Like vampires & ghouls fear the light of day, the RIAA lawyers fear the truth.
One of the things I think is underplayed is the effect these copyright laws have on stifling innovation, especially in I.T. I wonder what innovations would have been bought to market had the RIAA's lobbying not been there to trample on every new idea that innovators attempted. It makes you wonder what the true cost of these laws are to the community and artists (I am a music producer and musician) as they continue to try to be the middle man in every music transaction.
One things for sure, they really take the art out of music. I wonder what music we would have if they weren't the 900 pound gorilla in the room propping themselves up with an artificial monopoly.
Still having your pseudonym connected to your real name on slashdot, that deserves to be one of those achievement things. Hope it translates to useful exposure for you. Read many of your comments, love your work.
In the meantime sustainable sources of harvesting energy like solar, wind, geo-thermal and wave/tidal are a necessary development to creating the right mix for meeting energy needs. It is essential that an infrastructure plan is developed for a geologically stable spent fuel containment facility (in granite - not pumice like Yucca mountain is) and to have enough energy available to implement it. Our generation should take responsibility for handling these materials and learn from the lack of foresight of previous generations.
Once properly sited, continued development of material technologies and development of burner reactor technology (like IFR) with operational lifespans similar to the fissile ash produced in such a reactor becomes a valid method for harvesting the remaining energy from the existing pu-239 and u-238 stores.
Such a thing is not possible with todays nuclear industry - which is a mess - but a plan for handling these materials is vital so we don't hand future generations a legacy of radioactive isotope externalities the same way our generation has been handed a legacy of CO2 externalities.
You know, maybe we need a new word for nuclear. A good old rebranding like corporations do when their name is now met with general public distrust (regardless if the distrust is warranted).
It won't do anything though to encourage the Nuclear industry to produce
a better engineered Nuclear Industry which is the pragmatic thing to do. Marketing is only effective where ignorance of the true effects exists. It won't reduce the actual toxicity of the industry.
Or something that makes people think of steam instead of ZOMG radiation and bombs.
Well considering the actual problem is not so much release of radiation but release of radioactive isotopes what about a reality check instead? Something that makes them think "gee we really need to fix this industry". I know it's a lot harder than just polishing a turd but wouldn't that be the beginning of responsible advocacy for the nuclear industry?
What do you mean were? Three Mile Island is running just fine.
Only one of the two reactors at TMI is functioning. The other is slag.
You can just see it from the airport in Harrisburg, by the way.
Which is one reason why it didn't lose containment during the core meltdown. The Containment building was over-engineered to resist a jet aircraft accidentally colliding with it.
She turns into the thermal column from the reactor, getting a welcome boost to higher altitudes, as she heads further out towards the hills.
Probably breathing in
tritium as she glides, and having done it during the creation of her eggs her offspring can look forward to a plethora of maladies including decreased brain weight amongst one of the proven effects of exposure.
Atomic reactors are as American as Baseball and Apple Pie.
Sure, so is corporate welfare.
means that the environmentalist whackos have perturbed the spirit of this great nation.
You mean the same ones that were trying to tell you that burning coal is a bad idea and urged you to spend more on solar , wind, wave and geo-thermal power 20 years ago?
Let's all write letters to our favorite capitalists, and invite them to invest in the research, for the good of mankind, through the ingenuity of our American scientists.
Here's a thought. Instead of spending 60% percent of the energy research budget on a power source that doesn't provide a
net energy return and 15% on REAL sustainable energy what about changing that figure around? It's hard to believe that after 50 years of that level of investment in nuclear power it still needs the Price Anderson act to make it a viable investment.
Nuclear batteries themselves may be a useful invention but that has nothing to do with large scale power generation.
My rhetoric falls apart
Your rhetoric never made any sense in the first place.
The American government is particularly good at this.
Hollywood, creator of perceptions.
Up to this point Wikileaks has been an unbiased (as far as a left-wing org can be) third party.
This is, always has been and should be (I'd like to say remain) an apolitical issue. Proper functioning of goverment (everywhere) and information control has *always* been an apolitical issue. Even if political parties manipulate it to their short-term gain, it's always our long-term loss.
I don't know, must admit I wasn't really paying much attention to the whole thing. I was just reading the funnys and sort of curious if I could learn something. Really dood, it's not worth getting all upset about it.
None. Shill account back-ups or not,
Hey, I'm not a sock puppet, I'm a hewman beiong! I think it's time for you to settle down as you are getting too attached to this argument.
I'm quite keen about OSS, but not quite a fanatic
I'll probably get modded a troll for this but...
simply pretending that some valuable info was conveyed doesn't make it so.
I accept that OSS solutions aren't going to be all solutions so why shouldn't it be so for Microsoft? Only they attempt to be the only solution for everything. By your own logic why didn't the LSE go with an in-house.NET solution? Personally I like VS2008 and developing in C# but I squeeze much more performance out of individual Linux boxes than Windows boxes for my dedicated applications - so why wouldn't I expect the same logic to flow onto systemic solutions where others are building their dedicated applications?
I don't know what the LSE need but I know what I needed for my studio solutions. I needed a system capable of doing high resolution multi-channel digital audio recording. I discover that Windows couldn't match the low latency of the Linux system so on the exact same hardware I compared several basic parameters to understand why;
Kernel tuning - Could not be done under Windows. Under Linux I cut down the kernel size and released memory to application, compiled the kernel for the exact processor being used. I changed the scheduler around so the kernel was more suited to the task at hand, etc.
Filesystem performance - Single cached disk same size and model all tests. Windows Filesystem disk throughput fell after 32Gb consumed on HPFS (ntfs?). Linux reiser ate *every* file system for performance (ext, etc - looking forward to new faster file systems). I've got the numbers around somewhere but I just couldn't be bothered digging around for it.
My goal on this system was to make sure it *didn't* swap and I know that server Windows can access the same amount of memory Linux can with the appropriate service packs but windows kernel sizes are still larger than Linux kernels so it will still swap sooner. On machines where I anticipate it *might* swap under load I share swap between disks, I haven't researched if this is even possible under Windows. I couldn't measure it but it seemed that Linux was more responsive with better memory and seemed much better at context switching than windows. I don't know if Windows server editions have caught up to the cores that Linux can utilise because I really run out of energy trying to figure out *why* windows can't utilise all of the resources of a machine I have already paid for.
Then there is striping binaries which I've never tried using C# but I do all the time with Linux. I can't strip the binary size of MSSQL but I can strip the binary of MySQL or *any* OSS application I choose to compile to get marginally better performance. All of which contributes to overall system performance. Many ingredients a meal does have.
So there you go. I don't know why the LSE thought the.NET solution was so broken that they chose a different software stack but if you have to fight Windows so hard just to get what I consider basic system performance and utilisation from Linux then that *might* be the reason.
Yes. You made the initial claims. I challenged them, with information, because your initial claims were way off base.
You only challenged the claims with information! Your going to need a lot more than information to challenge rabid fanboi claims. The bearded condescending Unix-guy attitude is gained from years of exposure to fanboi's, I'd suggest sardonic wit to begin with.
When they're handed hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to shore up bad debt and open up the faucet of commerce, but then instead decide to stop lending and hoard the cash... that's... something else? Right?
Well it could be worse than fraud. Consider the following;
Before the crash the banks would take these risks either a) without knowing what the consequences would be or b) knowing the consequences might sink them. Better managed institutions with more efficient business models would then grow and buy-up the business or take over the market share. That is the essence of capitalism, and it's a healthy sign that these businesses went under because it proved that the system was weeding out the poor performers.
Now they can take the risks because they know they are "Too Big To Fail" (TBTF). This is the era of the TBTF institution where better managed is not as important as growing to be TBTF. This is a sure sign that Corporatism has killed Capitalism.
To give a slight idea of just how much energy is released in a nuclear reactor..The reaction itself is limited only by the temperature at which the ceramic fuel rods and steel cladding melts, and at any time the fuel present in a large reactor contains more energy than entire countries consume in a year.
Thanks for the science lesson but what you are confusing is the *potential* energy available with the reactors capability to release that energy within it's engineering limitations, or it's "potential capacity". This "potential capacity" is also limited by the availability (or uptime) of the reactor. Of the 104 reactors operating in the U.S 41 experienced year plus outages to restore their safety levels and 10 reactors did it twice. That's 51 'year plus' outages in operating nuclear reactors and I haven't even gone into general reactor availability and uptime. The most concerning of this indicates that the infrastructure is showing systemic signs of wear.
Of course, you don't have to believe me just read the report on reactor outages (pdf) so you can educate yourself with real scientific data.
For nuclear power to end up on an energy deficit the energy needed to extract, refine, burn and dispose it would have to be hundreds of millions times larger ( per atom counted ) than the energy needed to extract and refine conventional fuels.
First of all mean energetic estimates for construction of a nuclear power plant is somewhere between 11TWh and 35TWh (40-120 PetaJoules). However energy cost for demolition are around 70TWh (240-300 PetaJoules) if deconstruction is performed safely. Just in the construction/demolition phase you have consumed 1 third of the 300TWh's expected from the life of a brand new AP1000 reactor. Then factor the energetic costs of the dismantling and clean up of the core 5.6 - 16TWh's and it really is starting to look like a very poor energy return from your 1GW reactor.
Using a conservative energy expenditure of 1528Kwh per ton of rock (containing Uranium) you have to process 500 tons of rock, that's 763500Kwh's, to produce one kilo of Uranium. Assuming an extremely optimistic extraction efficiency approaching %50 AND assuming you have a high grade ore that's roughly 763Gwh's per ton and you need 160tons for your first core. Even before enrichment you've consumed over 100TWhs without a 1/3 core refuel every ten years for forty and we haven't even factored energetic costs of a spent fuel containment facility or the logistics of moving spent fuel safely.
Even though most reactors today only burn about 5%
It is *common knowledge* that current reactors have a burn up rate of roughly less than half of one percent (0.3%) of the fuel, not a good starting point fuel wise, with the reactor being around 33% efficient. That might be typical for an industrial power plant but as the industrial energetic inputs weigh heavily off the efficiency of the plant, that is going to be another figure we will never be able to determine simply because the plants will consume energy *after* they are decommissioned.
This brings us to Storm van Leeuwen and Smith whose analysis was to asses the net energy return of the Nuclear industry.
You can check their research which is one source for the above figures and tell me what you think (the other being nuclear industry estimates which are *not* peer reviewed). The nuclear industry itself has spent much time attempting to refute their research. You will find it's been peer reviewed and constructed using using U.S government standards for industrial process measurement. So until you come up with a better argument, then this one alone is enough to reveal any further investment in commercial nuclear power as pointless.
The part where it is chemically equivalent to hydrogen and hence rapidly dissolves and disperses in water, quickly being diluted to lower than background levels.
Right, so your saying that, magically, Tritium (3H) changes it's physical characteristics, stops being a beta emitter and just isn't radioactive anymore. What about when it's in air?
In addition the very low energy of the beta radiation it emits,
3H is biologically mutagenic *because* it's a low energy emitter. This characteristic makes readily absorbed by surrounding cells.
it's tendency to be ejected with urine or sweat if ingested ( as opposed to staying in the body ) the short half-life, the minuscule amount produced, and the lack of any major pathway into the food-chain that would not first dilute any release by many orders of magnitude.
The available evidence from studies conducted contradicts you, so I'll just quote from those works;
Tritium can be inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through skin. Eating food containing 3H can be even more damaging than drinking 3H bound in water. Consequently, an estimated radiation dose based only on ingestion of tritiated water may underestimate the health effects if the person has also consumed food contaminated with tritium. (Komatsu)
Studies indicate that lower doses of tritium can cause more cell death (Dobson, 1976), mutations (Ito) and chromosome damage (Hori) per dose than higher tritium doses. Tritium can impart damage which is two or more times greater per dose than either x-rays or gamma rays.
(Straume) (Dobson, 1976) There is no evidence of a threshold for damage from 3H exposure; even the smallest amount of tritium can have negative health impacts. (Dobson, 1974) Organically bound tritium (tritium bound in animal or plant tissue) can stay in the body for 10 years or more.
Honestly of all the elements in nuclear waste tritium is one of the more harmless ones.
Tritium can cause mutations, tumors and cell death. (Rytomaa) Tritiated water is associated with significantly decreased weight of brain and genital tract organs in mice (Torok) and can cause irreversible loss of female germ cells in both mice and monkeys even at low concentrations. (Dobson, 1979)
(Laskey) Tritium from tritiated water can become incorporated into DNA, the molecular basis of heredity for living organisms. DNA is especially sensitive to radiation. (Hori) A cell's exposure to tritium bound in DNA can be even more toxic than its exposure to tritium in water. (Straume)(Carr)
Good thing then that the secondary circuit is also a closed circuit that is heavily monitored for radioactivity. Seriously can you quote even a single incident where a dangerous amount of radioactive material was released through the secondary circuit ?
Where do you think the numbers come from. Thats authorised effluents - from every reactor. And since the danger is a scale dependent on exposure I'll again just quote the scientists;
First, as an isotope of hydrogen (the cell's most ubiquitous element), tritium can be incorporated into essentially all portions of the living machinery; and it is not innocuous -- deaths have occurred in industry from occupational overexposure. R. Lowry Dobson, MD, PhD. (1979)
Your body fluids are radioactive, as is air, milk, ponies and everything else on the planet.
Well considering that I am talking about radioactive isotope effluents as opposed to radioactivity you have either missed the point or just don't/won't get it. I'd suggest you spend some time educating yourself and re-engage the discussion with some actual facts as opposed to rhetoric.
I don't know if you are unaware of the serious flaws in your sc
Comparatively cheap per megawatt, and per megawatt, the most enviromentally friendly power source we've yet discovered.
At least in SyFy books. In real life however the actual evidence points to a net energy deficit when the entire fuel cycle is taken into account. But for some reason as soon as someone says something good about nuclear power on slashdot they instantly get modded up. I simply don't understand why there is a collective drop in IQ when the available scientific *evidence* and an examination of the legal and political constructs demonstrate statements like these are complete fantasy. So lets examine them;
Comparatively cheap per megawatt
Operative word "Comparatively", but what about some institutional assesments?
Standard and Poor's assessment of the Nuclear industry's financial viability"the industry's legacy of cost growth, technological problems, cumbersome political and regulatory oversight, and the newer risks brought about by competition and terrorism keep credit risk too high for even federal legislation that provides loan guarantees to overcome"
an assessment supported by Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs"even with an explicit tax on carbon-based power generation, new nuclear power plants cannot be economical without government subsidies"
The breakdown of U.S energy research and development reported by the US DOE is roughly 60% for nuclear, 25% to fossil fuels and 15% to SUSTAINABLE energy sources. In addition to what I mentioned above you can add the 2005 U.S energy bill which provided another $13 billion dollars worth of subsidies, revocation of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act (PUHCA) which was put into law in 1935 to stop a re-occurrence of the 1929 stock market crash. The Price-Anderson Act to underwrite the Nuclear industry with $600 Billion of Taxpayer money and closer to a trillion if you factor the huge amount of land you are going to lose in the event of an actual accident.
Half a billion dollars worth of subsidies for procuring companies (i.e oil companies) proposing "pre-approved" reactor designs, even if they don't build it, and a 1.8 cent per kilowatt hour tax credit if they do. The reality is if the Nuclear power industry was forced to cover it's own liability and fund itself it would cease to exist. I could go on and on but the bottom line is how can America, of all countries, continue to justify this form of corporate welfare?
the most enviromentally friendly power source we've yet discovered.
Ok, lets look at radioactive isotope emissions only. Over the entire industrial process radioactive isotope emissions are inevitable. Here are the *authorised* effluents not the accidents.
Mine tailing: radioactive mine tailings from open cut mining where ever it has occurred, radon 220, radium 226, thorium etc.
Enrichment: U-238 or DU. Used as weapon projectile, is pyrophoric and burns into a radioactive powder. Groundwater contamination from leaking Hexafluoride tanks
Reactor facility: tritium, iodine 131, xenon 141, 143, 144, cerium 141, 143, 144, tritium, tritium and tritium AND Noble Gasses Which Decay Into More Dangerous Daughter Products (Xenon 137, Krypton 90, rubidium 90, strontium 90, Xenon 135, xenon 133, krypton 85, Argon 39). Of course no epidemiological studies have been performed on the noble gas venting which are released hourly from *all* Nuclear reactors. (did I mention tritium) 4000 gallons of primary coolant water PER DAY containing plutonium 238,239,241, technetium 99, iodine 129, carbon 14 and *ahem* tritium which is highly mutagenic once it's in the foodchain.
Reactor decommissioning: cobalt 60, iron 55, nickel 63.
Radioactive Waste: Plutonium, Strontium 90, Iodine 131, Cesium 137 and on and on
Slashdot Mirror
for Fast Fourier Transform and multi spectrum rf echo cancelation!!!
Long live email.
Because it doesn't require my instantaneous attention and I get to control when I reply.
One of the things I think is underplayed is the effect these copyright laws have on stifling innovation, especially in I.T. I wonder what innovations would have been bought to market had the RIAA's lobbying not been there to trample on every new idea that innovators attempted. It makes you wonder what the true cost of these laws are to the community and artists (I am a music producer and musician) as they continue to try to be the middle man in every music transaction.
One things for sure, they really take the art out of music. I wonder what music we would have if they weren't the 900 pound gorilla in the room propping themselves up with an artificial monopoly.
Still having your pseudonym connected to your real name on slashdot, that deserves to be one of those achievement things. Hope it translates to useful exposure for you. Read many of your comments, love your work.
No, I'm Ray Beckerman.
From my understanding Disney made *a lot* of money by getting stories from Europe that were in the public domain, translating them and animating them.
I suppose I'm gonna get modded a troll for that...
Unfortunately another one of the big problems with Nuclear power is the routine release of radioactive isotopes.
In the meantime sustainable sources of harvesting energy like solar, wind, geo-thermal and wave/tidal are a necessary development to creating the right mix for meeting energy needs. It is essential that an infrastructure plan is developed for a geologically stable spent fuel containment facility (in granite - not pumice like Yucca mountain is) and to have enough energy available to implement it. Our generation should take responsibility for handling these materials and learn from the lack of foresight of previous generations.
Once properly sited, continued development of material technologies and development of burner reactor technology (like IFR) with operational lifespans similar to the fissile ash produced in such a reactor becomes a valid method for harvesting the remaining energy from the existing pu-239 and u-238 stores.
Such a thing is not possible with todays nuclear industry - which is a mess - but a plan for handling these materials is vital so we don't hand future generations a legacy of radioactive isotope externalities the same way our generation has been handed a legacy of CO2 externalities.
Every industrial site factors this into the design of the site. By having showers and laundering work clothes on-site to contain contaminants on site.
It's the new 133t.
I was about to mod you up - but I just had to point SMB out.
It won't do anything though to encourage the Nuclear industry to produce a better engineered Nuclear Industry which is the pragmatic thing to do. Marketing is only effective where ignorance of the true effects exists. It won't reduce the actual toxicity of the industry.
Well considering the actual problem is not so much release of radiation but release of radioactive isotopes what about a reality check instead? Something that makes them think "gee we really need to fix this industry". I know it's a lot harder than just polishing a turd but wouldn't that be the beginning of responsible advocacy for the nuclear industry?
Only one of the two reactors at TMI is functioning. The other is slag.
Which is one reason why it didn't lose containment during the core meltdown. The Containment building was over-engineered to resist a jet aircraft accidentally colliding with it.
Probably breathing in tritium as she glides, and having done it during the creation of her eggs her offspring can look forward to a plethora of maladies including decreased brain weight amongst one of the proven effects of exposure.
Sure, so is corporate welfare.
You mean the same ones that were trying to tell you that burning coal is a bad idea and urged you to spend more on solar , wind, wave and geo-thermal power 20 years ago?
Here's a thought. Instead of spending 60% percent of the energy research budget on a power source that doesn't provide a net energy return and 15% on REAL sustainable energy what about changing that figure around? It's hard to believe that after 50 years of that level of investment in nuclear power it still needs the Price Anderson act to make it a viable investment.
Nuclear batteries themselves may be a useful invention but that has nothing to do with large scale power generation.
Your rhetoric never made any sense in the first place.
No, you're right. Don't worry, I'll just mod you up.
Hollywood, creator of perceptions.
This is, always has been and should be (I'd like to say remain) an apolitical issue. Proper functioning of goverment (everywhere) and information control has *always* been an apolitical issue. Even if political parties manipulate it to their short-term gain, it's always our long-term loss.
Hey, you know, I think that name has a ring to it.
It's rumored he invented Al Gore.
Cries of "We're not worthy, We're not worthy" were heard.
I don't know, must admit I wasn't really paying much attention to the whole thing. I was just reading the funnys and sort of curious if I could learn something. Really dood, it's not worth getting all upset about it.
Hey, I'm not a sock puppet, I'm a hewman beiong! I think it's time for you to settle down as you are getting too attached to this argument.
I'll probably get modded a troll for this but...
I accept that OSS solutions aren't going to be all solutions so why shouldn't it be so for Microsoft? Only they attempt to be the only solution for everything. By your own logic why didn't the LSE go with an in-house .NET solution? Personally I like VS2008 and developing in C# but I squeeze much more performance out of individual Linux boxes than Windows boxes for my dedicated applications - so why wouldn't I expect the same logic to flow onto systemic solutions where others are building their dedicated applications?
I don't know what the LSE need but I know what I needed for my studio solutions. I needed a system capable of doing high resolution multi-channel digital audio recording. I discover that Windows couldn't match the low latency of the Linux system so on the exact same hardware I compared several basic parameters to understand why;
Kernel tuning - Could not be done under Windows. Under Linux I cut down the kernel size and released memory to application, compiled the kernel for the exact processor being used. I changed the scheduler around so the kernel was more suited to the task at hand, etc.
Filesystem performance - Single cached disk same size and model all tests. Windows Filesystem disk throughput fell after 32Gb consumed on HPFS (ntfs?). Linux reiser ate *every* file system for performance (ext, etc - looking forward to new faster file systems). I've got the numbers around somewhere but I just couldn't be bothered digging around for it.
My goal on this system was to make sure it *didn't* swap and I know that server Windows can access the same amount of memory Linux can with the appropriate service packs but windows kernel sizes are still larger than Linux kernels so it will still swap sooner. On machines where I anticipate it *might* swap under load I share swap between disks, I haven't researched if this is even possible under Windows. I couldn't measure it but it seemed that Linux was more responsive with better memory and seemed much better at context switching than windows. I don't know if Windows server editions have caught up to the cores that Linux can utilise because I really run out of energy trying to figure out *why* windows can't utilise all of the resources of a machine I have already paid for.
Then there is striping binaries which I've never tried using C# but I do all the time with Linux. I can't strip the binary size of MSSQL but I can strip the binary of MySQL or *any* OSS application I choose to compile to get marginally better performance. All of which contributes to overall system performance. Many ingredients a meal does have.
So there you go. I don't know why the LSE thought the .NET solution was so broken that they chose a different software stack but if you have to fight Windows so hard just to get what I consider basic system performance and utilisation from Linux then that *might* be the reason.
You only challenged the claims with information! Your going to need a lot more than information to challenge rabid fanboi claims. The bearded condescending Unix-guy attitude is gained from years of exposure to fanboi's, I'd suggest sardonic wit to begin with.
Well it could be worse than fraud. Consider the following;
Before the crash the banks would take these risks either a) without knowing what the consequences would be or b) knowing the consequences might sink them. Better managed institutions with more efficient business models would then grow and buy-up the business or take over the market share. That is the essence of capitalism, and it's a healthy sign that these businesses went under because it proved that the system was weeding out the poor performers.
Now they can take the risks because they know they are "Too Big To Fail" (TBTF). This is the era of the TBTF institution where better managed is not as important as growing to be TBTF. This is a sure sign that Corporatism has killed Capitalism.
Is that a metric fuck-ton? or is it what makes bedding second-hand?
Thanks for the science lesson but what you are confusing is the *potential* energy available with the reactors capability to release that energy within it's engineering limitations, or it's "potential capacity". This "potential capacity" is also limited by the availability (or uptime) of the reactor. Of the 104 reactors operating in the U.S 41 experienced year plus outages to restore their safety levels and 10 reactors did it twice. That's 51 'year plus' outages in operating nuclear reactors and I haven't even gone into general reactor availability and uptime. The most concerning of this indicates that the infrastructure is showing systemic signs of wear.
Of course, you don't have to believe me just read the report on reactor outages (pdf) so you can educate yourself with real scientific data.
First of all mean energetic estimates for construction of a nuclear power plant is somewhere between 11TWh and 35TWh (40-120 PetaJoules). However energy cost for demolition are around 70TWh (240-300 PetaJoules) if deconstruction is performed safely. Just in the construction/demolition phase you have consumed 1 third of the 300TWh's expected from the life of a brand new AP1000 reactor. Then factor the energetic costs of the dismantling and clean up of the core 5.6 - 16TWh's and it really is starting to look like a very poor energy return from your 1GW reactor.
Using a conservative energy expenditure of 1528Kwh per ton of rock (containing Uranium) you have to process 500 tons of rock, that's 763500Kwh's, to produce one kilo of Uranium. Assuming an extremely optimistic extraction efficiency approaching %50 AND assuming you have a high grade ore that's roughly 763Gwh's per ton and you need 160tons for your first core. Even before enrichment you've consumed over 100TWhs without a 1/3 core refuel every ten years for forty and we haven't even factored energetic costs of a spent fuel containment facility or the logistics of moving spent fuel safely.
It is *common knowledge* that current reactors have a burn up rate of roughly less than half of one percent (0.3%) of the fuel, not a good starting point fuel wise, with the reactor being around 33% efficient. That might be typical for an industrial power plant but as the industrial energetic inputs weigh heavily off the efficiency of the plant, that is going to be another figure we will never be able to determine simply because the plants will consume energy *after* they are decommissioned.
This brings us to Storm van Leeuwen and Smith whose analysis was to asses the net energy return of the Nuclear industry. You can check their research which is one source for the above figures and tell me what you think (the other being nuclear industry estimates which are *not* peer reviewed). The nuclear industry itself has spent much time attempting to refute their research. You will find it's been peer reviewed and constructed using using U.S government standards for industrial process measurement. So until you come up with a better argument, then this one alone is enough to reveal any further investment in commercial nuclear power as pointless.
Right, so your saying that, magically, Tritium (3H) changes it's physical characteristics, stops being a beta emitter and just isn't radioactive anymore. What about when it's in air?
3H is biologically mutagenic *because* it's a low energy emitter. This characteristic makes readily absorbed by surrounding cells.
The available evidence from studies conducted contradicts you, so I'll just quote from those works;
Tritium can be inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through skin. Eating food containing 3H can be even more damaging than drinking 3H bound in water. Consequently, an estimated radiation dose based only on ingestion of tritiated water may underestimate the health effects if the person has also consumed food contaminated with tritium. (Komatsu)
Studies indicate that lower doses of tritium can cause more cell death (Dobson, 1976), mutations (Ito) and chromosome damage (Hori) per dose than higher tritium doses. Tritium can impart damage which is two or more times greater per dose than either x-rays or gamma rays.
(Straume) (Dobson, 1976) There is no evidence of a threshold for damage from 3H exposure; even the smallest amount of tritium can have negative health impacts. (Dobson, 1974) Organically bound tritium (tritium bound in animal or plant tissue) can stay in the body for 10 years or more.
Tritium can cause mutations, tumors and cell death. (Rytomaa) Tritiated water is associated with significantly decreased weight of brain and genital tract organs in mice (Torok) and can cause irreversible loss of female germ cells in both mice and monkeys even at low concentrations. (Dobson, 1979) (Laskey) Tritium from tritiated water can become incorporated into DNA, the molecular basis of heredity for living organisms. DNA is especially sensitive to radiation. (Hori) A cell's exposure to tritium bound in DNA can be even more toxic than its exposure to tritium in water. (Straume)(Carr)
Where do you think the numbers come from. Thats authorised effluents - from every reactor. And since the danger is a scale dependent on exposure I'll again just quote the scientists;
First, as an isotope of hydrogen (the cell's most ubiquitous element), tritium can be incorporated into essentially all portions of the living machinery; and it is not innocuous -- deaths have occurred in industry from occupational overexposure. R. Lowry Dobson, MD, PhD. (1979)
Well considering that I am talking about radioactive isotope effluents as opposed to radioactivity you have either missed the point or just don't/won't get it. I'd suggest you spend some time educating yourself and re-engage the discussion with some actual facts as opposed to rhetoric.
What part of "tritium which is highly mutagenic once it's in the foodchain" didn't you understand?
I guess you don't know as much about nuclear power as you think you do. Leaks between primary and secondary cooling are commonplace.
What part of "the *authorised* effluents" did you not understand?
At least in SyFy books. In real life however the actual evidence points to a net energy deficit when the entire fuel cycle is taken into account. But for some reason as soon as someone says something good about nuclear power on slashdot they instantly get modded up. I simply don't understand why there is a collective drop in IQ when the available scientific *evidence* and an examination of the legal and political constructs demonstrate statements like these are complete fantasy. So lets examine them;
Operative word "Comparatively", but what about some institutional assesments?
Standard and Poor's assessment of the Nuclear industry's financial viability "the industry's legacy of cost growth, technological problems, cumbersome political and regulatory oversight, and the newer risks brought about by competition and terrorism keep credit risk too high for even federal legislation that provides loan guarantees to overcome"
an assessment supported by Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs "even with an explicit tax on carbon-based power generation, new nuclear power plants cannot be economical without government subsidies"
The breakdown of U.S energy research and development reported by the US DOE is roughly 60% for nuclear, 25% to fossil fuels and 15% to SUSTAINABLE energy sources. In addition to what I mentioned above you can add the 2005 U.S energy bill which provided another $13 billion dollars worth of subsidies, revocation of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act (PUHCA) which was put into law in 1935 to stop a re-occurrence of the 1929 stock market crash. The Price-Anderson Act to underwrite the Nuclear industry with $600 Billion of Taxpayer money and closer to a trillion if you factor the huge amount of land you are going to lose in the event of an actual accident.
Half a billion dollars worth of subsidies for procuring companies (i.e oil companies) proposing "pre-approved" reactor designs, even if they don't build it, and a 1.8 cent per kilowatt hour tax credit if they do. The reality is if the Nuclear power industry was forced to cover it's own liability and fund itself it would cease to exist. I could go on and on but the bottom line is how can America, of all countries, continue to justify this form of corporate welfare?
Ok, lets look at radioactive isotope emissions only. Over the entire industrial process radioactive isotope emissions are inevitable. Here are the *authorised* effluents not the accidents.
Mine tailing: radioactive mine tailings from open cut mining where ever it has occurred, radon 220, radium 226, thorium etc.
Enrichment: U-238 or DU. Used as weapon projectile, is pyrophoric and burns into a radioactive powder. Groundwater contamination from leaking Hexafluoride tanks
Reactor facility: tritium, iodine 131, xenon 141, 143, 144, cerium 141, 143, 144, tritium, tritium and tritium AND Noble Gasses Which Decay Into More Dangerous Daughter Products (Xenon 137, Krypton 90, rubidium 90, strontium 90, Xenon 135, xenon 133, krypton 85, Argon 39). Of course no epidemiological studies have been performed on the noble gas venting which are released hourly from *all* Nuclear reactors. (did I mention tritium) 4000 gallons of primary coolant water PER DAY containing plutonium 238,239,241, technetium 99, iodine 129, carbon 14 and *ahem* tritium which is highly mutagenic once it's in the foodchain.
Reactor decommissioning: cobalt 60, iron 55, nickel 63.
Radioactive Waste: Plutonium, Strontium 90, Iodine 131, Cesium 137 and on and on
he said "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know why"