Post #137,730
1/25/04 9:51:01 PM
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Should we redevelop nuclear power?
(once we have a president who can pronounce it?)
TMI was a direct result of the actions of morons, yet the system worked - no complete meltdown and no breach of the containment vessel. Humans behaving as stupidly as possible did not cause a major disaster.
Chernobyl was in fact a worst-case scenario, but Russia has not started producing three-eared grumbies, and cancer rates are only marginally higher among affected people (although thyroid cancer rates are tripled, as expected). All in all, given the scope of the disaster, the results are not that profound. It's very easily argued that the continuing, certain damage to the environment from burning fossil fuels does far more damage every day, than all the reactors ever made, combined, over their entire lifetimes. The environmental damage from TMI was essentially zero, and the few curies of radiation released, insignificant.
Is there any hope for nuclear power?
-drl
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Post #137,732
1/25/04 10:28:33 PM
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Depends.
The Fermi breeder reactor that was outside Detroit had a fuel melting [link|http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/nucacc.html|accident] in 1966. There have been other accidents at experimental reactors where the machines have been damaged. TMI was "lucky" enough to happen when people were very concerned about nuclear issues.
There have been proposals to develop a standardized reactor to minimize the cost and, more importantly, fully understand how the systems interact to maximize safety. It makes sense to pursue such things, but there are very powerful economic interests that want to have control over their own designs, so getting the industry to accept a single design is a difficult problem.
Nuclear power offers lots of advantages:
1) The US has its own fuel supply.
2) Electricity production doesn't directly generate greenhouse gases.
3) The technology is fairly well understood.
4) It doesn't suffer the problems solar (limitations due to lattitude, clouds, etc.) and wind (irregular wind speeds and directions, etc.) have.
But there are still many problems with it:
1) Waste disposal.
2) Can it economically compete with "clean coal" when all the costs are included?
3) It still has terrible connotations in much of the country.
I think the technological problems can be solved. The economic issues are a very tough nut to crack, but are probably solvable too. But what politician is willing to stick his or her neck out and argue strongly for the necessary investment?
I don't see greater investment in nuclear power in the US happening any time soon (next 5 years).
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #137,736
1/25/04 10:59:48 PM
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'Too cheap to meter' . . .
. . just didn't work out. The reason utility companies aren't clamoring for nukes is that they're way too expensive to run.
A very big problem is the size of an economical nuke. It's so big, If it goes down (and it will go down as any high technology will), you need a huge amount of spinning reserve to take up the slack - or your grid goes down. The only practical spinning reserve on that scale is hydro - so you have to take all your most economical generating capacity off line and dedicate it as spinning reserve for your most expensive generating capacity. That's a real economic killer right there.
Next problem is waste disposal, and that hasn't been solved yet. The waste gets very, very hot and the radiation degrades containment, and if it breaks lose it can contaminate groundwater for thousands of years. Even the best geological storage is riddled with cracks and unknown water flows.
Safety of nukes in operation is a very distant third - maybe even fourth after investment amortization and general operating expenses.
No. Nobody's going to be screaming for nukes in the near term except GE and other nuke manufacturers, and they've been down so long their restart costs would be astronomical anyway.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #137,740
1/25/04 11:07:52 PM
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Alternative sources of energy
The Hydro Electric power is good, but only if you are near a source of high powered water like a river that you can build a dam on.
Solar power works, but only when the sun is shining.
Geothermic power has possibilities, but not sure if we have enough research to pull it off?
We still should have plenty of coal, but need to figure out a solution to the pollution problem caused by burning it. Also the safety and health of the miners to mine the coal comes into question.
Antimatter explosions are way beyond our technology to control.
Wind powered windmills only work when the wind is blowing.
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #137,741
1/25/04 11:14:05 PM
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Landfills
The way I see it, landfills are the best counter to burning fossile fuels. Most of what goes into them is wood and paper - in other words, carbon. Problem is, I don't think we can generate enough waste to keep up with our energy needs.
Eventually, of course, the landfills will become coal beds, but not until after millions of years of geological upheval (and they'd have to be a lot bigger than they are now).
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #137,750
1/25/04 11:40:10 PM
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Problem with landfills
is that they have other waste besides paper and wood. Like clothes, shoes, rotten food, metal, plastic, etc. You would have to hire a team to sort the landfill and remove the stuff that should not be used as fuel.
Research into hydrogen fuel cells might be interesting if they can make giant fuel cells. Just get a source of H2O and use electricity to seperate the hydrogen from the oxygen and use the hydrogen as fuel for the cells to generate power. I do not think this technology has been perfected yet.
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #137,752
1/25/04 11:52:38 PM
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I'm not saying use it for fuel . .
. . I'm saying it's a carbon dump, burying carbon counters digging it out and pumping it out. I just don't think the balance is enough.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #137,742
1/25/04 11:14:23 PM
1/25/04 11:21:00 PM
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Re: 'Too cheap to meter' . . .
Why do you have to build huge gigawatt reactor complexes? Why not smaller ones, say enough to run a part of town (or an entire small town), with a backup on site? The hydro plants could be diverted to "big jobs" or supply a part of the overall grid.
Waste disposal - this is bear, yes - but I still can't see why some of the huge savings of an established, distributed nuke grid could not be plowed into digging extremely deep storage mines.
Mines need not be wide, just very deep. Automated drillers could bore down for miles - even to the aesthenosphere (remember the "Moho" project?). Once in place you only need throw the waste in and cap the mine when at some determined capacity.
Also, since you've been around the whole time, when did people *really* start to think of nukes as evil? Even I remember as a kid talks of "free unlimited energy" from nukes.
edit: Project Mohole [link|http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/amsoc.html|http://www7.national...chives/amsoc.html]
It also occurs to me you could use hydrogen devices for mining storage cavities - drill a very deep hole, set off a really big nuke, instant spherical chamber :)
-drl
Edited by deSitter
Jan. 25, 2004, 11:21:00 PM EST
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Post #137,747
1/25/04 11:26:19 PM
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Problems of scale.
If you're going to have all the technology for safety in place, and the monitoring, and highly trained staff and other overhead required to run dangerous high technology, and expensive insurance, you've got to be running on a scale that can pay for that. The overhead for a small nuke isn't going to be that much different from a big nuke, so bigger is better.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #137,739
1/25/04 11:06:43 PM
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strontium ninety reactors
28 year half life, built small for the cost of 10 years heating/cooling bills can run your house for 27.9 years with enough left over to power back the grid. Airforce has used them since the 60's. About the size of an outhouse.
thanx,
bill
same old crap, con artists ripping off fools. Ah, hell, Catholic Church it start off that way. They All do. Jesus probably had three walnut shells one pea, then he's dead and can't be questioned,
Gabriel Dupre
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #137,751
1/25/04 11:44:07 PM
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Some pro-nuke information
Flash presentation:
[link|http://www.world-nuclear.org/flash/essay/english/englishweb.htm|http://www.world-nuc...sh/englishweb.htm]
The real Chernobyl: [link|http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.htm|http://www.world-nuc...ernobyl/inf07.htm]
My friend Tony's analysis:
[link|http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/OilMilk.html|http://www.innerx.ne...mith/OilMilk.html]
-drl
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Post #137,759
1/26/04 4:22:16 AM
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Re: Should we redevelop nuclear power? NO
The +/- technically is just too damned involved for a quick "answer", in any case. This is silly, but WTF -
Chernobyl was a study in the lethal effects of party Authoritarianism (akin to US *actual* response to whistleblowers - which is so similar in attitude). The Wigner (?) storage effect re peculiarities with graphite at low power, etc. OUGHT to have been well drilled into all participants - to name just the main idiocy of that night. This was orders of magnitude more insanely-stupid than that gratuitous whack-em test of the Mars Rover part!
Ignoring the techno of operations, my concern '04 is about ATTENTION SPAN and the loss of a pool of workers both informed enough and dedicated.. a lot: to handle the responsibilities, be capable of both measured and instantaneous responses, and in no doubt about which mode is possible, in any given minute.
Then when you throw in Murican Bizness as host, the physics bone-ignorance of most-all bizness types, especially 'decision'makers.. and obv current reliance upon recent-grad MBA Yuppie minds, for "cost savings": my instinct is to dismiss this idea for a lengthy period.
How lengthy? As long as it takes for Murican society to mature about fouling own nest, for US to outgrow a 'need' for windfall-profits in every undertaking and .. aforementioned recovering of that lost attention span. Nukes test all these attributes as no other device does. I don't think we possess now the talent or the will to do this, as other than a huge gamble. I don't doubt that there are ignoramuses quite willing for all of us to take that gamble.. for a bit of personal-wealth improvemment of the usual few - 100% divorced from any responsibility after next Quarter.
As for breeders, forget that. We may never possess enough abilities to counteract the inescapable dangers: Sodium metal is a strange beast - and if it ever came uncaged... Read, "We Almost Lost Detroit" for an entertaining intermix of some of the techno and an approximation of the story. (But it's been a long time.. I've lost some sources for a nonhysterical accounting - or a more recent one with lots of hindsight.)
Oh.. And this is the LAST fucking issue EVER to be placed on some stupid 'referendum' by our huge pool of FOX-informed citizens.
My 3 kopeks,
A.
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Post #137,766
1/26/04 7:49:09 AM
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Biggest reason for a resounding No Way in Hell!
You nailed it with the Bizness point. The Corps running them are going to be from the same pool that gave us Enron.
With the possibility of stooges like the current group of neocon influenced Energy company puppets ever being in power, it would seem the height of stupidity.
-----------------------------------------
.sig pending
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Post #137,768
1/26/04 7:58:17 AM
1/26/04 7:59:10 AM
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Re: Biggest reason for a resounding No Way in Hell!
In other words - let's fucking quit, burn all the oil, then retreat into the security of caves with our charcoal crayons.
There are new "passive safety" smaller reactor designs that are idiot-proof - they can be massed produced. One type features a permanently sealed, modular cask as a source of heat. There is nothing forcing us to accept early reactor designs, and nothing forcing us to build only active control reactors with light-water coolant.
When people are willing to quit because they can't control their own creations, it's the beginning of the end for civilization.
-drl
Edited by deSitter
Jan. 26, 2004, 07:59:10 AM EST
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Post #137,771
1/26/04 8:17:59 AM
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Strange
I wasn't aware I had quit. "Clean, safe and effecient" Nuclear or "nasty, polluting and evil" oil seems to be somewhat of a limited choice. I'd rather hope we will eventually get a mix of conservation and alternative sources. Your faith in the Energy companys not fucking this up is somehow... alarming.
-----------------------------------------
.sig pending
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Post #137,773
1/26/04 8:31:38 AM
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There are really no alternatives
Solar and wind power are pipe dreams, limited by chance and any foreseeable technology, as well as physical limitations on amount of power available. The best possibility, beaming microwaves down from synchronous orbits, is too far in the future to be of any use for the next century. But, by one of those fortunate "accidents", we have an effectively unlimited energy source that we are too chicken to use. And this does not concern you? Here is a direct solution to two of our most fundamental problems - environmental damage from fossil fuels and ensuring sustainable energy production - that only require the will to implement them, and we are too afraid of boogey men to do it. This is cause for optimism?
Whoever is managing the reactors right now, is doing a fair job. France gets 3/4s of its electricity from reactors and has never had a significant problem.
No, I don't trust "bizness" to handle this. Energy is a societal concern as much as sewage is, and should be treated that way.
-drl
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Post #137,797
1/26/04 10:55:52 AM
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There will be foxhole conversions...
...when the cost of oil skyrockets.
I have a blue sign on my door. It says "If this sign is red, you're moving too fast."
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Post #137,805
1/26/04 11:21:50 AM
8/21/07 12:41:20 PM
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You're not looking
Solar and wind power are pipe dreams, limited by chance and any foreseeable technology, as well as physical limitations on amount of power available.
Bull.
If you design for it, you can design a modern house that collects all the energy (and water if you like) it needs from the environment and only raise the cost of the house about $20k. By way of illustration let me point out that my uncle's passive solar home in Parker will reach 90 degrees inside on a subzero sunny day - he leaves the front door open all day in winter, and convection effects in summer keep the place a cool breezy mid 70's on the hottest day.
Of course, you'll have to force the rapists - er property developers to build this way. They won't do it on their own because they compete on price and it raises the cost a bit (not much - but enough). If you want this stuff to become adopted, it has to start with government regulation and incentives.
[link|http://www.eere.energy.gov/erec/factsheets/passive_solar.html|http://www.eere.ener...assive_solar.html]
[link|http://www.sbicouncil.org/home/index.html|http://www.sbicounci...g/home/index.html]
[link|http://www.thenaturalhome.com/passivesolar.html|http://www.thenatura...passivesolar.html]
[link|http://www.homepower.com/|http://www.homepower.com/]
"I believe that many of the systems we build today in Java would be better built in Smalltalk and Gemstone."
-- Martin Fowler, JAOO 2003
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Post #137,957
1/26/04 5:35:17 PM
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Re: There are really no alternatives - in haste
Gotta run..
MUCH of the confusion about alternative energy ideas is embodied in yor ref. to "small nuke package" (with its huge hidden overhead all along the route of fabrication). This is akin to the blindspot of say, "buying that new car":
The solvents, energy, toxic waste created yet not amortized. Yes, the building/selling creates a few jobs but YES: the overhead is best seen by comparing (minutely) the hidden costs to all of that New Var vs maintaining an existing one, extending its lif so that payback comes to cancel out the First Cost in depletion and sewage. Yada Yada - this is both CPA-level accountancy and plain fucking PHYSICS, damn it.
Amory Lovins - one who HAS this imagination [AND the NUMBERS], but is rarely heeded by the movers/shakers/PHBs/Neocon jellofolk.
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Post #137,800
1/26/04 11:05:44 AM
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Remember this, you can never put too much water in a nuclear
reactor. Said by the last person who knew what they were doing before they retired and let someone else take over the job. :)
Huh what did he mean? I should not put too much water into it, or it does not matter how much water I can put into it?
Just don't put a "Homer Simpson" type in charge of safety at the Nuclear Power Plant. ;)
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #137,855
1/26/04 2:48:22 PM
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Little comparison
Ashton says:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oh.. And this is the LAST fucking issue EVER to be placed on some stupid 'referendum' by our huge pool of FOX-informed citizens.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
[link|http://www.denbeste.nu/|Somebody else] puts the following words into the mouth of "generic" Left:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The voters are idiots and can't be trusted with important policy decisions, because there's no telling what they'll decide.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Find a difference?
--
Select [link|http://www.glumbert.com/pictures/Default.asp?index=30|here].
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Post #137,952
1/26/04 5:28:29 PM
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Point >|< missed
It's not about, the "will of a culture" (fucked or not) - it's about the WORDING of these "ballot inititives" and - particularly re the arcane physics inescapably involved: this is NOT a topic for a mass-spinning Popularity Contest, stage-managed by the greed merchants we create so effectively. (It may be our only manufactured 'Product' in '04, from what I can see: spin; we do it to the exclusion of thinking.)
ie Yes: this is a decision for panels of real, credentialled Experts: not one of whom shall (should) be allowed to 'bet money'/invest-in: the results of deliberations. Perpetually. If we had a mgm. of Sanity left, that is.
'Next-Quarter" has *NO* place in such a contemplation IMhO. Yet in Murica: we know Nothong Else, from Neconman in DC to the guy who pours his used motor oil into the storm drain: STILL...
Are we ready for self-government yet?
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Post #137,841
1/26/04 2:13:36 PM
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'potentially unacceptable consequences'
For more on [link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/35122.html|nuclear safety].
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #137,843
1/26/04 2:28:34 PM
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ROFL
I didn't have in mind reactors staffed by border-jumpers :)
BTW I don't think you can fire off a thermonuke just by dropping it. You have to actually arm it with a fission detonator trigger, which are made elsewhere (Rocky Flats outside Golden CO.). And I don't think the instructions are printed in eSpanish.
"Peligro! No droppo! Removo el detonario befora yousa me handela! Tejas go boom iffa you no pay atencio!"
-drl
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Post #137,847
1/26/04 2:35:58 PM
1/26/04 2:55:09 PM
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And in other historic proud moments...
[link|http://home.earthlink.net/~davescomp/a_bombsc.html|The Day We Bombed South Carolina]
Don't worry! It's one of ours!
-drl
Edited by deSitter
Jan. 26, 2004, 02:55:09 PM EST
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Post #137,878
1/26/04 3:41:46 PM
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Speaking of bombing SC: remember "Special Bulletin"?
[link|http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086350/|Special Bulletin] on IMDB.
It was a good show. I should get the tape.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #137,880
1/26/04 3:44:13 PM
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And on that serious note
...don't forget the champs, "On the Beach" and "Testament".
-drl
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Post #137,851
1/26/04 2:45:03 PM
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Commercial reactors would be much safer . .
. . because no Mexicans will be involved. All the control and safety functions will be outsourced to India. That way you won't have the crew abandoning their posts and running for the exits since they will already be out of harms way and able to handle their asigned tasks calmly.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #137,858
1/26/04 2:54:35 PM
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ROFL!
"When that guy said 'drain core coolant' I didn't know he was telling me his name!"
-drl
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Post #138,085
1/27/04 3:51:19 AM
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Remember flic re nuke sub, ship in 'conflict'?
US / Russ; playing chicken games.
They're sitting out hour n+many and the sub commander says, "remember - when I say, 'fire one' - fire one".
Seaman replies, "Yes Sir - fire one!"
(Hey.. they were tired.)
"You've just killed us!"
The ___ Incident?
Need! a place to type in plots and get Names - izzat too much to ask of yer SuperOracleSQLdBase-III mondo pro-tools?
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Post #138,088
1/27/04 4:01:09 AM
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The Bedford Incident
Sound about right? [link|http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058962/|http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058962/]
--
Chris Altmann
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Post #138,092
1/27/04 7:28:01 AM
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Hunt For Red October, IIRC.
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home Page - Now with added Zing!]
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Post #138,114
1/27/04 11:00:55 AM
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Nope.
While there is a "you've just killed us" line in HftRO - the rest of the exchange wasn't in it.
I have a blue sign on my door. It says "If this sign is red, you're moving too fast."
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Post #138,162
1/27/04 4:26:32 PM
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Definitely "The Bedford Incident"
The film also featured a very young Donald Sutherland playing, if memory serves, a pharmacist's mate. Who, incidentally, without having recourse to Google, imdb or other internet resources, can name the other high-seas epic from the same period with both Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier in leading roles? (Does "the mare of steel" ring a—heh,heh—bell?)
cordially,
Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
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Post #138,215
1/27/04 8:52:42 PM
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Ah.. "The Bells of St. Mary's"
just.
kidding.
Miss that wonderful Widmark s n e e r, amidst the formula look-alike pretty boys du jour. (Kinda like the cars..)
Nope, can't place him with Poitier; now who was it handcuffed to Poitier in Another genre?
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Post #138,190
1/27/04 6:47:20 PM
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"Is there any hope for nuclear power?"
Not until we figure out how to safely disploase of the "by-products".
(Nuclear power is pollution-free? /me doesn't think so...)
jb4
shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating that facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf. BULLSHIT
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