No, that is not how breeders work. Breeders 'breed' plutonium as additional elements used in the core are activated and converted to plutonium - so they actually produce plutonium (as they were designed to do). You are probably thinking of burners khallow, another fast neutron reactor, a burners rate is about 20% for them *if* the materials technology is there to support there construction - which it isn't, so it creates a bigger problem than what SONGS is facing now.
Additionally PWR burnup rate is roughly.3% percent of the mass of the fuel.
Wow, fell at the first hurdle. Shame because I imagine a lot of people stopped reading there.
The wind is always blowing somewhere. In places where wind power is suitable you have a wide geographic distribution of turbines and constant, 24/356 energy. Obviously you need enough capacity to ensure a certain baseline, just like you need more coal plants or more reactors because sometimes they break down or need maintenance. Fortunately wind is cheap, getting cheaper and has very little environmental impact so that isn't a huge problem.
Exactly. Baseload power is a function of the grid, not of any one particular type of generation.
Wind is also more scalable than nuclear as new technology can be retrofitted onto existing towers and brownfield sites. Like nuclear there are downsides that would make you want to avoid populated areas, in particular infrasound, however it is a technology worthy of further investment and development.
They're also stuck storing the fuel on site until the federal government comes up with a spent fuel storage solution.
Or until there is a 4th gen reactor available to consume the old waste as its fuel. The waste of a 4th gen is only dangerous for a few centuries rather than tens of thousands of years. In other words 4th gen converts a 10,000 year problem into a 300 year problem, while generating power from "fuel" that has already been mined, processed, and paid for.
Well apart from the materials technology issues to make 4th generation "burner" reactors have a viable enough lifespan to avoid the very issue we are talking about with SONGS in the article, you also add much more radioactive materials to the decommissioning process, thus increasing the cost. The issue is not the type of reactor or how much fuel it can convert to fissile ash, it's the lifespan of the reactor which should be similar to the materials that it consumes.
Additionally for the fissile ash you are talking about it's not 300 years, it's more like 600 years for the first daughter product, which would also have more decay cycles and radioactive products beyond the 600 years. So it's more like making a billions of years problem into a thousands of years problem, however it is valid that it has been mined and processed - so that is a start.
If we can design reactor that last 100-1000 years instead of the 40-60 years they last now, then 4th generation reactor technology could be viable.
It's possible you meant Thallium 208 (Historic Name: Thorium C, Half-Life: 3 minutes)?
There are two observationally stable byproducts at Tl203 and Tl205.
The most stable of the remaining isotopes has a half-life of just under 4 years. Most of the rest are measured in hours, seconds and in some cases, milliseconds.
So yes, it's very "hot". But it's extremely short-lived.
Thanks for pointing that out and also much appreciated about not being a dick about it.
I checked my notes at home and they were about Thallium 208. I agree, I want to learn more so I can have a reasoned and measured response. Unfortunately I see the nuclear mod trolls are out in force again.
I have nothing against this type of reactor technology, in principle however I'd like to know more about it's spent fuel byproducts and operational effluents. It is important to understand that if the halflife is three minutes and it's an energetic emmiter, how many daughter product iterations does it got through before it becomes stable an what is the rate of decay? That in itself may pose an even greater threat *because* if it is continually changing just how many micro-nutrient analogues does it present to biology? I'm not going to pretend I know the answer because I am still learning myself, however at least I know that's a question to ask. Another question about a Thorium fuel cycle to uncover is are we just making a new problem. Regardless of that, we still have problems with the Uranium based cycle and they all lead back to the same thing.
The bottom line is that because this whole debate is so polarized, no one talks sense about it anymore. The irony is that if you took a rational look at both sides of the debate you would see that what the anti- and pro- nuclear lobby need is exactly the same thing.
So let's get to the bottom of this whole pro- anti- nuclear bullshit right here.
Pro-Nuclears: want to have new reactor technology developed and deployed, old reactors desposed of responsibly. Is that a fair call?
Anti-nuclear: wants no Nuclear industry at all, but if it has to be there clean it up an make it safer. Is that a fair call?
Answer: What both parties need to have *both* of their goals satisfied is a Geologically Stable Fuel Containment Facility. The original DOE, defense in depth spec. In every country that has Nuclear reactors, in granite to deal with the ground water issues and avoid relying on containment technology.
You are right to want to learn more, doing so gets rid of the ignorance that makes these discussions so vehement and ad hominem. In following the same path I've been fortunate have access to people. The thing is you have to learn not just about the reactor technology, but enrichment, mining, reactor disposal, spent fuel containment, lots of radioisotopes - their energetic properties, toxicity, the micro-nutrients they analogue that causes bio-accumulation in the food chain and what cancers they cause in humans. Then there is the poltics, funding, legislative constructs like Price-Anderson, funding arrangements in the 2005 Energy Bill (for example), it's PR machine, reports into accidents (like Chernobyl, Fukushima), NRC and regulatory operating principles, understanding their reports and the consequences of the metric they report. The effect of the IAEA interdiction orders on WHO organization publications on radiological findings. And still there is more.
It is a mammoth and absolutley awe inspiring industry and technolgy that can either wipe us out as a species or free us as a race if we respect that the danger it poses is geological in effect, requires very long term vision in science to understand and, deep wisdom to control due to human frailty.
What I've learned is though the nuclear industry has some deep structural problems that need to be addressed, I also recognise it's irresponsible for our generation to hand down a radionuclide legacy to our grandchildren's grandchildren... so I find myself ultimately b
Whoever dreamed this up must pay exactly zero attention to a thing we like to refer to as "reality".
Thallium 238 is the spent fuel product of of this form of reactor and Tl-238 bio-concentrates. Whilst it is good that it cannot be used for nuclear weapons, it creates an entirely new form of spent fuel problem whilst the existing spent fuel issue of pu-239 (or other nuclear industry effluents) has not been resolved.
What I am saying here is the creation of spent fuel containment for the nuclear industry is vital for any form of nuclear technology to progress. It may not be as glamorous as talking about nuclear reactors, however the predicament at Fukushima (i.e the spent fuel pools) clearly demonstrates the consequences of not having such a facility.
If your definition of "reasonable" is "one millionth" you'd be right, but also perfectly unreasonable. There is such a thing as natural radioactivity, it is everywhere. And if you demand that "artificial" radiation must be less than 1/10.000th of natural radioactivity in the worst contaminated areas to be "reasonable", then you suffer from a gross form hubris. Your claims about Iodine-129 neglect to mention that is has 1/1.000.000.000th of the activity of I-131.
This statement is confusing. Regardless of the activity of the radioisotope, the issue is not radioactivity in the environment it is the release of radioisotopes *into* the environment. They didn't exist naturally, they are mutagenic to life and cause cancers to gestate when they are inside a living being.
This is further compounded by the fact that Iodine is highly mobile, most of all, it is water soluble. This means that it will be dispersed in the environment at a much greater rate than it will be concentrated in humans. In fact, it is not even detectable around Fukushima Daiichi.
That's not right. The water solubility and the fact that it is a micronutrient analogue will mean it actually concentrates in the foodchain. This is called bio-concentration because the radioisotope presents to a metabolism as something it can use. On uptake it is incorporated into the biological systems in the body and becomes organically bound. It's alpha, beta or gamma emissions are absorbed into the surrounding tissue and depending on the energetic levels of the radio isotope causes a cancer to gestate. In humans this process takes about 6 years.
You also neglect to say that the total radiotoxicity of all longlived fission isotopes is less than the radiotoxicity of the natural uranium before it went through the reactor. It is LESS than what was naturally there anyway. I know you don't care about such facts, lots of other people do.
Which longlived fission isotopes? pu-239 is a long lived fission isotope and it is highly toxic. It presents as an iron micronutrient so it also bioconcentrates readily, it's chloride is highly soluble and it's oxide is toxic when inhaled. Oppenheimer's research found it was toxic to humans in concentrations of 1-10 micrograms.
So yes, other people care about such facts. Can you clarify what you mean?
Your body is full of potassium-40, carbon-14, thorium, uranium and their decay products. If you're so scared of radioactivity that you must demand Cs-137 to decay to one-millionth of the current concentrations before you feel safe, then go commit suicide. There is no place in the solar system that will satisfy your demands. You, sir, are a lunatic.
That is not relevant. At issue is radioisotopes, not radiation and it is completely valid to try to prevent Nuclear Industry effluents into the environment because they are toxic and mutagenic. I'm not so afraid of radiation however I think it is completely sane and rational, to be concerned about radio isotopes acting as nutrient analogues in the foodchain as they a factor that affects human health.
At the same time, your original point re WASH-1400 is interesting. I'm not sure if it is one I've read and I commend you for highlighting it. So whilst I don't agree with what you have said here, on points of fact, I think the polarization of this debate has been destructive and hasn't really led to an increased level of understanding of the issues that matter.
But that sounds like a theoretical rate for a limited class of failure modes under ideal maintenance and regulation conditions. Can't say any more about that until I find out what he's speaking of.
The report in question actually refers to (something we've previously discussed) the metrics used to report on reactors by the NRC, specifically accident sequence precursors and licensee event reports. They are actual events that generated a reactive inspection by the NRC or a formal report to the NRC under the Reactor Oversight Process because the risk of damage to the reactor core exceeded a factor of 10, or there was an accident.
These are the metrics used by the NRC so they're not theoretical or limited failure modes, they are actual failures caused by an incident that could damage the core of the reactor.
Still, be careful with the terminology of 'accident' and 'near miss' and the statistics behind them, as they get applied and represented in a very inconsistent manner by the anti-nuke lobby.
That is incorrect.
Specifically the term 'near miss' is referred to (in the report) when the NRC sends a special, augmented or incident investigation team, under the Reactor Oversight Process, to a reactor site because the risk of reactor core damage has exceeded a factor of 10. NRC classifies these as 'reactive inspections' as response to a Accident Sequence Precursor.
Accidents come under a different class which results in a formal written report (called a Licensee Event Report) to the NRC because a failed or degraded component caused a change in the operational characteristics of the reactor.
So the statistics are not inconsistent, nor are they misrepresented by calling them a 'near miss' or 'accident' any more than it is calling a 'spade' a 'Soil Moving Device' under the ROP.
Exactly my point, the plant should never have been placed where it could get hit by a tsunami, because it was not designed to withstand one.
I agree with the premise, though I'm not certain that is something you can do with any degree of certainty, certainly not in Japan where earthquake activity is more frequent. The driver of placing them is the availability of cooling water, so this generally means they will be located next to large bodies of water.
I'm satisfied with the approach of making sea walls, and the like, however the external risk we are talking about is if the operator actually complies with the rules, as is the case with Tepco.
it was assumed a tsunami would never breach the protective wall and reach the plant
Tepco ignored geological evidence and relied on historical data when evaluating the height the sea wall *should* have been.
The key is not placing a plant that cannot withstand a tsunami where it can be hit by one, because designing to withstand a tsunami suddenly inundating the site it really not practical.
Another key issue is not grouping all of the backup generators on the sea facing side of the reactor with an inadequate sea wall was a disaster waiting to happen. Tepco had ample time to prepare but colluded with the regulator to prevent such changes in regulations which, according to the official report into the accident, was caused by an inherent belief that nuclear power was safe.
While your hindsight is all well and good now, this was all predicted and ignored. Worse still the report to the Diet highlights that these external events were human nonfeasance and "Wholly man made" - to quote the report. Criminal negligence through nonfeasance is an external threat the modelling is trying to predict.
Even with diesel failures at a unit, it could still have been safely shut down had the tsunami not hit.
You are incorrect, it could not have been safely shutdown with diesel failures. Design basis issues with the Generation 1 reactor mean that it must *always* have access to electricity. Specifically S and B class facilities in the installation must always be powered otherwise they are exposed to these design issues. Exposure to these issues are why the Fukushima plant exploded, as predicted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Well, If we are talking about shuttered plants that are not operating, with no fuel, then they have plenty of margin, believe me. Anyone reading this thread to this point will clearly see how ridiculous your contention is, so I don't need to continue, but for your own edification, if HB were operating and were hit with a large quake, it would still likely withstand it due to the margin.
Wow, you just can't concede that you are wrong. Plus all of your posts are upmodded so I wonder if you are using a sock-puppet
Renewable energy and "sustainable transportation" were largely tried in the 19th century and abandoned because they were too limiting. This isn't the real future, this is what reactionary conservatives like yourself want to take us back to.
Wow, that's interesting, I would have described myself as a radical technologist. I think left and right politics have consistently failed to deliver the important structural changes our society needs to adapt and prosper. We devalue science and engineering and try to over-over simplify things when it's just not appropriate.
Instead of good quality debate we get low quality politicians driven by funding from corporate sources, and they want what they pay for. In reality I think that the alternative energy sources like wind, solar and geo-thermal are appropriate sources of technological development for the next 100 years while we get nuclear power engineered properly for the next 1000-5000 years. But that's close to impossible now because the debates about all of these things has become so polarized that people have forgotten things like compromise, wisdom, truth and fact.
And the science of anthropogenic global warming was reported right here at/. before it was trendy to talk about it. The debate was considerable different too, considering the merits of the science as opposed to how convincing the lobby groups are.
And alternative energy will mean an explosion of activity in IT to deploy control systems to manage energy. The cruel irony is countries like America and Australia are so abundantly rich with wind and solar resources that the future is practically begging us to lead the way, yet we choose to dig our heals in and forget that we used to do difficult things and solve hard problems.
You call me a conservative, but what does that mean any more? What does a liberal mean anymore? I like capitalism because when an idea is bad or has had it's turn, it collapses and something new takes over. Well the music industry is one of many examples that show us all that the vested interests CAN halt change, so what we have isn't capitalism at all, it's corporatism.
New ideas and thinking don't stand a chance against that sort of money.
I watched Krauss on Q&A and WOW, what a great scientist he is. I thought to myself, this is one of the reasons people look up to America, because they have all these great thinkers that we can learn from.
Unfortunately Australia sometimes takes the lead in being backwards thinking and it's no secret here that many of our accomplished leaders in creating solar energy are now in America. Now it seems American politician are looking to Australia for methods to embed the status quo. This looks a lot like the Australian government scrapping the independent Climate Commission (made up of scientists), but legislating to avoid, what happened here, a relaunched Commission funded by the public as citizens instead of as taxpayers,.
And like a dying animal the status quo tries to kill the future. This is not a generational issue because some of the older generation know what the issues are and trying to make things better to minimize the consequences and costs the younger generations that will experience. However, the people controlling energy and its future, now, will be dead by the time the effects are here, so for them why wouldn't they have all the benefits of cheap power when they will never experience the downside of it.
They struggle for 50's thinking to be relevant in the 21st century, but have compunction imposing it and since the science is so convincing the only thing left to do is muzzle the scientists. It's madness.
The basic point is: when you're threatening a violent crime against a person who may well have been a victim of such, and even if they haven't, very likely has friends who have and is more than aware of their vulnerability in this regard, that's taking it to a whole different level.
Unfortunately, I have encountered women and men with such experiences and you are right.
I think we also have to look at the kind of people issuing those threats in the gaming forums. Realistically they're unlikely to have social interaction beyond gaming and their life experiences is gaming. I doubt they have the compassion or sensitivity to understand the damage they do and are taking out their pent up frustrations on women.
Their lack of confidence when faced with a real woman would more than likely make them fumble and stutter and I doubt they would have the confidence to approach a beautiful woman at all. So when a woman is in this deodorant lacking, personal hygiene optional, gaming world, those barriers are eliminated and they somehow feel entitled to vent and direct their frustrations.
Gamers live in the game world, where such threats are meaningless, flesh wounds are repaired with a healing pack and a new life is just a game away.
She's not talking about comments like "nice ass" as much as she's talking about comments like "die, you fucking cunt!"
Why is this moderated troll?
The very first paragraph of the article says she got a death threat and that they know where she lives. Do people even read the articles before moderating anymore?
Slashdot Mirror
oh, dear you're being assholes about releasing broken software - maybe I won't then.
Corporations are not people
but Solyent Green is.
It's an acronym for Digital Control My Ass, so you were right the first time.
you type faster than me ;-)
I just said the same thing. lol
Also, CAN Buss is not new. It's been in Semis for a very long time.
I think the real question is: How much Buss would a CAN Buss Bus if a CAN Bus can CAN Can?
For uranium, it is about 0.7%.
Uranium is also 100% via breeder reactors.
No, that is not how breeders work. Breeders 'breed' plutonium as additional elements used in the core are activated and converted to plutonium - so they actually produce plutonium (as they were designed to do). You are probably thinking of burners khallow, another fast neutron reactor, a burners rate is about 20% for them *if* the materials technology is there to support there construction - which it isn't, so it creates a bigger problem than what SONGS is facing now.
Additionally PWR burnup rate is roughly .3% percent of the mass of the fuel.
Wind doesn't blow?
Wow, fell at the first hurdle. Shame because I imagine a lot of people stopped reading there.
The wind is always blowing somewhere. In places where wind power is suitable you have a wide geographic distribution of turbines and constant, 24/356 energy. Obviously you need enough capacity to ensure a certain baseline, just like you need more coal plants or more reactors because sometimes they break down or need maintenance. Fortunately wind is cheap, getting cheaper and has very little environmental impact so that isn't a huge problem.
Exactly. Baseload power is a function of the grid, not of any one particular type of generation.
Wind is also more scalable than nuclear as new technology can be retrofitted onto existing towers and brownfield sites. Like nuclear there are downsides that would make you want to avoid populated areas, in particular infrasound, however it is a technology worthy of further investment and development.
They're also stuck storing the fuel on site until the federal government comes up with a spent fuel storage solution.
Or until there is a 4th gen reactor available to consume the old waste as its fuel. The waste of a 4th gen is only dangerous for a few centuries rather than tens of thousands of years. In other words 4th gen converts a 10,000 year problem into a 300 year problem, while generating power from "fuel" that has already been mined, processed, and paid for.
Well apart from the materials technology issues to make 4th generation "burner" reactors have a viable enough lifespan to avoid the very issue we are talking about with SONGS in the article, you also add much more radioactive materials to the decommissioning process, thus increasing the cost. The issue is not the type of reactor or how much fuel it can convert to fissile ash, it's the lifespan of the reactor which should be similar to the materials that it consumes.
Additionally for the fissile ash you are talking about it's not 300 years, it's more like 600 years for the first daughter product, which would also have more decay cycles and radioactive products beyond the 600 years. So it's more like making a billions of years problem into a thousands of years problem, however it is valid that it has been mined and processed - so that is a start.
If we can design reactor that last 100-1000 years instead of the 40-60 years they last now, then 4th generation reactor technology could be viable.
It's not a law. Jimmy Carter issued an executive order against recycling spent fuel. I'd like to say that was one of his more stupid moves, but there are so many to choose from.
And Reagun repealed the order several years later.
It's possible you meant Thallium 208 (Historic Name: Thorium C, Half-Life: 3 minutes)?
There are two observationally stable byproducts at Tl203 and Tl205. The most stable of the remaining isotopes has a half-life of just under 4 years. Most of the rest are measured in hours, seconds and in some cases, milliseconds. So yes, it's very "hot". But it's extremely short-lived.
Thanks for pointing that out and also much appreciated about not being a dick about it.
I checked my notes at home and they were about Thallium 208. I agree, I want to learn more so I can have a reasoned and measured response. Unfortunately I see the nuclear mod trolls are out in force again.
I have nothing against this type of reactor technology, in principle however I'd like to know more about it's spent fuel byproducts and operational effluents. It is important to understand that if the halflife is three minutes and it's an energetic emmiter, how many daughter product iterations does it got through before it becomes stable an what is the rate of decay? That in itself may pose an even greater threat *because* if it is continually changing just how many micro-nutrient analogues does it present to biology? I'm not going to pretend I know the answer because I am still learning myself, however at least I know that's a question to ask. Another question about a Thorium fuel cycle to uncover is are we just making a new problem. Regardless of that, we still have problems with the Uranium based cycle and they all lead back to the same thing.
The bottom line is that because this whole debate is so polarized, no one talks sense about it anymore. The irony is that if you took a rational look at both sides of the debate you would see that what the anti- and pro- nuclear lobby need is exactly the same thing.
So let's get to the bottom of this whole pro- anti- nuclear bullshit right here.
Pro-Nuclears: want to have new reactor technology developed and deployed, old reactors desposed of responsibly. Is that a fair call?
Anti-nuclear: wants no Nuclear industry at all, but if it has to be there clean it up an make it safer. Is that a fair call?
Answer: What both parties need to have *both* of their goals satisfied is a Geologically Stable Fuel Containment Facility. The original DOE, defense in depth spec. In every country that has Nuclear reactors, in granite to deal with the ground water issues and avoid relying on containment technology.
You are right to want to learn more, doing so gets rid of the ignorance that makes these discussions so vehement and ad hominem. In following the same path I've been fortunate have access to people. The thing is you have to learn not just about the reactor technology, but enrichment, mining, reactor disposal, spent fuel containment, lots of radioisotopes - their energetic properties, toxicity, the micro-nutrients they analogue that causes bio-accumulation in the food chain and what cancers they cause in humans. Then there is the poltics, funding, legislative constructs like Price-Anderson, funding arrangements in the 2005 Energy Bill (for example), it's PR machine, reports into accidents (like Chernobyl, Fukushima), NRC and regulatory operating principles, understanding their reports and the consequences of the metric they report. The effect of the IAEA interdiction orders on WHO organization publications on radiological findings. And still there is more.
It is a mammoth and absolutley awe inspiring industry and technolgy that can either wipe us out as a species or free us as a race if we respect that the danger it poses is geological in effect, requires very long term vision in science to understand and, deep wisdom to control due to human frailty.
What I've learned is though the nuclear industry has some deep structural problems that need to be addressed, I also recognise it's irresponsible for our generation to hand down a radionuclide legacy to our grandchildren's grandchildren... so I find myself ultimately b
Whoever dreamed this up must pay exactly zero attention to a thing we like to refer to as "reality".
Thallium 238 is the spent fuel product of of this form of reactor and Tl-238 bio-concentrates. Whilst it is good that it cannot be used for nuclear weapons, it creates an entirely new form of spent fuel problem whilst the existing spent fuel issue of pu-239 (or other nuclear industry effluents) has not been resolved.
What I am saying here is the creation of spent fuel containment for the nuclear industry is vital for any form of nuclear technology to progress. It may not be as glamorous as talking about nuclear reactors, however the predicament at Fukushima (i.e the spent fuel pools) clearly demonstrates the consequences of not having such a facility.
This statement is confusing. Regardless of the activity of the radioisotope, the issue is not radioactivity in the environment it is the release of radioisotopes *into* the environment. They didn't exist naturally, they are mutagenic to life and cause cancers to gestate when they are inside a living being.
That's not right. The water solubility and the fact that it is a micronutrient analogue will mean it actually concentrates in the foodchain. This is called bio-concentration because the radioisotope presents to a metabolism as something it can use. On uptake it is incorporated into the biological systems in the body and becomes organically bound. It's alpha, beta or gamma emissions are absorbed into the surrounding tissue and depending on the energetic levels of the radio isotope causes a cancer to gestate. In humans this process takes about 6 years.
Which longlived fission isotopes? pu-239 is a long lived fission isotope and it is highly toxic. It presents as an iron micronutrient so it also bioconcentrates readily, it's chloride is highly soluble and it's oxide is toxic when inhaled. Oppenheimer's research found it was toxic to humans in concentrations of 1-10 micrograms.
So yes, other people care about such facts. Can you clarify what you mean?
That is not relevant. At issue is radioisotopes, not radiation and it is completely valid to try to prevent Nuclear Industry effluents into the environment because they are toxic and mutagenic. I'm not so afraid of radiation however I think it is completely sane and rational, to be concerned about radio isotopes acting as nutrient analogues in the foodchain as they a factor that affects human health.
At the same time, your original point re WASH-1400 is interesting. I'm not sure if it is one I've read and I commend you for highlighting it. So whilst I don't agree with what you have said here, on points of fact, I think the polarization of this debate has been destructive and hasn't really led to an increased level of understanding of the issues that matter.
When is *someone* going to squash these guys.
But that sounds like a theoretical rate for a limited class of failure modes under ideal maintenance and regulation conditions. Can't say any more about that until I find out what he's speaking of.
The report in question actually refers to (something we've previously discussed) the metrics used to report on reactors by the NRC, specifically accident sequence precursors and licensee event reports. They are actual events that generated a reactive inspection by the NRC or a formal report to the NRC under the Reactor Oversight Process because the risk of damage to the reactor core exceeded a factor of 10, or there was an accident.
These are the metrics used by the NRC so they're not theoretical or limited failure modes, they are actual failures caused by an incident that could damage the core of the reactor.
Still, be careful with the terminology of 'accident' and 'near miss' and the statistics behind them, as they get applied and represented in a very inconsistent manner by the anti-nuke lobby.
That is incorrect.
Specifically the term 'near miss' is referred to (in the report) when the NRC sends a special, augmented or incident investigation team, under the Reactor Oversight Process, to a reactor site because the risk of reactor core damage has exceeded a factor of 10. NRC classifies these as 'reactive inspections' as response to a Accident Sequence Precursor.
Accidents come under a different class which results in a formal written report (called a Licensee Event Report) to the NRC because a failed or degraded component caused a change in the operational characteristics of the reactor.
So the statistics are not inconsistent, nor are they misrepresented by calling them a 'near miss' or 'accident' any more than it is calling a 'spade' a 'Soil Moving Device' under the ROP.
Exactly my point, the plant should never have been placed where it could get hit by a tsunami, because it was not designed to withstand one.
I agree with the premise, though I'm not certain that is something you can do with any degree of certainty, certainly not in Japan where earthquake activity is more frequent. The driver of placing them is the availability of cooling water, so this generally means they will be located next to large bodies of water.
I'm satisfied with the approach of making sea walls, and the like, however the external risk we are talking about is if the operator actually complies with the rules, as is the case with Tepco.
Tepco ignored geological evidence and relied on historical data when evaluating the height the sea wall *should* have been.
Another key issue is not grouping all of the backup generators on the sea facing side of the reactor with an inadequate sea wall was a disaster waiting to happen. Tepco had ample time to prepare but colluded with the regulator to prevent such changes in regulations which, according to the official report into the accident, was caused by an inherent belief that nuclear power was safe.
While your hindsight is all well and good now, this was all predicted and ignored. Worse still the report to the Diet highlights that these external events were human nonfeasance and "Wholly man made" - to quote the report. Criminal negligence through nonfeasance is an external threat the modelling is trying to predict.
You are incorrect, it could not have been safely shutdown with diesel failures. Design basis issues with the Generation 1 reactor mean that it must *always* have access to electricity. Specifically S and B class facilities in the installation must always be powered otherwise they are exposed to these design issues. Exposure to these issues are why the Fukushima plant exploded, as predicted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
typical response for those that can't make a valid point.
Typical response for those who can't understand a valid point.
Well, If we are talking about shuttered plants that are not operating, with no fuel, then they have plenty of margin, believe me. Anyone reading this thread to this point will clearly see how ridiculous your contention is, so I don't need to continue, but for your own edification, if HB were operating and were hit with a large quake, it would still likely withstand it due to the margin.
Wow, you just can't concede that you are wrong. Plus all of your posts are upmodded so I wonder if you are using a sock-puppet
vpn throttling, here we come
Renewable energy and "sustainable transportation" were largely tried in the 19th century and abandoned because they were too limiting. This isn't the real future, this is what reactionary conservatives like yourself want to take us back to.
Wow, that's interesting, I would have described myself as a radical technologist. I think left and right politics have consistently failed to deliver the important structural changes our society needs to adapt and prosper. We devalue science and engineering and try to over-over simplify things when it's just not appropriate.
Instead of good quality debate we get low quality politicians driven by funding from corporate sources, and they want what they pay for. In reality I think that the alternative energy sources like wind, solar and geo-thermal are appropriate sources of technological development for the next 100 years while we get nuclear power engineered properly for the next 1000-5000 years. But that's close to impossible now because the debates about all of these things has become so polarized that people have forgotten things like compromise, wisdom, truth and fact.
And the science of anthropogenic global warming was reported right here at /. before it was trendy to talk about it. The debate was considerable different too, considering the merits of the science as opposed to how convincing the lobby groups are.
And alternative energy will mean an explosion of activity in IT to deploy control systems to manage energy. The cruel irony is countries like America and Australia are so abundantly rich with wind and solar resources that the future is practically begging us to lead the way, yet we choose to dig our heals in and forget that we used to do difficult things and solve hard problems.
You call me a conservative, but what does that mean any more? What does a liberal mean anymore? I like capitalism because when an idea is bad or has had it's turn, it collapses and something new takes over. Well the music industry is one of many examples that show us all that the vested interests CAN halt change, so what we have isn't capitalism at all, it's corporatism.
New ideas and thinking don't stand a chance against that sort of money.
I watched Krauss on Q&A and WOW, what a great scientist he is. I thought to myself, this is one of the reasons people look up to America, because they have all these great thinkers that we can learn from.
Unfortunately Australia sometimes takes the lead in being backwards thinking and it's no secret here that many of our accomplished leaders in creating solar energy are now in America. Now it seems American politician are looking to Australia for methods to embed the status quo. This looks a lot like the Australian government scrapping the independent Climate Commission (made up of scientists), but legislating to avoid, what happened here, a relaunched Commission funded by the public as citizens instead of as taxpayers,.
And like a dying animal the status quo tries to kill the future. This is not a generational issue because some of the older generation know what the issues are and trying to make things better to minimize the consequences and costs the younger generations that will experience. However, the people controlling energy and its future, now, will be dead by the time the effects are here, so for them why wouldn't they have all the benefits of cheap power when they will never experience the downside of it.
They struggle for 50's thinking to be relevant in the 21st century, but have compunction imposing it and since the science is so convincing the only thing left to do is muzzle the scientists. It's madness.
and get Free dumb.
tl;dr
The basic point is: when you're threatening a violent crime against a person who may well have been a victim of such, and even if they haven't, very likely has friends who have and is more than aware of their vulnerability in this regard, that's taking it to a whole different level.
Unfortunately, I have encountered women and men with such experiences and you are right.
I think we also have to look at the kind of people issuing those threats in the gaming forums. Realistically they're unlikely to have social interaction beyond gaming and their life experiences is gaming. I doubt they have the compassion or sensitivity to understand the damage they do and are taking out their pent up frustrations on women.
Their lack of confidence when faced with a real woman would more than likely make them fumble and stutter and I doubt they would have the confidence to approach a beautiful woman at all. So when a woman is in this deodorant lacking, personal hygiene optional, gaming world, those barriers are eliminated and they somehow feel entitled to vent and direct their frustrations.
Gamers live in the game world, where such threats are meaningless, flesh wounds are repaired with a healing pack and a new life is just a game away.
She's not talking about comments like "nice ass" as much as she's talking about comments like "die, you fucking cunt!"
Why is this moderated troll?
The very first paragraph of the article says she got a death threat and that they know where she lives. Do people even read the articles before moderating anymore?