inadequate for worst case tsunami, which happened. It flooded their electrical system(s) and generators, which were at or below grade level. Because the earthquake knocked out their grid power supply, they had zero options for power. This led to the loss of cooling. Then, for political reasons, the operator tried to downplay the damage, rather than ask for help when they desperately needed it. It did not have to be this way.
Frankly, with the aging inventory of reactor systems operating in the world, I do not expect these to be the last. Having said that, for the purposed of full disclosure, I live near two large power reactors, a major naval base, and one of the two shipyards where they build, overhaul and test nuclear powered ships in the U.S. I don't fear it.
Waste storage is something we do need to solve. Either through re-use or through deep storage somewhere. I don't have an answer for you that's based on real engineering.
I like my Nook. I only use it for reading so it's limitations compared to a tablet never bothered me. Microsoft will likely rip out its basic Android underpinnings and replace them with Windows. The result will be a seemingly underpowered "general purpose" device that tries to do everything (but often not well). More importantly, the battery life will be cut substantially due to Windows lower efficiency. They'll effectively ruin the Nook as an e-reader.
So... eating the roasted beans then?
Yes, because I'm sure that astronauts want the exact same beverage mix every time, for three to six months straight.
It's not a jet turbine burning kerosene with oxygen, it is a hybrid rocket motor. It is burning a solid composite material with a nitrous oxide oxidizer. It will never be a "clean looking" burn; expect something closer to what the solid boosters on the shuttle produced.
Scaled Composites had to develop two separate vehicles... The lift vehicle and the sub-orbital vehicle. There was a substantial amount of testing for the White Knight 2 to complete before they could start testing the sub-orbital vehicle.
Xenon is most efficient because of its mass. you could also use argon, which is plentiful, or even hydrogen, which is the most abundant thing in the universe but a bit harder to ionize.
Now... you know full well they're talking about a solar electric powered improbability drive. All you need is a little sunlight and a nice cup of tea.
Which may all be true... While you and I know what an ion drive is, and you may have even been following along the development news for NSTAR, NEXT, HiPEP, and even the occasional blurb about VASMIR, the average U.S. citizen has no clue what you're talking about. Calling it a solar electric propulsion system helps with public outreach. You want public funding, you have to get public buy-in.
And so, they're on foot or using stolen fuel; and, they manage to hold out for 6 months like they did 60 years ago. The U.S. expends 6 months and thousands of lives getting to this point (in the Korean war the U.S. had 36,000 dead and 92,000 wounded). Then we have to spend a couple of years cleaning up the mess and ferreting out the remaining old guard military units. It took a couple of days to smash the Iraqi military and the Afghan military, true; but, how long was the U.S. really engaged there. If memory serves, we're still in Afghanastan...
China might get a bit miffed when the radioactive fallout drifts into their bread-basket region.
No it won't, for two reasons.
For 60 years they've been instilling in their populous that their Dear Leader is a god (or god-like). While many fear and loath him, any that have shown open dissent have been killed or put in re-education camps. The population will not rise up against the NK leadership.
For 60 years NK has been digging in and building weapons. They may not be as technically sophisticated as their neighbor, they may not have the weapons technology available to the U.S., but they have weapons and personell in quantity. Technically, they have one of the largest armies in the world, with over a million active and eight million reserve. A conflict with NK could drag on for years.
OK, while this may be a cool idea, assuming you could get there... Why build a complete structure of limited size when there are numerous known lava tubes. You just need to seal a large one off and you could have as large a living space as you need.
They'd have to be in attendance for this to be of any use.
I'm not sure what's sadder... That the poster does not understand basics biochemistry; or, that he has been modded insightful by several /. users.
If we didn't keep building nukes, forcing other countries to keep building nukes to compete....
We haven't built any new nuclear weapons in decades. In fact, we've been gradually decomissioning them, in step with Russia, as we reach new treaty agreements.
They were called vacuum tubes in the U.S. and valves in the rest of the English speaking world. British translator perhaps?
I'm sorry; but, you're wrong. Work for a sensor manufacturer that sells to the aerospace industry and I can tell you, commercial aircraft cabling is full of connectors. Same kind of locking connectors found on military aircraft.