I think one of the reasons that the general public lost interest is because the Apollo Astronauts made it look easy, it was only when peoples lives were at stake did people take interest. Perhaps with the exception of Landing on the moon and Yuri Gagarin it's so vapid that for the general public to appreciate something so amazing and risky they have to do it through a sense of television drama which causes, or nearly causes, a fatality.
People think space travel is routine, mundane, they are indifferent to it because they are suspended in their ignorance into thinking LEO is the same as moon or anywhere else in the solar system. They don't understand the difficulty.
As long as we do *something* it's great but I think this is worthwhile because it hasn't been done and also a bit easier than actually traveling into a gravity well. We go to Mars but we don't land would be worth it for the sheer prick tease value it would garner. I can just see Joe Sixpack sayin it now 'You mean we flew all the way there and we didn't land. - why don't we land that puppy.'
There is a lot to be said for going to smaller gravity wells and building capability. Considering we haven't mastered the ability to construct long strand Carbon nanotube and build a terrestrial (or martian) space elevator why not utilise the technology we do have and construct a Moonstalk. Surely by doing this it would be possible to gather resources and build further capability to utilise materials and construct infrastructure outside of our gravity well, allowing more ambitious achievements.
IANAL so I was wondering does this set up a precedence that the RIAA can refer to when going after someone else? Is there anyone there who can say 'IAAL' who knows the answer to this?
The breeder program would allow the longest-lasting wastes to be re-used as fuel. You don't need something that is going to be geologically active for a half-million years, if it becomes inert in 300 years.
Well first of all that was the DOE's original policy using the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility. The reason to choose that specific geology (in addition to being stable) was also to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to mitigate the effect of ground water traveling through the facility and carrying radioactive isotopes into the water table. The half lives of the actinides you speak of would be dependent on the reactor and I've heard of figures around 600 years but it would also have to contain the daughter products before they were inert. So they would be shorter lived but also much more radioactive placing an even greater emphasis on having the geology mitigate the ground water migration to contain the isotopes.
Now I'm not saying that a breeder/burner reactor program is a bad idea, given the appropriate materials technology but it has to be properly engineered. Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology revealed that the passage cl-36 from atmospheric nuclear testing took less that 50 years in ground water through Yucca mountain so the reality of Yucca is it is inappropriate to contain *any* kind of radioactive products, especially the ones you are referring to. Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash, you *need* granite if you want a serious facility. Even the Swedish test facility is better designed than Yucca and the design of the actual facility shows the U.S how it *should* be done.
In addition, as a site like that would be containing pu-239, whose half life is around 25000 years, if you were to implement a breeder program to utilise that spent fuel it would imply a reactor that did not have the same decommissioning issues that these articles are all about. So that would imply a reactor with a much longer life span than our materials technology can currently support. Even negating the reactor life span issue you would want to situate the reactor facility close (say within a mile) of the pu-239/du-238 fuel source and fissile ash containment facility to avoid having any long term logistic issues moving those materials long distances. That implies having a facility with a geology appropriate the the amount of time you expect it to take to use the fuel and for the pu-239 alone thats 5000 years.
Sure that's a thousand times less than what the DOE specified, but in terms of human civilisation exactly the same thing.
As for the license extension standards, perhaps I was mistaken that they were public information, but utilities certainly know the requirements.
I had the impression that you were speaking with some authority based on your industry experience and your statements regarding the availability of standards were more than an assumption.
The thing is, with any human endevour, errors and mistakes will occur. You don't get perfection. You can't find the perfect solution. I'm sure you've been around long enough to discover that.
Systemic processes are designed to take human folly out of operational proceedures. No one is asking for perfection, all people are asking for is that processes and equipment are engineered to the highest standard. Available evidence suggests process and design conducted in the Nuclear Industry are made to suit an economic outcome as opposed to solid engineering principles. Case in point, the design of the AP-1000 where the ratio of containment volume to thermal power is below that of today's PWRs. Isn't it true that increases the risk of containment over-pressurization and failure in event of a severe accident?
Now you talk about Davis Besse, and that was certainly shameful, and a lot of people got fired for it, and they deserved it. Lots of people screwed up for that to happen.
Well actually that's really a disturbing statement indicative of blame shifting. Lot's of people screwed up at TMI, lots of people screwed up at Chernobyl lot's of people who work in the Nuclear Industry screw up and it's *thier* fault. Your claim that The job of the people there is to promptly discover these sorts of things actually means nothing because now you are saying that the systemic process used to operate Nuclear power plants are not good enough to mitigate human failure enough to prevent serious incidence.
You seem to want guarantees & perfection that aren't possible in human endevours. I only offer that nuclear power is...a good way to make a lot of electricity.
What I want is a Nuclear process that is capable of delivering a 'net energy return' safely. The available evidence suggests this Nuclear Industry is unable to deliver an energy return without burdening some future generation with the energetic costs of core disposal, which is the entire point of the articles. So, as someone who works in the industry, how do you expect the Nuclear Industry to deliver an energetic return to the community if it cannot even manage finances to pay for the decommissioning costs? Isn't it the case that the Nuclear Industry faces a massive energetic cost to 'green-field' these sites safely that will effectively negate any energetic benefit gained by constructing them in the first place?
Not much. The systems would be drained and the waste water processed.
I actually asked 'What type of isotopes would you expect to find', it's ok if you don't know all of them but, based on your work, you should be able to identify some activated isotopes that live in the core of a nuclear reactor. What about those with half-lives longer than 60 years?
Again, you need a transport mechanism to leak isotopes.
It's ok if you don't know but wouldn't ground water and wind qualify as a transport mechanism? It's hard to believe that ground water wouldn't migrate *into* the the system and it's hard to believe that during demolition particulate matter containing radioactive isotopes wouldn't be carried on the wind. So I'm just trying to ascertain if you have any actual *data* regarding what types of isotopes we could expect to find during demolition?
After twenty years, all the used fuel would be sealed in transport canisters that aren't going to leak.
Well I investigated this and, as mentioned in the post you repl
Speaking as someone who works at a nuclear power plant,
What do you do there?
If by walk away you mean: 1) 2) 3)
Ok, lets say it means that, over a 60 year period there are still some quite radioactive isotopes. What types of radioactive isotopes would you expect an industrial facility of that size and age to contain in the core? Are you saying that we can expect no radioactive isotopes what-so-ever to to leak into the environment even though that facility would be well over fifty years old and the time of idling?
4) Store the dry casks on site until Yucca opens, or they can be re-processed
Isn't it the case that the life span of these engineered barriers has never been tested because it has never been funded?
but compared to actually operating a nuclear power plant, the safe long term shutdown of a plant requires minimal resources.
How do you define 'long term' and from what data do you base that premise?
The job of the people there is to promptly discover these sorts of things. There are loud alarms available to help them with just that. It's not a lucky happenstance that the leak was promptly discovered.
A Union of Concerned Scientists analysis of NRC data revealed that of the 563 design basis issues for 1997 only 238 were found due to a deliberate effort, the remainder were 'self revealing' and the bulk identified by 'luck'. If your statement is to be believed how does that explain the amount of
corrosion allowed to happen to the reactor head at the Davis Besse Plant for so long? Shouldn't the operational processes discovered this was happening considering it was one of 250 odd issues occurring at the time?
1) The standards the plants have to meet are published, and not a secret.
When I searched for "NRC Nuclear power plant standards" I found this. I'd be interested in reading those standards if you could provide a link.
...the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and the federal government only has the Yucca Mountain debacle to show for it
Are you refering to the DOE ignoring it's own 'Defense in depth' approach to evaluating the Yucca site or something else? I mean, I also remember reading the the geology of the region is mostly pumice and volcanic ash where even the Swedish test 'spent fuel containment facility' is made in the belly of a granite mountain. I think there was also the ingress of water into the facility which, because of the presence of chlorine-36 that could have only come from atmospheric nuclear tests, indicates that there is a very fast path for water (now containing radioactive isotopes) to enter and leave the facility? So, specifically, when you speak of a 'debacle', what are you refering to?
Also, with reference to the decommissioning of the actual reactors if it costs up to $900 million to decommission a reactor site now, isn't idling the reactors just putting the expense onto another generation the same way a carbon dioxide expense has been put on our generation? That whilst some of the more radioactive products have decayed there would still be highly radioactive daughter-products with longer half-lives that would still have to be dealt with? How has anything you have said here justified the subject title of your post, when nothing you have said actually addresses the issue of de-commissioning a Nuclear Reactor?
I mean the thing is, I'm open minded to the *possibility* that nuclear power may offer us, but I have concerns to and when I investigate them I find they have some basis. The problem is when I see someone, such as yourself, who is supposed to be a
If we give up nuclear power now we're never going to find a solution. With no nuclear reactors there isn't going to be any incentive. And that doesn't get into the definition of a solution.
That's a flawed premise. Not having commercial Nuclear power doesn't mean that you can't develop nuclear power. Commercial Nuclear power plants aren't testbeds for developing nuclear plant, they're for generating power.
Yucca mountain and breeder reactors are both solutions, they just weren't acceptable solutions to people such as yourself.
The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste, and long term corrosion data on C22 (the material to contain the Pu-239 and mitigate the ingress of water - yet another Yucca problem) is just not available. Yucca mountain is not a suitable site because it is made of pumice and geological activity is evidenced by recent aftershocks of 5.6 within ten miles of a repository that is supposed to be geologically stable for at least 500000 years.
How is a breeder program going to solve decommissioning a PWR and if Yucca's not acceptable to to the scientists, geologists and engineers compiling that report how is it an acceptable solution, as you put it, to people such as yourself?
Of course; one should never let the truth stand in the way of their agenda...
Whose agenda? And how the hell is implementing a breeder program going to solve the problem of decommissioning the existing 103 reactors around America?.
A breeder program would still have the same inevitable problems at the end of it's 40 year life span. It's not physics issues we are dealing with, but the engineering issues and material sciences issues. Have no doubt, I do believe that the inevitability of a burner reactor program that converts transuranics to fissile ash should be supported by a proper research program to develop the technology - it just not practical to implement breeders with today's technology. Any breeder program has to be supported by a reactor design that has a similar lifespan to the half-lives of the fissile ash created or you have exactly the same issues at the end of the breeders life.
Your reasoning is completely flawed as the issue at hand is dealing with the *reactor cores* not spent fuel.
This is the most blatant example of moderator abuse I have seen on slashdot, every comment modded a troll. puuulease. It looks like the signs that Benjamin Franklin were talking about are happening right here and trite now, how glib.
This sort of abuse illustrates that freedom of speech will be sacrificed to maintain the status quo. Dissent will not be tolerated and there will be enough 'Useful idiot's' out there to help crush that dissent. What a ironic example of how freedom is an illusion. You are free to comply, you are free to agree. If anyone is wondering what life was like just before Hitler came to power now you know.
So buy more, STFU and die, that is all that is required of you.
You're not even replying to him. You're just pasting text from somewhere else that you think is related. This is such a horrible troll account.
Yeah but at least he *read* it. At least there was enough semblance of some thought to relate it and it is appropriate to relate it. You are getting modded insightful by the same person who modded him a troll - but it doesn't change the reality.
The economic system is designed around a flawed and outdated model, it produces a plethora of externalities. What illustrates it is that governments are harping on about Carbon externalities but no other externalities as if it the cause of all our woes.
Very simple changes to the economic model will legally allow companies to deal with them, but they are legally constrained to act on shareholders behalf. Carbon industries are taking one for the team so the rest of the economy can continue to produce externalities that allow them the profits the get by foisting the expense onto the entire community.
Just the same way people were taking about carbon being a problem before it was trendy to the same is true for all the other externalities that allow the market to "function" - it's a crock.
And I'll probably get modded a troll for pointing it out - how pathetic and cowardly.
Ok, obviously someone is abusing the moderation system here to have a go at this guy or we have a moderator that is on a bad acid trip. I'll be flagging it as such and maybe some other moderators will redress the situation.
The term "financial obesity" comes from the author James P. Hogan, who is one of the most optimistic people around, believing strongly in the value of learning and effort and advanced technology. Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear
And one of the few books around that describes what an Open Sourced society might look like - very interesting read.
Why the fuck is this ++Insightful comment modded as a troll? I see nothing trollish in it. It's ironic though that the behavior exhibited, to suppress that reality by a minority in the world with some power, is reflected in the microcosm that is slashdot. Being able to face the painful reality is the first step in being able to address the issues at hand.
One can only hope there are enough moderators reading this comment will be able to evaluate it's "truthiness" with the sincerity it deserves. or in other words:
The hand writing is going the way of the draw-cariage with horse.
erh, I wouldn't be so quick to say that. All human communication has been affected by the technology of the day. When ink-wells and quills were the mode of communication, holes in the desk to hold them were 'state of the art'. When mass produced pens became s.o.t.a cursive script was a normal means of communications. Who knows when we will be saying 'Keyboard - how quaint'.
With foldable roll able displays becoming available and touch screens and surface technology slowly coming to market I wouldn't rule out the place for writing just yet, after all who knows what interfaces will become available with a convergence of technology. I am a fast typerist but I write *much* faster, the only possible interface that is faster is voice recognition and I can't see every function being performed that way, especially in an office.
Writing is only out of fashion because the technology is not suitably advanced to support that mode of human communication.
What do you use handwriting for ?
To answer your question directly, when I sit with clients to design a software application I write and draw it *first*. People are surprised but also pleased to see something in front of them evolving that they can understand and relate to. If the client is serious I take those drawing and convert them to UML. I do use printing though because it's easier for people to understand - but it's much slower than cursive.
Hand writing is QUAINT that is it.
You are right but properly executed cursive script is an exceptionally fast means of wrtten communication, when practised it's faster than typing. It also allows people to have an individual style of writing that is artful, which is almost impossible to express with typing.
I'm nearly 40 and haven't used cursive since high school. How is this a Gen Y thing again?
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. But to test my "running writing" or "cursive script", if I remember how school referred to it correctly, I wrote the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog and it took about 5 minutes of practice to be able to do it again.
Then I tried to write The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dog...
If people hate Microsoft it's because Microsoft is hate able, it has nothing to do with Linux or Linus or our saviour Stallman riding into town on the righteous GPL. Microsoft hatred was around before Free software.
When I worked for IBM we had to consult with Microsoft with other business partners about how we could achieve a certain business objective of which Microsoft was a part of a larger mix of product from Sun, HP, IBM, Oracle and Open source (circa 2002). I was there with a couple of members of my team and I was the lead designer. I asked several questions and as the hours progressed, it turned into Microsoft dictating to us how we would conduct our project and deploy it to *our* customers.
If I had any doubts they evaporated at that moment, whilst I accepted what they said and remained dignified I thought to myself "No wonder so many people hate Microsoft, they try to make it impossible to do business with anyone but them". A colleague (who was ex-Microsoft) warned me that this would be their attitude so I was determined to remain professional. When we had left the Campus and were safely in the cab a woman in my team blurted out "Those arrogant bastards, who the hell do they think they are?" and vented for the next 20 minutes about their condescending attitude.
When I reported the outcome our managers they basically said that this is the attitude they have come to expect from Microsoft over the years. We ended up developing a software solution to do the job of their software, excluding them altogether - it's not as if they weren't offered the opportunity. In fact, now that I recall, it was easier for us to work with our direct competitor than it was to work with Microsoft on this project. Sorry I can't be more specific.
Hatred is inspired. I used to get bullied by this guy at school, I didn't understand why he picked on me, hit me - it was misery. I didn't hate him at first but I couldn't get away, I hated what he was doing and soon after that I hated him. One day he cornered me, the kids gathered round screaming 'fight' and there was no escape for me, I was terrified. But by the time they pulled me off this guy I'd broken his nose and completely closed his eye over. Fortunately for me the teacher that stopped it had caught this kid bullying me. He tried to approach me afterwards but I just ignored him into insignificance and was happy I could just hack the school's computers without being stressed about random attacks from him (I was still the shy geek - but no-one fucked with me!)
I tell this story because I think hating Microsoft is a disease inspired by the way Microsoft acts. After I got over it I realised that it's just a waste of energy best spent elsewhere. I can commend Linus efforts to be diplomatic but i would question how many times he has actually had to work with Microsoft and I suspect he would be more empathetic if he had to. Besides I think if you look carefully you'll probably see that he is also saying it's ok to take charity to from those you despise. There is heaps of interesting stuff happening in the Freed Software community. If Microsoft can't learn they are making themselves irrelevant by the way they act, let them.
This is the *new* Microsoft. They wouldn't do anything like that. Not at all. No sir. No way. The new Microsoft is only run by Carebears and Unicorns and rainbow coloured ponies (or so I'm told).
Maybe you're confusing the New Microsoft with the GNU/Microsoft?
about a craft intended to lift payloads into orbit which operated by firing lasers at its underside
I'm wondering what power could be supplied to the lift-trains (for want of a better description) from orbit. I'd imagine there would be multiple options for powering the cars that are not earth centric.
For example what about lift-trains falling *away* from earth and slowing their velocity beaming that power to trains that are *climbing*. Not all of the power needed to climb but then the climbing (climbers?) lift-trains might be able to secure power from multiple sources.
Please provide figures saying how long it would take to consume the existing supply of plutonium. The Wikipedia article about the IFR says 700 years for existing depleted uranium stores. Surely there's much more depleted uranium than plutonium?
You're right but it did say to power the whole planet for 700 years, I was only considering it as a U.S domestic consideration. As a technology the world could develop and use I think it would make a very powerful statement as to how serious world governments were about Nuclear disarmament.
Unfortunately the original EBR-II home page no longer exists and the web archive doesn't seem to have all the original data. So I'm sorry I can't find references atm. When I read an article by one of the EBR-II (later known as IFR) designers the projected rate of consumption of all pu-239 was 5000 years. Some have made that estimate 10 times higher, but a rough calculation based on the 0.3% burn-up rate of a PWR would suggest that 1500 years for pu-239 reserves would be a reasonable approximation.
The Wikipedia article says the waste would have to be stored ~400 years. You don't have to store the waste in the reactor, of course.
That is true, but don't forget the core of a IFR is going to contain activated isotopes we have never encountered before, the reason to design a reactor with such longevity is so when you finally do shut it down, core disposal is in place and is as long lived as the final fissile ash products of the reactor itself. The entire reactor facility would operate *inside* the spent fuel containment facility and when it is no longer required the entire facility is sealed up and allowed to decay.
Instead of having a building, a complex like Cheyenne Mountain illustrates that it is feasible and could contain chambers for transuranic, pyroprocessing, reactor and fissile ash storage facilities. An accident in one would not disable the entire facility and accident mitigation would be built in.
How do you propose we arrive at 3rd and 4th generation reactors?
I think there are plenty of valid reactor designs but they are all let down by materials technology. For many reasons I think that investment in materials technology is necessary for many industries.
I don't see the whole world uniting behind this and making some otherworldy nuclear expirement.
On the contrary I think if you say to most people 'hey, Yucca isn't gong to work. We need to build a geologically stable spent fuel containment facility' both sides of the debate would get right behind you. It's the one area that 'pro' and 'anti' nuclear people can agree on. And an infrastructure project like that can occur while development of the reactor technology is perfected *and* while the materials technology is developed.
Slashdot Mirror
I've always wondered about placing telescopes (or radio telescopes) on objects bound for the Kuiper belt as a way to explore what is out there.
I think one of the reasons that the general public lost interest is because the Apollo Astronauts made it look easy, it was only when peoples lives were at stake did people take interest. Perhaps with the exception of Landing on the moon and Yuri Gagarin it's so vapid that for the general public to appreciate something so amazing and risky they have to do it through a sense of television drama which causes, or nearly causes, a fatality.
People think space travel is routine, mundane, they are indifferent to it because they are suspended in their ignorance into thinking LEO is the same as moon or anywhere else in the solar system. They don't understand the difficulty.
As long as we do *something* it's great but I think this is worthwhile because it hasn't been done and also a bit easier than actually traveling into a gravity well. We go to Mars but we don't land would be worth it for the sheer prick tease value it would garner. I can just see Joe Sixpack sayin it now 'You mean we flew all the way there and we didn't land. - why don't we land that puppy.' There is a lot to be said for going to smaller gravity wells and building capability. Considering we haven't mastered the ability to construct long strand Carbon nanotube and build a terrestrial (or martian) space elevator why not utilise the technology we do have and construct a Moonstalk. Surely by doing this it would be possible to gather resources and build further capability to utilise materials and construct infrastructure outside of our gravity well, allowing more ambitious achievements.
IANAL so I was wondering does this set up a precedence that the RIAA can refer to when going after someone else? Is there anyone there who can say 'IAAL' who knows the answer to this?
Or are they dealt with on a case by case basis?
Well first of all that was the DOE's original policy using the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility. The reason to choose that specific geology (in addition to being stable) was also to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to mitigate the effect of ground water traveling through the facility and carrying radioactive isotopes into the water table. The half lives of the actinides you speak of would be dependent on the reactor and I've heard of figures around 600 years but it would also have to contain the daughter products before they were inert. So they would be shorter lived but also much more radioactive placing an even greater emphasis on having the geology mitigate the ground water migration to contain the isotopes.
Now I'm not saying that a breeder/burner reactor program is a bad idea, given the appropriate materials technology but it has to be properly engineered. Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology revealed that the passage cl-36 from atmospheric nuclear testing took less that 50 years in ground water through Yucca mountain so the reality of Yucca is it is inappropriate to contain *any* kind of radioactive products, especially the ones you are referring to. Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash, you *need* granite if you want a serious facility. Even the Swedish test facility is better designed than Yucca and the design of the actual facility shows the U.S how it *should* be done.
In addition, as a site like that would be containing pu-239, whose half life is around 25000 years, if you were to implement a breeder program to utilise that spent fuel it would imply a reactor that did not have the same decommissioning issues that these articles are all about. So that would imply a reactor with a much longer life span than our materials technology can currently support. Even negating the reactor life span issue you would want to situate the reactor facility close (say within a mile) of the pu-239/du-238 fuel source and fissile ash containment facility to avoid having any long term logistic issues moving those materials long distances. That implies having a facility with a geology appropriate the the amount of time you expect it to take to use the fuel and for the pu-239 alone thats 5000 years.
Sure that's a thousand times less than what the DOE specified, but in terms of human civilisation exactly the same thing.
I had the impression that you were speaking with some authority based on your industry experience and your statements regarding the availability of standards were more than an assumption.
Systemic processes are designed to take human folly out of operational proceedures. No one is asking for perfection, all people are asking for is that processes and equipment are engineered to the highest standard. Available evidence suggests process and design conducted in the Nuclear Industry are made to suit an economic outcome as opposed to solid engineering principles. Case in point, the design of the AP-1000 where the ratio of containment volume to thermal power is below that of today's PWRs. Isn't it true that increases the risk of containment over-pressurization and failure in event of a severe accident?
Well actually that's really a disturbing statement indicative of blame shifting. Lot's of people screwed up at TMI, lots of people screwed up at Chernobyl lot's of people who work in the Nuclear Industry screw up and it's *thier* fault. Your claim that The job of the people there is to promptly discover these sorts of things actually means nothing because now you are saying that the systemic process used to operate Nuclear power plants are not good enough to mitigate human failure enough to prevent serious incidence.
What I want is a Nuclear process that is capable of delivering a 'net energy return' safely. The available evidence suggests this Nuclear Industry is unable to deliver an energy return without burdening some future generation with the energetic costs of core disposal, which is the entire point of the articles. So, as someone who works in the industry, how do you expect the Nuclear Industry to deliver an energetic return to the community if it cannot even manage finances to pay for the decommissioning costs? Isn't it the case that the Nuclear Industry faces a massive energetic cost to 'green-field' these sites safely that will effectively negate any energetic benefit gained by constructing them in the first place?
I actually asked 'What type of isotopes would you expect to find', it's ok if you don't know all of them but, based on your work, you should be able to identify some activated isotopes that live in the core of a nuclear reactor. What about those with half-lives longer than 60 years?
It's ok if you don't know but wouldn't ground water and wind qualify as a transport mechanism? It's hard to believe that ground water wouldn't migrate *into* the the system and it's hard to believe that during demolition particulate matter containing radioactive isotopes wouldn't be carried on the wind. So I'm just trying to ascertain if you have any actual *data* regarding what types of isotopes we could expect to find during demolition?
Well I investigated this and, as mentioned in the post you repl
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1319597&cid=28882123
What do you do there?
Ok, lets say it means that, over a 60 year period there are still some quite radioactive isotopes. What types of radioactive isotopes would you expect an industrial facility of that size and age to contain in the core? Are you saying that we can expect no radioactive isotopes what-so-ever to to leak into the environment even though that facility would be well over fifty years old and the time of idling?
Isn't it the case that the life span of these engineered barriers has never been tested because it has never been funded?
How do you define 'long term' and from what data do you base that premise?
A Union of Concerned Scientists analysis of NRC data revealed that of the 563 design basis issues for 1997 only 238 were found due to a deliberate effort, the remainder were 'self revealing' and the bulk identified by 'luck'. If your statement is to be believed how does that explain the amount of corrosion allowed to happen to the reactor head at the Davis Besse Plant for so long? Shouldn't the operational processes discovered this was happening considering it was one of 250 odd issues occurring at the time?
When I searched for "NRC Nuclear power plant standards" I found this. I'd be interested in reading those standards if you could provide a link.
Are you refering to the DOE ignoring it's own 'Defense in depth' approach to evaluating the Yucca site or something else? I mean, I also remember reading the the geology of the region is mostly pumice and volcanic ash where even the Swedish test 'spent fuel containment facility' is made in the belly of a granite mountain. I think there was also the ingress of water into the facility which, because of the presence of chlorine-36 that could have only come from atmospheric nuclear tests, indicates that there is a very fast path for water (now containing radioactive isotopes) to enter and leave the facility? So, specifically, when you speak of a 'debacle', what are you refering to?
Also, with reference to the decommissioning of the actual reactors if it costs up to $900 million to decommission a reactor site now, isn't idling the reactors just putting the expense onto another generation the same way a carbon dioxide expense has been put on our generation? That whilst some of the more radioactive products have decayed there would still be highly radioactive daughter-products with longer half-lives that would still have to be dealt with? How has anything you have said here justified the subject title of your post, when nothing you have said actually addresses the issue of de-commissioning a Nuclear Reactor?
I mean the thing is, I'm open minded to the *possibility* that nuclear power may offer us, but I have concerns to and when I investigate them I find they have some basis. The problem is when I see someone, such as yourself, who is supposed to be a
That's a flawed premise. Not having commercial Nuclear power doesn't mean that you can't develop nuclear power. Commercial Nuclear power plants aren't testbeds for developing nuclear plant, they're for generating power.
The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste, and long term corrosion data on C22 (the material to contain the Pu-239 and mitigate the ingress of water - yet another Yucca problem) is just not available. Yucca mountain is not a suitable site because it is made of pumice and geological activity is evidenced by recent aftershocks of 5.6 within ten miles of a repository that is supposed to be geologically stable for at least 500000 years.
How is a breeder program going to solve decommissioning a PWR and if Yucca's not acceptable to to the scientists, geologists and engineers compiling that report how is it an acceptable solution, as you put it, to people such as yourself?
Whose agenda? And how the hell is implementing a breeder program going to solve the problem of decommissioning the existing 103 reactors around America?.
A breeder program would still have the same inevitable problems at the end of it's 40 year life span. It's not physics issues we are dealing with, but the engineering issues and material sciences issues. Have no doubt, I do believe that the inevitability of a burner reactor program that converts transuranics to fissile ash should be supported by a proper research program to develop the technology - it just not practical to implement breeders with today's technology. Any breeder program has to be supported by a reactor design that has a similar lifespan to the half-lives of the fissile ash created or you have exactly the same issues at the end of the breeders life.
Your reasoning is completely flawed as the issue at hand is dealing with the *reactor cores* not spent fuel.
This sort of abuse illustrates that freedom of speech will be sacrificed to maintain the status quo. Dissent will not be tolerated and there will be enough 'Useful idiot's' out there to help crush that dissent. What a ironic example of how freedom is an illusion. You are free to comply, you are free to agree. If anyone is wondering what life was like just before Hitler came to power now you know.
So buy more, STFU and die, that is all that is required of you.
Yeah but at least he *read* it. At least there was enough semblance of some thought to relate it and it is appropriate to relate it. You are getting modded insightful by the same person who modded him a troll - but it doesn't change the reality.
The economic system is designed around a flawed and outdated model, it produces a plethora of externalities. What illustrates it is that governments are harping on about Carbon externalities but no other externalities as if it the cause of all our woes.
Very simple changes to the economic model will legally allow companies to deal with them, but they are legally constrained to act on shareholders behalf. Carbon industries are taking one for the team so the rest of the economy can continue to produce externalities that allow them the profits the get by foisting the expense onto the entire community.
Just the same way people were taking about carbon being a problem before it was trendy to the same is true for all the other externalities that allow the market to "function" - it's a crock.
And I'll probably get modded a troll for pointing it out - how pathetic and cowardly.
Attack of the get-ahead's, they'll just keep thinking "It's gonna be me one day, it's my birthright"
Flagging moderator abuse - how pathetic and obvious
Ok, obviously someone is abusing the moderation system here to have a go at this guy or we have a moderator that is on a bad acid trip. I'll be flagging it as such and maybe some other moderators will redress the situation.
And one of the few books around that describes what an Open Sourced society might look like - very interesting read.
Why the fuck is this ++Insightful comment modded as a troll? I see nothing trollish in it. It's ironic though that the behavior exhibited, to suppress that reality by a minority in the world with some power, is reflected in the microcosm that is slashdot. Being able to face the painful reality is the first step in being able to address the issues at hand.
One can only hope there are enough moderators reading this comment will be able to evaluate it's "truthiness" with the sincerity it deserves. or in other words:
MOD PARENT UP
They only think they are.
erh, I wouldn't be so quick to say that. All human communication has been affected by the technology of the day. When ink-wells and quills were the mode of communication, holes in the desk to hold them were 'state of the art'. When mass produced pens became s.o.t.a cursive script was a normal means of communications. Who knows when we will be saying 'Keyboard - how quaint'.
With foldable roll able displays becoming available and touch screens and surface technology slowly coming to market I wouldn't rule out the place for writing just yet, after all who knows what interfaces will become available with a convergence of technology. I am a fast typerist but I write *much* faster, the only possible interface that is faster is voice recognition and I can't see every function being performed that way, especially in an office.
Writing is only out of fashion because the technology is not suitably advanced to support that mode of human communication.
To answer your question directly, when I sit with clients to design a software application I write and draw it *first*. People are surprised but also pleased to see something in front of them evolving that they can understand and relate to. If the client is serious I take those drawing and convert them to UML. I do use printing though because it's easier for people to understand - but it's much slower than cursive.
You are right but properly executed cursive script is an exceptionally fast means of wrtten communication, when practised it's faster than typing. It also allows people to have an individual style of writing that is artful, which is almost impossible to express with typing.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. But to test my "running writing" or "cursive script", if I remember how school referred to it correctly, I wrote the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog and it took about 5 minutes of practice to be able to do it again.
Then I tried to write The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dog...
If people hate Microsoft it's because Microsoft is hate able, it has nothing to do with Linux or Linus or our saviour Stallman riding into town on the righteous GPL. Microsoft hatred was around before Free software.
When I worked for IBM we had to consult with Microsoft with other business partners about how we could achieve a certain business objective of which Microsoft was a part of a larger mix of product from Sun, HP, IBM, Oracle and Open source (circa 2002). I was there with a couple of members of my team and I was the lead designer. I asked several questions and as the hours progressed, it turned into Microsoft dictating to us how we would conduct our project and deploy it to *our* customers.
If I had any doubts they evaporated at that moment, whilst I accepted what they said and remained dignified I thought to myself "No wonder so many people hate Microsoft, they try to make it impossible to do business with anyone but them". A colleague (who was ex-Microsoft) warned me that this would be their attitude so I was determined to remain professional. When we had left the Campus and were safely in the cab a woman in my team blurted out "Those arrogant bastards, who the hell do they think they are?" and vented for the next 20 minutes about their condescending attitude.
When I reported the outcome our managers they basically said that this is the attitude they have come to expect from Microsoft over the years. We ended up developing a software solution to do the job of their software, excluding them altogether - it's not as if they weren't offered the opportunity. In fact, now that I recall, it was easier for us to work with our direct competitor than it was to work with Microsoft on this project. Sorry I can't be more specific.
Hatred is inspired. I used to get bullied by this guy at school, I didn't understand why he picked on me, hit me - it was misery. I didn't hate him at first but I couldn't get away, I hated what he was doing and soon after that I hated him. One day he cornered me, the kids gathered round screaming 'fight' and there was no escape for me, I was terrified. But by the time they pulled me off this guy I'd broken his nose and completely closed his eye over. Fortunately for me the teacher that stopped it had caught this kid bullying me. He tried to approach me afterwards but I just ignored him into insignificance and was happy I could just hack the school's computers without being stressed about random attacks from him (I was still the shy geek - but no-one fucked with me!)
I tell this story because I think hating Microsoft is a disease inspired by the way Microsoft acts. After I got over it I realised that it's just a waste of energy best spent elsewhere. I can commend Linus efforts to be diplomatic but i would question how many times he has actually had to work with Microsoft and I suspect he would be more empathetic if he had to. Besides I think if you look carefully you'll probably see that he is also saying it's ok to take charity to from those you despise. There is heaps of interesting stuff happening in the Freed Software community. If Microsoft can't learn they are making themselves irrelevant by the way they act, let them.
Maybe you're confusing the New Microsoft with the GNU/Microsoft?
Some people have things in them that they have to share with the whole world. Complete with the same knowing smile of satisfaction. ahhhh
You'll end up missing Vista.
I'm wondering what power could be supplied to the lift-trains (for want of a better description) from orbit. I'd imagine there would be multiple options for powering the cars that are not earth centric.
For example what about lift-trains falling *away* from earth and slowing their velocity beaming that power to trains that are *climbing*. Not all of the power needed to climb but then the climbing (climbers?) lift-trains might be able to secure power from multiple sources.
You're right but it did say to power the whole planet for 700 years, I was only considering it as a U.S domestic consideration. As a technology the world could develop and use I think it would make a very powerful statement as to how serious world governments were about Nuclear disarmament.
Unfortunately the original EBR-II home page no longer exists and the web archive doesn't seem to have all the original data. So I'm sorry I can't find references atm. When I read an article by one of the EBR-II (later known as IFR) designers the projected rate of consumption of all pu-239 was 5000 years. Some have made that estimate 10 times higher, but a rough calculation based on the 0.3% burn-up rate of a PWR would suggest that 1500 years for pu-239 reserves would be a reasonable approximation.
That is true, but don't forget the core of a IFR is going to contain activated isotopes we have never encountered before, the reason to design a reactor with such longevity is so when you finally do shut it down, core disposal is in place and is as long lived as the final fissile ash products of the reactor itself. The entire reactor facility would operate *inside* the spent fuel containment facility and when it is no longer required the entire facility is sealed up and allowed to decay.
Instead of having a building, a complex like Cheyenne Mountain illustrates that it is feasible and could contain chambers for transuranic, pyroprocessing, reactor and fissile ash storage facilities. An accident in one would not disable the entire facility and accident mitigation would be built in.
I think there are plenty of valid reactor designs but they are all let down by materials technology. For many reasons I think that investment in materials technology is necessary for many industries.
On the contrary I think if you say to most people 'hey, Yucca isn't gong to work. We need to build a geologically stable spent fuel containment facility' both sides of the debate would get right behind you. It's the one area that 'pro' and 'anti' nuclear people can agree on. And an infrastructure project like that can occur while development of the reactor technology is perfected *and* while the materials technology is developed.