I think you are ignoring the fact that we have a very aggressive free press here, especially concerning words like, "nuclear accident", "coverup", or "radiation release". You can be sure if something happened, our leftist anti-nuclear media would be all over it.
Now don't go raggin on Micheal. He is trapped by the indoctrination and propaganda he received at the undoubtedly extremely leftist, elitist school where he got his "degree". Rag on the a-hole "Professors" who taught him how to think and what is acceptable to critique.
Interesting that fully half the referenced article was about Sun and Microsoft fighting over who get's to be the big bad ID authenticator of the digital age.
No has yet mentioned Microsoft, not even to rant at them. Amazing.
A vector is the thing that moves the infectious agent (bacterium or virus) to a new host. Unless you want to count the bloodstream or lymph or other internal body systems as a "vector" for infection spread within the body. But vector really refers to movements of agents between hosts.
"Host" makes it sound so ambivalent eh? I guess it's a nicer than saying poor doomed bastard(s).
Smallpox: CDC is the only source of vaccinia vaccine and VIG for civilians. CDC will provide vaccinia vaccine to protect laboratory and other health-care personnel whose occupations place them at risk for exposure to vaccinia and other closely related Orthopoxviruses, including vaccinia recombinants. Vaccine should be administered under the supervision of a physician selected by the institution. Vaccine will be shipped to the responsible physician. Requests for vaccine and VIG, including the reason for the request, should be referred to
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Drug Services, National Center for Infectious Diseases
Mailstop D-09
Atlanta, GA 30333
Telephone: (404) 639-3670
Facsimile: (404) 639-3717
Plague: Plague vaccine is available in the United States from Greer Labs. Plague vaccine USP is manufactured by Greer Laboratories, Inc., P.O. Box 800, Lenoir, NC, 28645-0800, telephone (800)438-0088 or (704)754-5327. The vaccine is shipped refrigerated in 20ml vials and should be stored at 2-8 degrees C (35-46 degrees F). It should not be frozen. The following groups of people should consider vaccination:
Persons working with the plague bacterium in the laboratory or in the field. Persons working in plague-affected areas or with potentially infected animals where they have little control over their environments, particularly in developing countries.
I don't know where you might find tularemia vaccine or some of the other lesser known organisms.
The obvious answer to your hypothesis is where these evil developers managed to get hold of a viable supply Yersinia pestis bacteria. Not something you can obtain at Home Depot or Lowes hardware.
Smallpox won't "spread like crazy" because you need to be within close proximity to an infected person. Once it becomes known that there is a major smallpox outbreak, you can be sure people will severely limit their interpersonal contacts. And there is indeed a smallpox vaccine. See this article.
An excerpt:
"The possible use of smallpox virus as a weapon by terrorists has stimulated growing international concern and led to a recent review by the World Health Organization of the global availability of smallpox vaccine. This review found approximately 60 million doses worldwide, with little current vaccine manufacture, although limited vaccine seed remains available (1). Ongoing discussions in the United States suggest that the national stockpile should contain at least 40 million doses to be held in reserve for emergency use, including in case of a terrorist release of smallpox virus (O'Toole, this issue, pp. 540-6).
The current U.S. stockpile contains approximately 15.4 million doses of vaccinia vaccine (Dryvax) made from the New York City Board of Health strain of vaccinia and was produced by Wyeth Laboratories in 13 separate lots. The vaccine is lyophylized in glass vials with rubber stoppers and sealed with a metal band. When rehydrated, each vial contains 100 doses and has a potency of at least 108 plaque-forming units (pfu)/ml. Some vials of the vaccine stockpile have shown elevated moisture levels and thus failed routine quality control testing; however, the vaccine in these vials remains potent, and the failed lots have not been discarded."
The NRC regulates waste from commercial use, and the DOE regulates waste from the military. The Environmental Protection Agency has set standards for high-level waste repositories but has yet to do so for low-level sites.
1. High-Level Radioactive Wastes include both commercial irradiated fuel (spent fuel) and military reprocessing wastes.
2. Transuranic Wastes are wastes contaminated with elements heavier (i.e., higher on the periodic table) than uranium and which today come primarily from the DOE's military production activities.
3. Uranium Mill Tailings come from processing uranium ore and contain about 85 percent of the radioactivity of the original ore.
4. Low-Level Radioactive Wastes are all wastes, commercial and military, not included in any of the above categories. NRC regulations further subdivide commercial low-level waste into four categories, Class A, B, C, and Greater-than-Class C, according to a combination of level of concentration and half-life of radioactivity.
5. Mixed Wastes combine radioactive and hazardous wastes and are generated by DOE and civilian use.
After some years of operation (and depending on neutron flux - values anyone?) the interior will most likely have some GTCC (greater than class C) waste. This is very nasty stuff. Just as bad if not worse than spent fuel that has decayed for some years. It can be handled, but it's not simple.
Fission is a bitch because there are *tons* of material involved, and the material gets activated and keeps producing power for *days* after shutdown. Even if you scram a fission core, you still have to supply cooling for a long time. And, as a few reactor operators have learned to their lasting horror, dropping all the control rods in at once can momentarily raise the chain reaction rate enough to slag the core.
I would add that that was with a particular design of control rod wherein the tip of each rod had a positive effect on local and global core reactivity. The plant where I work the control rods have never had this "feature" (it's not a bug, it's a feature - heh). In fact I would hazard an informed guess and say that no Western nation would allow a PWR or BWR to operate with a design like that. And I bet all other reactors have had those types of rods yanked out (pardon the pun) since about April 27 1986.
Manufacture of slightly enriched to highly enriched power reactor fuel leaves behind depleted uranium. That's what "depleted" means, it's been "depleted" of the more useful, easily fissionable isotope (U-235).
Fission waste is a mix of many daughter elements of a U-235 (plus some bred Pu) fission event. Ever hear of the Mae West curve? I thought not.
You shouldn't post if you don't know what you are talking about. But I guess that isn't a big impediment to many (including myself sometimes - sigh)
An excerpt: "Even though the U.S. government is opposed to a civilian plutonium fuel industry, it does see the merits of using the nation's surplus plutonium from nuclear weapons as nuclear fuel. When mixed with uranium and used in a nuclear power plant, weapons plutonium changes into a form of plutonium that is less suitable for use in a weapon.
Using weapons plutonium in mixed-oxide fuel would make U.S. nuclear disarmament steps more irreversible, and it would make the residual plutonium less attractive to terrorists or agents of renegade nations."
Evil? I think not. I think a backward, Luddite attitude is far more evil.
A control rod disconnected from it's operating device and couldn't be lifted up out of the reactor. This required complete reactor disassembly, core offload etc...
"Tritiated water is readily absorbed by the body and is therefore much better placed to do damage."
Exactly correct. The other problem is that tritium activity is non-trivially hard to detect in small but significant quantities using the standard instruments, unlike most other radioisotopes.
"Contrary to popular belief, it's not just output that's a problem, the things are very large and complicated. I remember a story I heard about a group who spent 2 months taking apart, fixing, and putting their machine back together again, despite knowing at the start what piece had broken. If it's going to be profitable you need technology that is stable, long-term and easily repairable."
Well, I work at a nuclear power plant and sometimes it can take two weeks to dissassemble the systems enough to "get at" the faulty part. And any well designed power plant (of any energy source) well have sufficient monitoring and analysis systems to allow you to diagnose an impending failure and to know the exact (or very close) cause of the problem before you begin the expensive process of shutdown and dissassembly. So two weeks wouldn't be out of line with current large baseloaded power plants. It's not good by any means, but not excessive compared to whats out there right now.
If there was money to be made in alternative energy, you can bet some of those evil corporations in your paranoid conspiracy theory would jump on it.
The cost to generate an "alternative" energy kWhr is simply higher than for other more efficient designs.
Now if you want to get into a discussion of "true" costs vs. current costs (the whole pollution credits issue) then that's different. But under the current definitions of "cost" there is no contest.
Haha, I was soooo sure that virii was a real word, and that I would shoot you down in flames, that I just went through 5 different online dictionaries looking for it. And you know? I just can't believe these dumb imbeciles didn't include an entry for it in their supposedly "complete" work.
are at least accomplishing something; even though the protocols have not been ratified, pretty much every European government is already complying with it.
My ass. That is an outright lie. The programs you refer to were already in place and working. There have no new initiatives from the Kyoto protocols, and there won't be. It's much easier to blame those snotrag wrapped dicks across the pond, than to hammer your own industries with the really painful choices that full compliance with the Kyoto protocols would require.
Oh, and by the way, guess what? The US has far FAR more installed PV capacity than the rest of the world COMBINED. Also the largest single solar electric plant in operation (80MW), also by FAR the largest installed base of wind power.
Now do you want to trade information, or do you want to do the same tired tactic of trading verbal insults (which is usually what you do when you haven't done your homework)?
Speaking as a stockholder in several companies I think you way overestimate the power the individual stockholder has. Company management with it's golden parachutes and employment contracts, have made themselves invulnerable to all but the most severe stockholder rebellions. These CEO's and Presidents are extremely overpaid and have no need or inclination to answer to anyone except their BOD's (and even then they like as not utterly control them) or LARGE institutional stockholders. If these are the stockholders you mention, then there is some truth to your statement. Everything is set up these days around that quarterly earnings report so you can impress some 25 year old stock analyst in NYC. So he can then hype your company, increasing your stock price and making your CEO stock options enormously valuable. It's sickening. The only large corporate CEO that understands that his future depends on the company future is GE's CEO Welch. If GE has a bad year, he gives back his salary!! Most CEO's still keep their salary and a nice bonus.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you are ignoring the fact that we have a very aggressive free press here, especially concerning words like, "nuclear accident", "coverup", or "radiation release". You can be sure if something happened, our leftist anti-nuclear media would be all over it.
Ahhh, I can't touch that comment.....
Now don't go raggin on Micheal. He is trapped by the indoctrination and propaganda he received at the undoubtedly extremely leftist, elitist school where he got his "degree". Rag on the a-hole "Professors" who taught him how to think and what is acceptable to critique.
Interesting that fully half the referenced article was about Sun and Microsoft fighting over who get's to be the big bad ID authenticator of the digital age.
No has yet mentioned Microsoft, not even to rant at them. Amazing.
Neither.
A vector is the thing that moves the infectious agent (bacterium or virus) to a new host. Unless you want to count the bloodstream or lymph or other internal body systems as a "vector" for infection spread within the body. But vector really refers to movements of agents between hosts.
"Host" makes it sound so ambivalent eh? I guess it's a nicer than saying poor doomed bastard(s).
LOL!
:)
I hear you.
Smallpox:
CDC is the only source of vaccinia vaccine and VIG for civilians. CDC will provide vaccinia vaccine to protect laboratory and other health-care personnel whose occupations place them at risk for exposure to vaccinia and other closely related Orthopoxviruses, including vaccinia recombinants. Vaccine should be administered under the supervision of a physician selected by the institution. Vaccine will be shipped to the responsible physician. Requests for vaccine and VIG, including the reason for the request, should be referred to
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Drug Services, National Center for Infectious Diseases
Mailstop D-09
Atlanta, GA 30333
Telephone: (404) 639-3670
Facsimile: (404) 639-3717
Plague:
Plague vaccine is available in the United States from Greer Labs. Plague vaccine USP is manufactured by Greer Laboratories, Inc., P.O. Box 800, Lenoir, NC, 28645-0800, telephone (800)438-0088 or (704)754-5327. The vaccine is shipped refrigerated in 20ml vials and should be stored at 2-8 degrees C (35-46 degrees F). It should not be frozen. The following groups of people should consider vaccination:
Persons working with the plague bacterium in the laboratory or in the field. Persons working in plague-affected areas or with potentially infected animals where they have little control over their environments, particularly in developing countries.
I don't know where you might find tularemia vaccine or some of the other lesser known organisms.
The obvious answer to your hypothesis is where these evil developers managed to get hold of a viable supply Yersinia pestis bacteria. Not something you can obtain at Home Depot or Lowes hardware.
Smallpox won't "spread like crazy" because you need to be within close proximity to an infected person. Once it becomes known that there is a major smallpox outbreak, you can be sure people will severely limit their interpersonal contacts. And there is indeed a smallpox vaccine. See this article.
An excerpt:
"The possible use of smallpox virus as a weapon by terrorists has stimulated growing international concern and led to a recent review by the World Health Organization of the global availability of smallpox vaccine. This review found approximately 60 million doses worldwide, with little current vaccine manufacture, although limited vaccine seed remains available (1). Ongoing discussions in the United States suggest that the national stockpile should contain at least 40 million doses to be held in reserve for emergency use, including in case of a terrorist release of smallpox virus (O'Toole, this issue, pp. 540-6).
The current U.S. stockpile contains approximately 15.4 million doses of vaccinia vaccine (Dryvax) made from the New York City Board of Health strain of vaccinia and was produced by Wyeth Laboratories in 13 separate lots. The vaccine is lyophylized in glass vials with rubber stoppers and sealed with a metal band. When rehydrated, each vial contains 100 doses and has a potency of at least 108 plaque-forming units (pfu)/ml. Some vials of the vaccine stockpile have shown elevated moisture levels and thus failed routine quality control testing; however, the vaccine in these vials remains potent, and the failed lots have not been discarded."
It actually answers your questions.
After some years of operation (and depending on neutron flux - values anyone?) the interior will most likely have some GTCC (greater than class C) waste. This is very nasty stuff. Just as bad if not worse than spent fuel that has decayed for some years. It can be handled, but it's not simple.
Fission is a bitch because there are *tons* of material involved, and the material gets activated and keeps producing power for *days* after shutdown. Even if you scram a fission core, you still have to supply cooling for a long time. And, as a few reactor operators have learned to their lasting horror, dropping all the control rods in at once can momentarily raise the chain reaction rate enough to slag the core.
I would add that that was with a particular design of control rod wherein the tip of each rod had a positive effect on local and global core reactivity. The plant where I work the control rods have never had this "feature" (it's not a bug, it's a feature - heh). In fact I would hazard an informed guess and say that no Western nation would allow a PWR or BWR to operate with a design like that. And I bet all other reactors have had those types of rods yanked out (pardon the pun) since about April 27 1986.
Fission waste is depleted uranium
Huh?
Manufacture of slightly enriched to highly enriched power reactor fuel leaves behind depleted uranium. That's what "depleted" means, it's been "depleted" of the more useful, easily fissionable isotope (U-235).
Fission waste is a mix of many daughter elements of a U-235 (plus some bred Pu) fission event. Ever hear of the Mae West curve? I thought not.
You shouldn't post if you don't know what you are talking about. But I guess that isn't a big impediment to many (including myself sometimes - sigh)
"Plut is not recyclable (except in bombs)"
Wrong.
Here is one of many search returns from google.
An excerpt: "Even though the U.S. government is opposed to a civilian plutonium fuel industry, it does see the merits of using the nation's surplus plutonium from nuclear weapons as nuclear fuel. When mixed with uranium and used in a nuclear power plant, weapons plutonium changes into a form of plutonium that is less suitable for use in a weapon.
Using weapons plutonium in mixed-oxide fuel would make U.S. nuclear disarmament steps more irreversible, and it would make the residual plutonium less attractive to terrorists or agents of renegade nations."
Evil? I think not. I think a backward, Luddite attitude is far more evil.
A control rod disconnected from it's operating device and couldn't be lifted up out of the reactor. This required complete reactor disassembly, core offload etc...
And yes, our managers where hopping mad as well.
More like 46 ft deep pools of water.
"Tritiated water is readily absorbed by the body and is therefore much better placed to do damage."
Exactly correct. The other problem is that tritium activity is non-trivially hard to detect in small but significant quantities using the standard instruments, unlike most other radioisotopes.
Oops. I meant two months and I posted two weeks. Sigh.
"Contrary to popular belief, it's not just output that's a problem, the things are very large and complicated. I remember a story I heard about a group who spent 2 months taking apart, fixing, and putting their machine back together again, despite knowing at the start what piece had broken. If it's going to be profitable you need technology that is stable, long-term and easily repairable."
Well, I work at a nuclear power plant and sometimes it can take two weeks to dissassemble the systems enough to "get at" the faulty part. And any well designed power plant (of any energy source) well have sufficient monitoring and analysis systems to allow you to diagnose an impending failure and to know the exact (or very close) cause of the problem before you begin the expensive process of shutdown and dissassembly. So two weeks wouldn't be out of line with current large baseloaded power plants. It's not good by any means, but not excessive compared to whats out there right now.
Oh brother.
If there was money to be made in alternative energy, you can bet some of those evil corporations in your paranoid conspiracy theory would jump on it.
The cost to generate an "alternative" energy kWhr is simply higher than for other more efficient designs.
Now if you want to get into a discussion of "true" costs vs. current costs (the whole pollution credits issue) then that's different. But under the current definitions of "cost" there is no contest.
Whups, I meant Scott Adams....
PHB = Pointy Haired Boss
It's a character from the Dilbert cartoon series by Steve Adams. Dilbert FAQ
Haha, I was soooo sure that virii was a real word, and that I would shoot you down in flames, that I just went through 5 different online dictionaries looking for it. And you know? I just can't believe these dumb imbeciles didn't include an entry for it in their supposedly "complete" work.
Hats off to ya.
are at least accomplishing something; even though the protocols have not been ratified, pretty much every European government is already complying with it.
My ass. That is an outright lie. The programs you refer to were already in place and working. There have no new initiatives from the Kyoto protocols, and there won't be. It's much easier to blame those snotrag wrapped dicks across the pond, than to hammer your own industries with the really painful choices that full compliance with the Kyoto protocols would require.
Oh, and by the way, guess what? The US has far FAR more installed PV capacity than the rest of the world COMBINED. Also the largest single solar electric plant in operation (80MW), also by FAR the largest installed base of wind power.
Now do you want to trade information, or do you want to do the same tired tactic of trading verbal insults (which is usually what you do when you haven't done your homework)?
Speaking as a stockholder in several companies I think you way overestimate the power the individual stockholder has. Company management with it's golden parachutes and employment contracts, have made themselves invulnerable to all but the most severe stockholder rebellions. These CEO's and Presidents are extremely overpaid and have no need or inclination to answer to anyone except their BOD's (and even then they like as not utterly control them) or LARGE institutional stockholders. If these are the stockholders you mention, then there is some truth to your statement. Everything is set up these days around that quarterly earnings report so you can impress some 25 year old stock analyst in NYC. So he can then hype your company, increasing your stock price and making your CEO stock options enormously valuable. It's sickening. The only large corporate CEO that understands that his future depends on the company future is GE's CEO Welch. If GE has a bad year, he gives back his salary!! Most CEO's still keep their salary and a nice bonus.