Pretty much all of the US designs. Nuclear power has been ridiculously reliable in the past decade.
ALL Nuclear power plants in the US are in the most reliable phase of their lifetime when they are in the middle of their lifetime yet Basis Design Issues (BDI's) are still being identified. You can make the claim about reliability because it's past the first of two phases of inherent failure, at the beginning and the end of the reactors lifetime.
Accident Sequence Precursors (ASP's) are used to identify potential failure conditions in a Nuclear Reactor where it performs outside of the engineering spec for the reactor. A typical example is at Davis-Besse. Management ignored a filtration problem that required filters to be changed more often - they were getting clogged more frequently than the engineering spec said they should. Turns out that an internal leak was spraying a fine jet of borated water onto the inside of the reactor head and this had corroded a six inch hole most of the way through the top of the pressure vessel. I think in this case criminal charges were laid.
This leads us to our second parameter a Licensee Event Report (LER). This refers to something happening to the reactor that spawns a report to the NRC and is an indication of some kind of failure. Too many LER's and a reactor should be shut down (Palo Verde is under scrutiny for this reason).
Near the end of it's lifetime is where the reactor is encountering failures due to age, a reactor can only last so long because it's component's wear out. The last 10 or so years of a reactors life are dangerous because of simple mechanical failure. The primary factor limiting the age of a Nuclear reactor is neutron bombardment of the pressure vessel (in fact any metal component in the reactor) which makes the metal brittle and subject to cracks. I'm sure everyone can understand why cracks in a reactor pressure vessel is a bad thing.
It's sobering to know that the trend for ASP's are going up whilst LER's remain somewhat static. A reactor is not meant to last forever.
Of course, there are some exceptions to this, but the point I'm trying to get across is that the nuclear industry takes itself seriously, and the results of the dedication are self-evident.
Well no one wants another TMI, yet TMI happened with in the first three months of operation clearly indicating a BDI, i.e. the reactor was difficult and confusing to operate. Yet BDI's are still being identified and each type of reactor has a different set of BDI's.
I think it's important that properly trained people operate a Nuclear reactor for this reason. I also think that it's important that the people who work in the reactor are listened to if they are complaining about a safety issue. They are the ones with the skill to operate the reactor and whose lives are essentially the canary in the cage for the rest of us. I really don't care what the issues are, if the workers with the experience to operate the plant are saying there is a problem - it should be fixed and proper working frame works are in place for the employees to ensure that their concerns are addressed.
I don't mind having a discussion but, is there any reason for the narky comments you have inserted throughout your reply? I'll answer your narkyness in kind if I have to but if you don't have anything to contribute aside for looking for a way to insult me then it proves you have no basis for argument.
It (very probably) targeted their centrifuges. Think for a second about what centrifuges do.
Perhaps this is your way of agreeing with me, do you realise that the centrifuge is part of the enrichment facility? The wiki article you sent me said;
There are reports that Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz was the target of Stuxnet and the site sustained damage because of it, causing a sudden 15% reduction in its production capabilities.
I hadn't read it, so thanks, but it re-iterates the exact point I was making to you.
Which is one of the most irrational stances a person can take on the issue.
Why? I provided a perfectly rational explanation for my reasoning in the post I linked you to. If you have some specific criticisms of that reasoning you should offer them.
While you sound like you've read a little bit about nuclear, if you think that the waste problem is anything but a politician made canard, you're lying to yourself.
Well I know enough about Nuclear power to understand many of the issues, like the difference between a Breeder and Burner reactor. You have offered nothing with which to explain the basis of you statement about the waste situation being a political situation. Politics are certainly a component (i.e the Yucca debarcle) but waste from the Nuclear industry has a variety of physical properties one of the most significant factors being volume.
Have a look at this article, it should help you get a better understanding of the waste situation.
1) If something has a long half-life, it's not very radioactive. You either need a lot of it to pose a hazard, or you can just ignore it.
Plutonium's half life is 25,000 years and one microgram can cause fatal lung cancer or leukemia when ingested.
It's not like the uranium ore is contained in any way before it gets mined.
What do you mean uranium is not contained before it is mined? What do you think Uranium mining entails? If it helps you understand *how* Uranium is contained from it's natural state during the mining process with atypical concentration to get a kilogram of uranium you have to process 500 tons of hard ore and it's not enriched like the products of reactors are. Of that 1 kilo of Uranium about a gram will be U-235.
To break it down for you 500 tons of rock contain 1 gram of fissile material. I think that's sufficiently contained.
2) If something has a short half-life, or you have a lot of long half-life waste, it's not waste, it's fuel.
Keh? You may not be aware, but not everything that has toxic levels of radioactivity can go into a reactor, for example radioactive mine tailings.
The problem with nuclear waste isn't the radiation, it's the heat it generates.
Actually no it isn't. The biggest problem with nuclear waste is that radioactive isotopes analogue nutrients so they bio-accumulate in the food chain. That means;
a) It cannot be detected with the senses (taste, touch etc)
b) It's extremely toxic to life processes
To break it down for you once a radionuclide enters the body, the body identifies it as a nutrient and uses it as such. If it is deposited in the bones, in the case of a calcium analogue like strontium 90 as an example, it will continue to emit radiation creating a condition for cancer to incubate (typically 6 year
We agree on many points. I simply don't want to let perfect become the enemy of good. The lack of stable storage is no reason not to build IFR now and fuel it with the "waste" we already have.
I think resolving the storage issue is the key to developing the reactor technology because it (storage) is the key area of the Nuclear industry that has been neglected. When Dixie Lee Ray was the head of the Atomic Energy Commission he proclaimed that the disposal of nuclear fuel would be "the greatest non-problem in history" and would be accomplished by 1985, yet here we are in 2010, over twenty years past that date and still there is no High level containment site anywhere. The closest anyone has come is the Swiss and even their project is a multi-decade test project and extremely expensive. Design of the actual facility shows the U.S how it *should* be done.
I'd envisage multiple reactors in a facility in the belly of a mountain, more like 20 or more in chambers, sequentially built, incrementally getting technologically better to reach the target lifespan. Because it's granite even the pressure vessel can be built into rock and may resolve some of the embrittlement issues that the steel suffers from due to neutron bombardment which limits the reactors lifespan. At the end of the target reactors lifetime the entire compartment is sealed with it's fissile ash and all the reactor components, waste products etc are allowed to cool never to be accessed.
This is completely in line with recommendations of a nuclear industry panel (Westinghouse, General Electric, Bechtel, Sargent & Lundy, Northern States Power and Commonwealth Edison) commissioned by the NRC and eliminates a majority of the issues with nuclear power. The most pertinent being that the energetic cost of reactor decommissioning consumes a significant portion of the energetic output of the reactor after it has been decommissioned.
It already exists and we already have nowhere to put it. While we're failing to put it somewhere we might as well get a few TWhr out of it. Of course, we should also be looking for somewhere to put it when we're done with it.
The issue here is that defeats the Integral nature of IFR and significantly reduces the Net energy output. Storing the fissile ash of an IFR on site is one of the design goals and centralises the logistic issues involved in moving pu-239 around a country. Of course, as mentioned, decommissioning and sealing the activated products of the reactor core would impose an enormous energetic penalty on the reactor and the best way to overcome that is to build the reactor with the decommisioning plan already in place. Building them this way mitigates failure and don't forget this is how the Nuclear industry *itself* says it should be done.
It seems to me that the entire discussion has polarised into pro or anti nuclear with few people prepared to engage in the mental effort involved in uncovering the actual engineering issues that have to be resolved within the Nuclear Industry. Thanks for considering my POV and being rational.
Well, good point. You need both, and most modern reactors do both. Reprocessing reduces the overall waste, but produces a Plutonium stream. If you don't have reactors that can burn them, then that's an issue.
I'll refer you to my response to sjames which should help you understand why we don't need both.
If you think that terrorists are going to break into a nuclear power plant, you probably haven't been paying much attention to the world around you.
Again I think you are basing your opinion on a flawed set of assumptions, however I am not going to reveal the details as it would be irresponsible.
Think about what Stuxnet was targeting for a second. Proliferation doesn't mean the USSR or First World countries get nuclear capabilities - it means people like Iran.
Stuxnet targets their Nuclear reactor. If it was to target any weapons capability it would have to target an enrichment facility. That means this has delayed Iran's capability to produce pu-239. The only logical conclusion was to delay the *potential* for Iran to produce Nuclear weapons and those that gain the most from such a tactic is Israel.
NNPT is all about weapons, if Iran has no enrichment facility then they have no capability to produce weapons grade plutonium.
Man, wouldn't it be cool then if we had a reactor like the IFR that could burn the massive stockpiles of DU we have lying around?
I think it would be simpler if we didn't use DU in ordinance essentially creating an atomic war against future generations. It kind of makes me ill that you used the word 'cool' in that sentence, like nothing really matters to you except getting an IFR - it's a long way away. Support the creation of a geologically stable waste containment facility if you want to engage in the type of responsible nuclear advocacy that may one day lead to an IFR. None of those kids deserve that kind of suffering.
In conclusion, if you think that Carter's ban on breeder reactors and Clinton's ban on the IFR didn't set our technology back by decades, and lock us into the fucked up cycle we have right now, with the largely politician-created nuclear waste problem, you're crazy.
oh dear, again see my other response, I don't think you are in full possession of the facts about Carters decision. The "fucked up cycle we have right now" is a result of a haphazzard ill considered program.
The bottom line is current breeder reactors are just out of our reach technologically to make work properly which has more of a bearing than any decision Carter or Clinton made. If we had a Breeder program that worked properly we would simply have three times the amount of plutonium we have now. The is no magic bullet reactor that exists today that is going to solve the plutonium and u-238 issue. I think if you spent more time gathering facts and examining the issues you would be able to make a more positive contribution to the discussion. Ignoring the facts whilst refusing to reason the optimal solution just makes it harder to get the right support to actually solve the issues with the Nuclear industry in a permanent and meaningful way.
Carter's decision made sense at that time. It doesn't now (but then he never claimed it was right forever, just for the time he made it). We should blame all of the subsequent presidents for not reversing the decision when that became the right thing to do.
Ok, I find myself being caught up in mis-information here, Carter never banned breeder reactors he banned reprocessing, here is the history surrounding Carter's decision.
1975 the first commercial reprocessing plant at West Valley, NY, had been shut down for modifications to double its size. The regulators called for complete seismic upgrades and the owners gave up. Another pilot-sized plant had been abandoned without operating. But a full-sized commercial reprocessing plant named Barnwell was under construction.
Sept. 25, 1976 speech in San Diego, Jimmy Carter raised concerns about proliferation and promised that he would stop Barnwell until it was"needed" and safe, and only ever allow it to operate if it were on a multi-national basis.
President Ford initiated a secret study to set a nonproliferation policy. Ford's statement was finally presented in a campaign speech at Portsmouth, Ohio, just five days before the 1976 election. He said that control of nuclear proliferation had to take precedence over commercial and national economic interests. He called for a delay of up to three years in starting the Barnwell reprocessing plant. Some argue that it was Ford who actually stopped reprocessing, not Carter.
On April 7, 1977, President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would defer indefinitely the reprocessing of spent nuclear reactor fuel. He stated that after extensive examination of the issues, he had reached the conclusion that this action was necessary to reduce the serious threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, and that by setting this example, the U. S. would encourage other nations to follow its lead.
President Carter's Executive Order also announced that the U. S. would sponsor an international examination of alternative fuel cycles, seeking to identify approaches which would allow nuclear power to continue without adding to the risk of nuclear proliferation.
In early 1982, President Reagan rescinded the Carter policy, allowed programmatic (as opposed to case-by-case) approvals for reprocessing of U.S. origin fuel by the Euratom nations and Japan, and even said that reprocessing could again be considered in the U. S.
So there you have it. Carters policy was rescinded by Reagan just 5 years after it's inception. Any argument and gnashing of teeth about Carters decision has been a moot point for well over 2 decades. Arguments about breeder reactors must be carried out on the basis of the merits of the technology which is known to be costly to implement and very hard to run safely.
If you are arguing for the creation of a plutonium economy it still isn't the right thing to do. There is ample reserves of plutonium (as I mentioned well over 70,000 tons) and absolutely no need to create any more so breeder reactors still don't make any sense. We have reached the limits of our existing infrastructure to handle existing pu-239 reserves, still have no proper plan to contain it and Yucca mountain has proven itself to be totally unsuitable.
As for IFR, we have actually run such a reactor (minus the reprocessing) already.
Indeed, a 62 megawatt reactor for 30 years, I have read a lot about it. Quite promising if the materials technology becomes available to make it reliable. The ability to utilise existing plutonium and u-238 makes approximately 5000 years of fuel from existing reserves. With such a technology a plutonium economy makes even less sense.
It need not run for 6000 years to be a net benefit since it is able to actually use some of that surplus plutonium we have sitting in "temporary" stora
(You know all the political mess we are in over waste products, and how California has banned new nuclear until the waste issue is resolved? Breeder reactors use nuclear 'waste' as fuel, burning over 99% of the fuel, instead of the 1% or so efficiency we get from traditional PWR/BWR reactors. IFRs can also burn depleted uranium, and weapons-grade plutonium.)
You are confusing two different types of *FAST* reactors technology, breeder and burner. Roughly, the process Breeder reactors perform combine similar quantities of two other elements with plutonium within the reactor and transmute them into plutonium. In other words Breeder reactors produce about three times as much plutonium that goes in creating a plutonium economy.
The IFR is a Burner reactor prototyped at Argonne National Laboratory's EBR-II. It achieved a burnup rate of 20% of the fuel before the remainder of the fuel has to be removed and reprocessed. The ambition was to have reprocessing facilities and all other facilities on-site, hence the name Integral Fast Reactor. Given this knowledge your claim that Californian policy on Nuclear reactors is a mess is, at best, not well informed.
Nah, Jimmy Carter set back the US nuclear program by 30 years by banning breeder reactors.
No he didn't. While people like to piss on Carter for this decision it is highly ignorant to do so. We have over 70,000 tons of waste plutonium *now* as a result of the once through cycle reactors we have now and still no plan to properly contain it. Had Carter not stepped in and ended the plutonium economy 30 years ago we would have an epidemic of plutonium production. Additionally Breeder reactors are much less forgiving than the once through reactor cycles that are currently in operation. Carter's decision to ban breeder reactors was a wise decision considering the lack of appropriate facilities to contain plutonium available today.
Well, Clinton can take some of the blame too, for killing the IFR
Indeed. Killing the research into IFR and it's complementary processes was probably a mistake. However material technology is still not available to make IFR a working proposition, especially as the reactor ages. IFR is only appropriate technology when the lifespan of the reactor matches the decay time of it's waste product. Yes, I am saying we should learn how to build a reactor that lasts 600-1000 years as the decommission of an IFR reactor every 40-60 years severely reduces it's viability and practicality. Still developing the surrounding Integral technologies would be a good step forward until the material technology is available for the reactor as the fuel reprocessing technology is as important as the reactor itself.
You mean back in the 1950s when the first breeder reactors were built?:p Sure, I'll grant you that...The modern Type IV reactors safe(r), and since they get rid of most of the waste that causes most of the political problems with nuclear power,
Again you are confusing Breeder and Burner reactor technology. Breeder reactors allow less time to control run away reactions. Since they are cooled with sodium as the age any air that leaks into the system makes them explosive and they contain far more radioactive materials than a reactor like Chernobyl. The only new breeder reactor under construction that I know of is in India, in a flood prone area and sodium and water aren't friends in a nuclear reactor.
I'd say that it was a pretty bad decision by Clinton to kill the IFR research project.
Yes it was, because it has great promise for burning up not only pu-239 but also U-238, or depleted uranium, DU.
if you're looking at risk levels from nuclear vs. other plants, the numbers just aren't there to support the anti-nuclear crowd. If nuclear killed even a hundr
Murdoch is not making documentaries, he's making propaganda/entertainment pieces. His presentation is not factual, it is slanted to tell a story he wants. Now that's fine, nothing at all wrong with that, however if you see him as a hero, well that just says that you aren't well informed on the issues. Not surprising, the world is complex and most people, Americans or otherwise, don't care to spend time to learn about all the shades of gray involved in something but there you go.
If you buy in to his version of the healthcare situation or the Iraq war or any of that all that speaks to is your lack of information on the matter. The reality is far different, far more complex, than the story he wishes to tell.
Moore is a flaming psycho with a warped view of reality and a strong desire to push his views regardless of facts. He doesn't want people to think; he wants people to side with him like sheep. We have enough bullshit artists in the media; we don't need more.
80% of them are right wing bullshit artists and 20% are left wing bullshit artists. Though the pun is hard to avoid, perhaps we do need Moore.
Whenever someone presents data to me and I find some that is completely false I believe it is wise to cast all the data as false until proven other wise. If they lied about that then what else are they lying about?
Out of curiosity, do you apply the same logic to governments?
What purpose is served in releasing the fact that Hilary Clinton worries about the mental health of other world leaders? How does that aid in our international relations?
Perhaps Mrs Clinton has a valid concern that, in her opinion, some of the world leaders she has met have mental health issues. I for one would like to know if one of my representatives my have those sorts of concerns if peoples lives are going to depend on that leaders ability to make decisions.
That's just one of 1000's of items that were released that are not crimes, are not important for the American people to know, and still undermine our government's ability to operate on the world stage.
Democracy can be embarrassing and people have opinions, the political process will get over it. More honesty in politics today is what we need if we are to confront the very real issues we face as a world. Only those who seek a nanny state cry foul here and scripted politicians are getting really tiresome. It's the 21st century and what better time to shake loose the entropy of the past.
Releasing those kinds of documents doesn't serve a greater good. It doesnt expose any wrong-doings. It doesn't help create stability, ensure -anyone's- safety, or promote any kind of cooperation between nations. It was released to embarrass the US government and garner sensationlistic attention from a little weasle.
So says you but I think you are attaching too much emotion to the issue. Secrets cost a lot of money to maintain, the greater good that it can server is to really make those in power think about their actions before committing them to any secrecy act. There may already be an enormous financial benefit to getting all this stuff out in the open because it no longer incurs a cost to maintain it as a secret.
Not to mention that this guy released the names of confidential informants in the middle east. In doing so he signed the death warrants of those people. What greater purpose was served by releasing their names? What good will come of that? What crime did they commit? What evil are they responsible for? Where are your indignant tears for them and their families who will almost assuredly be slaughtered?
I think the U.S military coined the term Collateral damage for the un-intended consequence of their actions. Perhaps it would make you feel better about this if you consider it as the collateral damage that is incurred as a requirement to fix our democracy and prevent more loss of life. I know it's not right - but collateral damage never has been.
Assange has forced politicians to act by the ideals the espouse. You should be blaming those who made the secrets not those who exposed them in pursuit of a stronger, more functional democracy.
Then you've never seen any of Moore's work. His wildly skewed to the left shows, skewed to the point of being "creative edits" that completely misrepresent the truth, are presented as documentaries.
I'm sure if Nixon was running for office today with the policies and views he ran with then he would also be viewed as a lefty. World politics has quite clearly kept moving to the right so any right wing views of the past will look quaint compared to today and balanced or left leaning views will look like, as you say, "wildly skewed to the left shows".
He makes some good points, but he makes them incredibly badly. He's the kind of person who could turn 'water is wet' into a controversial statement. Even when he says something that I agree with, he makes me want to argue.
Yes, he has mastered the art of talking to his countrymen (and women).
Every IT guy who has been in the trenches for 10+ years has "I once" stories. Oftentimes they salvaged hundreds of thousands of rands of damages for the company, or helped mitigate a bad management decision.
The thing is, one of several scenarios invariably happen:
I think your sentiment is right on the money, but I will add one more to your list of scenarios...
4 - The disappointment you experience after not receiving the gratitude you expected is because any shown is an admission of management not doing their job properly.
The biggest lesson I have learned from my "I once" stories is to pass the appropriate amount of pain onto management. Any business critical technology issue that is bad enough to cause a Single Point of Failure is a business decision not to implement enough redundancy, usually because they are to cheap to do so. Learn this mantra and repeat it over and over in your head;
A lack of planning on your part is not an emergency on mine
-USA taxpayers paid a private defense contractor to buy Afghan cops a boy sex toy. Apparently it's a pre-taliban tradition.
Lets be call this what this particularly wrong tradition what it is. Whilst I don't know the exact spelling it's called "batca bazzi" - which apparently translates to "to be with the boy" or "to have the boy" - in other word to have sex with boys.
This Afgan tradition of the warlords and other power elites is no more than a form of institutionalised paedophilia and is one of the sickest forms of repeated rape of a child. I really don't want to know what sort of mental gymnastics these sick motherfuckers go through to justify this sort of behaviour all I know is it's wrong. This stands as the case in point about the Afgan vs Iraq war and I just wish that the worlds resources were focused on fixing Afganistan. This one issue illustrates the epitome of the brutality and ignorance that occurs in Afganistan and highlights why actions that expose dirty laundry like this must be supported.
I think - if anything - Wikileaks makes democracy stronger and Anonymous enforcement of it demonstrates the undercurrent of fury that exists in the world over these type of in-justices.
Fume extraction has been nagging at the back of my mind for a while.
If you can't get fume extraction for the workbench extract from the room and have a small wall mounted fan that gently blows air across the desk away from the person soldering (but not enough air that it cools the iron). I would not even attempt any welding, machining or grinding in the same space (as some have suggested) you are going to do electronics work leave that to the workshop where you can get sweaty and where it doesn't matter about metal shards getting into every nook and cranny.
For your work benches consider benches that you can work comfortably at while you are standing up as you don't want to be crouched down "head over desk" all the time whilst seated. Make the benches so your arms are almost at right angles to the work area whilst standing then buy some quality "bar stool" sized height adjustable chairs. Bench construction should be marine ply (not crappy chipboard or MDF - blech). Mine are 32mm thick and will easily take 100Kg, YMMV.
For the chairs consider dentist style saddle chairs that can be raised to bar stool type heights with a circular footrest. The reason is you may find yourself working on something and getting up and sitting down kinda gets annoying. If you have to sit for longer periods of time at the work bench that's when you use the stool when you get sick of sitting you can stand and still work - much more efficient. You'll also find that you are more energised while you are working especially if you can stand, work and move. Enough has been said about power and storage but you may want to consider that the power has ground loop cut-off for safety if you are working on mains-rated gear so you can minimise the chance of electrocution. A second smaller shelf or other arrangement that suits you to mount oscilloscopes, multimeters, lab power supplies and some mounting underneath to get the computer off the ground (if you really need one there at all) so you don't kick it all the time or bang it with your knee - have up to four ports wired into the wall to under the desk that you can use for ethernet (cat5/6) usb and rs232/432 to suit your needs.
Have some separate lighting for the workbench beyond room light, a quality florescent with diffuser mounted just above the workbench that illuminates the work area generously (not your eyes) and can be switched on and off easily in case you need you use a magnified work lamp as well. Have this above a 100mm vice that includes an anvil space behind the jaws and has a mount that you can rotate. Mount it on a corner of the desk so that you can re-orient it 90 degrees. Buy a quality British, American or Australian made vice, more than likely the British vices are probably the best. You will use the vice more than you know - also have aluminium and wood vice guards that you can interchange handy.
You will get burnt, you will get cut so mount a first aide kit on a wall nearby and also mounting space for safety gear like eyeglasses and hearing protection. Consider using the fine grade mechanics gloves that still give good feel for when you are working.
This is basically the set up I have, obviously you have to consider the workbench for your needs and the stuff I have here is just the basics. When you construct the space consider what you need to do in such a way as to minimise the clutter. I have not even gone into tool selection/mounting because that is going to be dependent on what you are trying to do - but mount your tools so they are accessible and easy to put away - nothing slows you down more than not being able to find what you need quickly.
I had the same thing happen to me (yet again) on Thursday. I was invited to lunch and asked to examine the idea, if it was possible and what I thought. Why not - after all it's a free lunch for me so I went. I have a simple criteria for evaluating someones idea, how much money they have invested or what's their "skin in the game". Most are zero dollars invested but have the attitude you'll make millions eventually so why don't you just code it up for me, I'll own the code and pay you when I start making a profit, yeah right.
But it doesn't mean all the ideas are crap so generally I just politely call them out to discover how serious they are. Do they have a business plan, a marketing plan, what's the value of the market, are you seeking funding, have you patented your idea, created a trademark or other branding? Usually these questions separate the wheat from the chaf as some actually have and they have real dollars to start shelling out. That's when I move on to the next phase about designing the software and how well they know the needs of the target market etc.
One of my colleagues summed this experience up quite neatly that if someone is bringing you this idea and haven't done all of this planning, they have finished serving their purpose in bringing the idea to life.
I'm going to assume from your comments that you're in the military.
They're not his comments. They are actually from the movie A Few Good Men and the point of the movie was to illustrate that people who spoke like that were a threat to freedom as much as anything else, I don't know whether the OP was trying to do that.
I'm well aware I'll probably get modded down since military worship is everywhere, but it doesn't matter. I'm not going to pretend like the armed thugs doing the ill will of corrupt politicians are somehow protecting us.
Our freedom is threatened by people that the military are not equipped to fight and the ignorant who are unwilling/unable to understand that the front line is everywhere. Wikileaks exposes the aggressors that pose a more potent threat than the military can deal with or even recognise. Those whose tactics make the population believe in a McFreedom that looks and tastes like a real meal but actually lacks nourishment and is inevitably unsatisfying. I fear for Mr Assange. To paraphrase, the difference between a citizen and a civilian is a citizen defends freedom by seeking the truth and recognising the danger.
The US Constitution specifically bans a standing army in a time of peace - makes you wonder why ever since WWII the US government has always found some bogus reason to perpetually be at war.
I never realised that about the US Constitution, are you able to cite which portion so I can get more detail? That certainly casts the Military more in the light of maintaining it's complex rather than it's primary function.
Thinking remains the hardest work and though that's a interesting truth to uncover it won't matter to those that "Can't handle the truth". They'll simply go back to their Faux News and apathetic version of what freedom should be before parroting the mantra of rhetoric they have been programmed with.
Uh, and he's an American citizen governed by the US Constitution since when? Oh wait, he's not.
Oh really, so it's all about American freedom and no-one else's freedom is it? Freedom needs to be defended *everywhere* and as far as I can see Mr Assange seems to be free of apathy and the illusion of freedom that afflicts most people enough to actually protect freedom. I doubt Mr Assange is under any doubt that he is now a prisoner of his actions living in hotels like a traveling performer.
I thought America was dedicated to protecting people like Mr Assange not matter what his nationality is, people with the courage enough to make our nations live up to the ideals they espouse to be based on. Instead we get this sad mockery of freedom and anyone who has the gaul to actually defend everyones freedom, like Mr Assange is doing, is decried as a traitor because they make the establishment uncomfortable.
Anyone who dislikes what Mr Assange is doing is either afraid of losing power or dislikes being reminded that they are an apathetic slave. I'm tired of being a slave and Mr Assange is reminding us all of what it means to be free and that Governments should be afraid of the people not the other way around.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind replacing X with something better. But something which doesn't provide network transparency is not better. And yes, it's a feature I frequently use.
Asides for "MOD PARENT UP" all I can do is agree.
If I see it working great but as far as I can tell from the article network transparency is one of the features that Wayland does NOT have. I haven't used the new interface so I clearly do not know but as I use Ubuntu at work it is something I am clearly concerned about.
Can you give details about how you know that the wire can only give 30% of the power?
Absolutely not. I can't predict the future uptake of electric vehicles and totally unqualified to make an estimation, that's why I said approximately which is a guess based on the current requirements at 240V (roughly between 35-75amps). The highest socket I have in my house is 15amps but most people have 10amps so I think that the cars cited in your article would be around 66amps so thats about 11amps for 6 - 8 hours for a full charge (but I drive twice that distance). The article you refer to cites *if* 10% of the houses on a street had electric cars and I'm thinking above 90% *have* electric vehicles.
There is no right or wrong here but what I'm saying is that somewhere between 10% and 90% uptake of electric vehicles grid capacity reaches saturation point even when you are fully utilising existing generation capacity.
Also, if you're counting part of that power the car will need as 'sitting in a traffic jam for hours'.. Of course, the electric car won't be using any power
The point I was making here was questioning the *sanity* of sitting in traffic all the time. I agree that an electric vehicle won't be using most of it's power when it is still. What I am saying is that this type of behavior would be better negated by having distributed places to work so that people to don't *have* to commute as far, leveraging communications infrastructure more than building more roads and charging stations. Effectively reducing the amount of cars on the road.
Slashdot Mirror
ALL Nuclear power plants in the US are in the most reliable phase of their lifetime when they are in the middle of their lifetime yet Basis Design Issues (BDI's) are still being identified. You can make the claim about reliability because it's past the first of two phases of inherent failure, at the beginning and the end of the reactors lifetime.
Accident Sequence Precursors (ASP's) are used to identify potential failure conditions in a Nuclear Reactor where it performs outside of the engineering spec for the reactor. A typical example is at Davis-Besse. Management ignored a filtration problem that required filters to be changed more often - they were getting clogged more frequently than the engineering spec said they should. Turns out that an internal leak was spraying a fine jet of borated water onto the inside of the reactor head and this had corroded a six inch hole most of the way through the top of the pressure vessel. I think in this case criminal charges were laid.
This leads us to our second parameter a Licensee Event Report (LER). This refers to something happening to the reactor that spawns a report to the NRC and is an indication of some kind of failure. Too many LER's and a reactor should be shut down (Palo Verde is under scrutiny for this reason).
Near the end of it's lifetime is where the reactor is encountering failures due to age, a reactor can only last so long because it's component's wear out. The last 10 or so years of a reactors life are dangerous because of simple mechanical failure. The primary factor limiting the age of a Nuclear reactor is neutron bombardment of the pressure vessel (in fact any metal component in the reactor) which makes the metal brittle and subject to cracks. I'm sure everyone can understand why cracks in a reactor pressure vessel is a bad thing.
It's sobering to know that the trend for ASP's are going up whilst LER's remain somewhat static. A reactor is not meant to last forever.
Well no one wants another TMI, yet TMI happened with in the first three months of operation clearly indicating a BDI, i.e. the reactor was difficult and confusing to operate. Yet BDI's are still being identified and each type of reactor has a different set of BDI's.
I think it's important that properly trained people operate a Nuclear reactor for this reason. I also think that it's important that the people who work in the reactor are listened to if they are complaining about a safety issue. They are the ones with the skill to operate the reactor and whose lives are essentially the canary in the cage for the rest of us. I really don't care what the issues are, if the workers with the experience to operate the plant are saying there is a problem - it should be fixed and proper working frame works are in place for the employees to ensure that their concerns are addressed.
Perhaps this is your way of agreeing with me, do you realise that the centrifuge is part of the enrichment facility? The wiki article you sent me said;
There are reports that Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz was the target of Stuxnet and the site sustained damage because of it, causing a sudden 15% reduction in its production capabilities.
I hadn't read it, so thanks, but it re-iterates the exact point I was making to you.
Why? I provided a perfectly rational explanation for my reasoning in the post I linked you to. If you have some specific criticisms of that reasoning you should offer them.
Well I know enough about Nuclear power to understand many of the issues, like the difference between a Breeder and Burner reactor. You have offered nothing with which to explain the basis of you statement about the waste situation being a political situation. Politics are certainly a component (i.e the Yucca debarcle) but waste from the Nuclear industry has a variety of physical properties one of the most significant factors being volume.
Have a look at this article, it should help you get a better understanding of the waste situation.
Plutonium's half life is 25,000 years and one microgram can cause fatal lung cancer or leukemia when ingested.
What do you mean uranium is not contained before it is mined? What do you think Uranium mining entails? If it helps you understand *how* Uranium is contained from it's natural state during the mining process with atypical concentration to get a kilogram of uranium you have to process 500 tons of hard ore and it's not enriched like the products of reactors are. Of that 1 kilo of Uranium about a gram will be U-235.
To break it down for you 500 tons of rock contain 1 gram of fissile material. I think that's sufficiently contained.
Keh? You may not be aware, but not everything that has toxic levels of radioactivity can go into a reactor, for example radioactive mine tailings.
Actually no it isn't. The biggest problem with nuclear waste is that radioactive isotopes analogue nutrients so they bio-accumulate in the food chain. That means;
a) It cannot be detected with the senses (taste, touch etc)
b) It's extremely toxic to life processes
To break it down for you once a radionuclide enters the body, the body identifies it as a nutrient and uses it as such. If it is deposited in the bones, in the case of a calcium analogue like strontium 90 as an example, it will continue to emit radiation creating a condition for cancer to incubate (typically 6 year
I think resolving the storage issue is the key to developing the reactor technology because it (storage) is the key area of the Nuclear industry that has been neglected. When Dixie Lee Ray was the head of the Atomic Energy Commission he proclaimed that the disposal of nuclear fuel would be "the greatest non-problem in history" and would be accomplished by 1985, yet here we are in 2010, over twenty years past that date and still there is no High level containment site anywhere. The closest anyone has come is the Swiss and even their project is a multi-decade test project and extremely expensive. Design of the actual facility shows the U.S how it *should* be done.
I'd envisage multiple reactors in a facility in the belly of a mountain, more like 20 or more in chambers, sequentially built, incrementally getting technologically better to reach the target lifespan. Because it's granite even the pressure vessel can be built into rock and may resolve some of the embrittlement issues that the steel suffers from due to neutron bombardment which limits the reactors lifespan. At the end of the target reactors lifetime the entire compartment is sealed with it's fissile ash and all the reactor components, waste products etc are allowed to cool never to be accessed.
This is completely in line with recommendations of a nuclear industry panel (Westinghouse, General Electric, Bechtel, Sargent & Lundy, Northern States Power and Commonwealth Edison) commissioned by the NRC and eliminates a majority of the issues with nuclear power. The most pertinent being that the energetic cost of reactor decommissioning consumes a significant portion of the energetic output of the reactor after it has been decommissioned.
The issue here is that defeats the Integral nature of IFR and significantly reduces the Net energy output. Storing the fissile ash of an IFR on site is one of the design goals and centralises the logistic issues involved in moving pu-239 around a country. Of course, as mentioned, decommissioning and sealing the activated products of the reactor core would impose an enormous energetic penalty on the reactor and the best way to overcome that is to build the reactor with the decommisioning plan already in place. Building them this way mitigates failure and don't forget this is how the Nuclear industry *itself* says it should be done.
It seems to me that the entire discussion has polarised into pro or anti nuclear with few people prepared to engage in the mental effort involved in uncovering the actual engineering issues that have to be resolved within the Nuclear Industry. Thanks for considering my POV and being rational.
I'll refer you to my response to sjames which should help you understand why we don't need both.
Again I think you are basing your opinion on a flawed set of assumptions, however I am not going to reveal the details as it would be irresponsible.
Stuxnet targets their Nuclear reactor. If it was to target any weapons capability it would have to target an enrichment facility. That means this has delayed Iran's capability to produce pu-239. The only logical conclusion was to delay the *potential* for Iran to produce Nuclear weapons and those that gain the most from such a tactic is Israel.
NNPT is all about weapons, if Iran has no enrichment facility then they have no capability to produce weapons grade plutonium.
I think it would be simpler if we didn't use DU in ordinance essentially creating an atomic war against future generations. It kind of makes me ill that you used the word 'cool' in that sentence, like nothing really matters to you except getting an IFR - it's a long way away. Support the creation of a geologically stable waste containment facility if you want to engage in the type of responsible nuclear advocacy that may one day lead to an IFR. None of those kids deserve that kind of suffering.
oh dear, again see my other response, I don't think you are in full possession of the facts about Carters decision. The "fucked up cycle we have right now" is a result of a haphazzard ill considered program.
The bottom line is current breeder reactors are just out of our reach technologically to make work properly which has more of a bearing than any decision Carter or Clinton made. If we had a Breeder program that worked properly we would simply have three times the amount of plutonium we have now. The is no magic bullet reactor that exists today that is going to solve the plutonium and u-238 issue. I think if you spent more time gathering facts and examining the issues you would be able to make a more positive contribution to the discussion. Ignoring the facts whilst refusing to reason the optimal solution just makes it harder to get the right support to actually solve the issues with the Nuclear industry in a permanent and meaningful way.
Ok, I find myself being caught up in mis-information here, Carter never banned breeder reactors he banned reprocessing, here is the history surrounding Carter's decision.
So there you have it. Carters policy was rescinded by Reagan just 5 years after it's inception. Any argument and gnashing of teeth about Carters decision has been a moot point for well over 2 decades. Arguments about breeder reactors must be carried out on the basis of the merits of the technology which is known to be costly to implement and very hard to run safely.
If you are arguing for the creation of a plutonium economy it still isn't the right thing to do. There is ample reserves of plutonium (as I mentioned well over 70,000 tons) and absolutely no need to create any more so breeder reactors still don't make any sense. We have reached the limits of our existing infrastructure to handle existing pu-239 reserves, still have no proper plan to contain it and Yucca mountain has proven itself to be totally unsuitable.
Indeed, a 62 megawatt reactor for 30 years, I have read a lot about it. Quite promising if the materials technology becomes available to make it reliable. The ability to utilise existing plutonium and u-238 makes approximately 5000 years of fuel from existing reserves. With such a technology a plutonium economy makes even less sense.
You are confusing two different types of *FAST* reactors technology, breeder and burner. Roughly, the process Breeder reactors perform combine similar quantities of two other elements with plutonium within the reactor and transmute them into plutonium. In other words Breeder reactors produce about three times as much plutonium that goes in creating a plutonium economy.
The IFR is a Burner reactor prototyped at Argonne National Laboratory's EBR-II. It achieved a burnup rate of 20% of the fuel before the remainder of the fuel has to be removed and reprocessed. The ambition was to have reprocessing facilities and all other facilities on-site, hence the name Integral Fast Reactor. Given this knowledge your claim that Californian policy on Nuclear reactors is a mess is, at best, not well informed.
No he didn't. While people like to piss on Carter for this decision it is highly ignorant to do so. We have over 70,000 tons of waste plutonium *now* as a result of the once through cycle reactors we have now and still no plan to properly contain it. Had Carter not stepped in and ended the plutonium economy 30 years ago we would have an epidemic of plutonium production. Additionally Breeder reactors are much less forgiving than the once through reactor cycles that are currently in operation. Carter's decision to ban breeder reactors was a wise decision considering the lack of appropriate facilities to contain plutonium available today.
Indeed. Killing the research into IFR and it's complementary processes was probably a mistake. However material technology is still not available to make IFR a working proposition, especially as the reactor ages. IFR is only appropriate technology when the lifespan of the reactor matches the decay time of it's waste product. Yes, I am saying we should learn how to build a reactor that lasts 600-1000 years as the decommission of an IFR reactor every 40-60 years severely reduces it's viability and practicality. Still developing the surrounding Integral technologies would be a good step forward until the material technology is available for the reactor as the fuel reprocessing technology is as important as the reactor itself.
Again you are confusing Breeder and Burner reactor technology. Breeder reactors allow less time to control run away reactions. Since they are cooled with sodium as the age any air that leaks into the system makes them explosive and they contain far more radioactive materials than a reactor like Chernobyl. The only new breeder reactor under construction that I know of is in India, in a flood prone area and sodium and water aren't friends in a nuclear reactor.
Yes it was, because it has great promise for burning up not only pu-239 but also U-238, or depleted uranium, DU.
fixed that for ya.
80% of them are right wing bullshit artists and 20% are left wing bullshit artists. Though the pun is hard to avoid, perhaps we do need Moore.
Out of curiosity, do you apply the same logic to governments?
Everyone else has emboldened the word help so that it is understood that Michael Moore is helping so I thought I would help those who are helping.
Perhaps Mrs Clinton has a valid concern that, in her opinion, some of the world leaders she has met have mental health issues. I for one would like to know if one of my representatives my have those sorts of concerns if peoples lives are going to depend on that leaders ability to make decisions.
Democracy can be embarrassing and people have opinions, the political process will get over it. More honesty in politics today is what we need if we are to confront the very real issues we face as a world. Only those who seek a nanny state cry foul here and scripted politicians are getting really tiresome. It's the 21st century and what better time to shake loose the entropy of the past.
So says you but I think you are attaching too much emotion to the issue. Secrets cost a lot of money to maintain, the greater good that it can server is to really make those in power think about their actions before committing them to any secrecy act. There may already be an enormous financial benefit to getting all this stuff out in the open because it no longer incurs a cost to maintain it as a secret.
I think the U.S military coined the term Collateral damage for the un-intended consequence of their actions. Perhaps it would make you feel better about this if you consider it as the collateral damage that is incurred as a requirement to fix our democracy and prevent more loss of life. I know it's not right - but collateral damage never has been.
Assange has forced politicians to act by the ideals the espouse. You should be blaming those who made the secrets not those who exposed them in pursuit of a stronger, more functional democracy.
I'm sure if Nixon was running for office today with the policies and views he ran with then he would also be viewed as a lefty. World politics has quite clearly kept moving to the right so any right wing views of the past will look quaint compared to today and balanced or left leaning views will look like, as you say, "wildly skewed to the left shows".
Yes, he has mastered the art of talking to his countrymen (and women).
I think your sentiment is right on the money, but I will add one more to your list of scenarios...
4 - The disappointment you experience after not receiving the gratitude you expected is because any shown is an admission of management not doing their job properly.
The biggest lesson I have learned from my "I once" stories is to pass the appropriate amount of pain onto management. Any business critical technology issue that is bad enough to cause a Single Point of Failure is a business decision not to implement enough redundancy, usually because they are to cheap to do so. Learn this mantra and repeat it over and over in your head;
A lack of planning on your part is not an emergency on mine
Freeeeeeedommmm
I think they're referring to the "real" dolls - a googling you will go
Lets be call this what this particularly wrong tradition what it is. Whilst I don't know the exact spelling it's called "batca bazzi" - which apparently translates to "to be with the boy" or "to have the boy" - in other word to have sex with boys.
This Afgan tradition of the warlords and other power elites is no more than a form of institutionalised paedophilia and is one of the sickest forms of repeated rape of a child. I really don't want to know what sort of mental gymnastics these sick motherfuckers go through to justify this sort of behaviour all I know is it's wrong. This stands as the case in point about the Afgan vs Iraq war and I just wish that the worlds resources were focused on fixing Afganistan. This one issue illustrates the epitome of the brutality and ignorance that occurs in Afganistan and highlights why actions that expose dirty laundry like this must be supported.
I think - if anything - Wikileaks makes democracy stronger and Anonymous enforcement of it demonstrates the undercurrent of fury that exists in the world over these type of in-justices.
If you can't get fume extraction for the workbench extract from the room and have a small wall mounted fan that gently blows air across the desk away from the person soldering (but not enough air that it cools the iron). I would not even attempt any welding, machining or grinding in the same space (as some have suggested) you are going to do electronics work leave that to the workshop where you can get sweaty and where it doesn't matter about metal shards getting into every nook and cranny.
For your work benches consider benches that you can work comfortably at while you are standing up as you don't want to be crouched down "head over desk" all the time whilst seated. Make the benches so your arms are almost at right angles to the work area whilst standing then buy some quality "bar stool" sized height adjustable chairs. Bench construction should be marine ply (not crappy chipboard or MDF - blech). Mine are 32mm thick and will easily take 100Kg, YMMV.
For the chairs consider dentist style saddle chairs that can be raised to bar stool type heights with a circular footrest. The reason is you may find yourself working on something and getting up and sitting down kinda gets annoying. If you have to sit for longer periods of time at the work bench that's when you use the stool when you get sick of sitting you can stand and still work - much more efficient. You'll also find that you are more energised while you are working especially if you can stand, work and move. Enough has been said about power and storage but you may want to consider that the power has ground loop cut-off for safety if you are working on mains-rated gear so you can minimise the chance of electrocution. A second smaller shelf or other arrangement that suits you to mount oscilloscopes, multimeters, lab power supplies and some mounting underneath to get the computer off the ground (if you really need one there at all) so you don't kick it all the time or bang it with your knee - have up to four ports wired into the wall to under the desk that you can use for ethernet (cat5/6) usb and rs232/432 to suit your needs.
Have some separate lighting for the workbench beyond room light, a quality florescent with diffuser mounted just above the workbench that illuminates the work area generously (not your eyes) and can be switched on and off easily in case you need you use a magnified work lamp as well. Have this above a 100mm vice that includes an anvil space behind the jaws and has a mount that you can rotate. Mount it on a corner of the desk so that you can re-orient it 90 degrees. Buy a quality British, American or Australian made vice, more than likely the British vices are probably the best. You will use the vice more than you know - also have aluminium and wood vice guards that you can interchange handy.
You will get burnt, you will get cut so mount a first aide kit on a wall nearby and also mounting space for safety gear like eyeglasses and hearing protection. Consider using the fine grade mechanics gloves that still give good feel for when you are working.
This is basically the set up I have, obviously you have to consider the workbench for your needs and the stuff I have here is just the basics. When you construct the space consider what you need to do in such a way as to minimise the clutter. I have not even gone into tool selection/mounting because that is going to be dependent on what you are trying to do - but mount your tools so they are accessible and easy to put away - nothing slows you down more than not being able to find what you need quickly.
Hope this helps.
The ideas guys seem to forget the work part, most of the time and thinking is the hardest work.
But it doesn't mean all the ideas are crap so generally I just politely call them out to discover how serious they are. Do they have a business plan, a marketing plan, what's the value of the market, are you seeking funding, have you patented your idea, created a trademark or other branding? Usually these questions separate the wheat from the chaf as some actually have and they have real dollars to start shelling out. That's when I move on to the next phase about designing the software and how well they know the needs of the target market etc.
One of my colleagues summed this experience up quite neatly that if someone is bringing you this idea and haven't done all of this planning, they have finished serving their purpose in bringing the idea to life.
They're not his comments. They are actually from the movie A Few Good Men and the point of the movie was to illustrate that people who spoke like that were a threat to freedom as much as anything else, I don't know whether the OP was trying to do that.
Our freedom is threatened by people that the military are not equipped to fight and the ignorant who are unwilling/unable to understand that the front line is everywhere. Wikileaks exposes the aggressors that pose a more potent threat than the military can deal with or even recognise. Those whose tactics make the population believe in a McFreedom that looks and tastes like a real meal but actually lacks nourishment and is inevitably unsatisfying. I fear for Mr Assange. To paraphrase, the difference between a citizen and a civilian is a citizen defends freedom by seeking the truth and recognising the danger.
I never realised that about the US Constitution, are you able to cite which portion so I can get more detail? That certainly casts the Military more in the light of maintaining it's complex rather than it's primary function.
Thinking remains the hardest work and though that's a interesting truth to uncover it won't matter to those that "Can't handle the truth". They'll simply go back to their Faux News and apathetic version of what freedom should be before parroting the mantra of rhetoric they have been programmed with.
Oh really, so it's all about American freedom and no-one else's freedom is it? Freedom needs to be defended *everywhere* and as far as I can see Mr Assange seems to be free of apathy and the illusion of freedom that afflicts most people enough to actually protect freedom. I doubt Mr Assange is under any doubt that he is now a prisoner of his actions living in hotels like a traveling performer.
I thought America was dedicated to protecting people like Mr Assange not matter what his nationality is, people with the courage enough to make our nations live up to the ideals they espouse to be based on. Instead we get this sad mockery of freedom and anyone who has the gaul to actually defend everyones freedom, like Mr Assange is doing, is decried as a traitor because they make the establishment uncomfortable.
Anyone who dislikes what Mr Assange is doing is either afraid of losing power or dislikes being reminded that they are an apathetic slave. I'm tired of being a slave and Mr Assange is reminding us all of what it means to be free and that Governments should be afraid of the people not the other way around.
Ahhh I see, another suffering commuter from the Central Coast, I've refined your code.
Asides for "MOD PARENT UP" all I can do is agree.
If I see it working great but as far as I can tell from the article network transparency is one of the features that Wayland does NOT have. I haven't used the new interface so I clearly do not know but as I use Ubuntu at work it is something I am clearly concerned about.
Absolutely not. I can't predict the future uptake of electric vehicles and totally unqualified to make an estimation, that's why I said approximately which is a guess based on the current requirements at 240V (roughly between 35-75amps). The highest socket I have in my house is 15amps but most people have 10amps so I think that the cars cited in your article would be around 66amps so thats about 11amps for 6 - 8 hours for a full charge (but I drive twice that distance). The article you refer to cites *if* 10% of the houses on a street had electric cars and I'm thinking above 90% *have* electric vehicles.
There is no right or wrong here but what I'm saying is that somewhere between 10% and 90% uptake of electric vehicles grid capacity reaches saturation point even when you are fully utilising existing generation capacity.
The point I was making here was questioning the *sanity* of sitting in traffic all the time. I agree that an electric vehicle won't be using most of it's power when it is still. What I am saying is that this type of behavior would be better negated by having distributed places to work so that people to don't *have* to commute as far, leveraging communications infrastructure more than building more roads and charging stations. Effectively reducing the amount of cars on the road.