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A Chicken In Every Pot, And A Reactor On Every Block: That's My Idea Of A "Green New Deal!"

I have a little sympathy for people who are reflexively afraid of nuclear power because they simply don't understand it. I guess at first glance it is sort of scary, because...um...actually I have no idea why. We are surrounded by "nuclear" power in our everyday lives; from the sun, the isotopes that we use to diagnose and cure disease, the plants that power our navy ships, and the commercial power plants that have a rather remarkable safety record (show me the injuries and deaths from Three Mile Island and I will delete that statement). Hell, there are smoke detectors in use all over the world that use Americium-241.

The Real Reason They Hate Nuclear Is Because It Means We Don't Need Renewables

Ordinary people tell pollsters they want renewables for the same reason they buy products labeled “natural”: they are in the grip of an unconscious appeal-to-nature fallacy.

The appeal-to-nature fallacy is the mistaken belief that the world can be divided into “natural” and “unnatural” things, and that the former are better, safer, or cleaner than the latter.

In reality, solar farms require hundreds of times more land, an order of magnitude more mining for materials, and create hundreds of times more waste, than do nuclear plants.

And wind farms kill hundreds of thousands of threatened and endangered birds, may make the hoary bat go extinct, and kill more people than nuclear plants.

But because of our positive feelings toward sunlight, water and wind, which we view as more natural than uranium, many people unconsciously assume renewables are better for the environment.

I think we should have a "Green New Deal." It should start with the construction of 100 of a standardized nuclear reactor series with specific pre-approval from the federal government and a state of emergency declared that will preempt any state challenges to their construction. The state of emergency would require that for each reactor going on line the most CO2-intensive power plant in the country would be shut down, or the least efficient generation facility in terms of kilowatts/square foot could be dismantled and the land returned to its previous use. In addition, regulations limiting the locations of these reactors could be written to avoid construction on active fault lines, such as the Hayward Fault and the San Andreas Fault.

Any state that chose to prevent construction of these new plants because of fear of earthquake damage will not be able to purchase power generated by any of the new plants.

Let's face it, if we had nuclear power plants spread across the United States, with the expectation that they were there for the long haul, the issue of the small amount of radioactive waste would be less compelling. Store it on site, because that site will be a plant for the foreseeable future. And lest the no-nothings are confuse by the volume of waste produced by even the messiest plants, it is nothing in comparison to the huge waste of space that solar and wind generation creates.

I wonder whether Alexandria Donkey-Chompers will be interested in my plan, since she challenged us to come up with alternatives!

Posted by: CBD at 12:30 PM




Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1

It's scary because the first thing they think of is bombs.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at February 24, 2019 12:28 PM (aKsyK)

2 Also, a lot of the anti-nuke groups in Europe back when were funded by the Soviets who had a vested interest is disabling the western economies and discrediting their nuclear forces.

I suspect there is a lot of that still echoing around.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 24, 2019 12:28 PM (mUa7G)

3 >>(show me the injuries and deaths from Three Mile Island and I will delete that statement)


If I dig through my garage I can show you the auxiliary power control panel for 3 Mile Island...

I demolished their off-site control center.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 12:29 PM (Lo9Qr)

4 I don't think even Trump could sell nuclear after the 30+ years of brainwashing and dumbing down of people by the educational complex.

Posted by: PaleRider is simply irredeemable at February 24, 2019 12:29 PM (jUcoH)

5 "...she challenged us to come up with alternatives!"

Not only that, with her "How about that!" she also challenged the debate/ criticism of her GND.

Her complaining about 'being attacked' in 3...2..1..

Posted by: socalcon at February 24, 2019 12:30 PM (Roy2Z)

6 You infidels put nuke in neighborhood I blow up for Allah. Snack Bar.

Posted by: Johnny Jihadi at February 24, 2019 12:30 PM (Q1UO3)

7 Lots and lots of ignorance to overcome in this beleaguered world. But I guess every generation felt this.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at February 24, 2019 12:30 PM (H8QX8)

8 Ordinary people tell pollsters they want renewables for the same reason
they buy products labeled "natural": they are in the grip of an
unconscious appeal-to-nature fallacy.==========================
You know who else were in the grip of an unconcious appeal-to-nature fallacy? The Khmer Rouge. Empty the cities. Live by the hoe. Die by the hoe.

Posted by: mrp at February 24, 2019 12:31 PM (Pqytn)

9 I think they don't like Nuclear power because they want to get rid of a lot of people -- not themselves, but lots of other people

Posted by: Buanadha at February 24, 2019 12:31 PM (kxv3u)

10 Good luck reasoning with people who literally think the world is going to end in 12 years.

Posted by: Froderick Wonkensteen at February 24, 2019 12:32 PM (+dsLj)

11 Live by the hoe. Die by the hoe.

Vote Kamala !

Posted by: JT at February 24, 2019 12:32 PM (oNaUD)

12 I agree about nuclear power.

But... opponents won't talk TMI, they'll talk Hokkaido.

Posted by: strawdog at February 24, 2019 12:32 PM (Cssks)

13 Hear! Hear! CBD

As an engineer I have long advocated for nuclear power. It is ridiculous this amazing technology has been allowed to languish and been demonized by the left. I blame the end of the Vietnam War - Joan Baez and Jane Fonda and their fellow travelers needed something new to protest and play their guitars and along came Three Mile Island (TMI) and poof - instant 'cause',

OK - crazy rant over. : )

Back to lurking anonymously.

PS - Aren't there one or two spacecraft with nuclear systems on board? Or am I not remembering correctly?

Posted by: Anonymous Guy In Ca at February 24, 2019 12:33 PM (RcMUX)

14 I think we should have a "New Green Deal."

Well you'd certainly get sufficient opportunities for graft that way.

Or we could just reject the entire premise.

Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 12:33 PM (FhXTo)

15 Call them organic steam powered electric plants.

Posted by: Anchovy at February 24, 2019 12:34 PM (B3kya)

16 My late husband was an EE, and designed controls for energy systems, including oil, gas, coal and nuclear power. He always said that nuclear power was the safest form of energy.

Posted by: Ladyl at February 24, 2019 12:34 PM (TdMsT)

17 I know nothing about nuclear power, but I'm for it because I hate the Left and also realize they are wrong about EVERYTHING.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at February 24, 2019 12:34 PM (H8QX8)

18 Remember if we'd set fire to the globalwarmistas when they first started their crap they'd be out by now.

Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 12:34 PM (FhXTo)

19 Whatever happened to fuel cell technology? Of course it would require a nice cheap energy supply to generate hydrogen to renew the cells but around 10-15 years ago fuel cells were going to be the answer to the pollution generated by making the lithium or whatever batteries for electric or hybrid cars.

Posted by: PaleRider is simply irredeemable at February 24, 2019 12:34 PM (jUcoH)

20 "Good luck reasoning with people who literally think the world is going to end in 12 years.

Posted by: Froderick Wonkensteen"

The world will end before the plants are finished anyway, so why bother?

Posted by: Ripley at February 24, 2019 12:36 PM (MxEKc)

21 You can't be serious about Global Warming, and not be for new generation nuclear. Unless you really want The End of the Word as We Know It.

I thing CAGW is a crock, but I'd join with true believers who were for new generation nucear.

But that's not on the menu. Why?

Posted by: Ignoramus at February 24, 2019 12:36 PM (1UZdv)

22 time to develop Thorium reactors. Us/Military dumped its develoment when they determined it would not go boom. liquid salt allows standard Urainium to start the reaction and will eat uranium wastes as it goes. salt freeze plug on a power loss dump out would insure shutdown on power loss. overheat causes expansion of the salt that slows the reaction. more Th than U in earth crust. what is not to like. other than its not developed as military was not interested.

Posted by: Tnuctipun revenge at February 24, 2019 12:37 PM (Wa5hI)

23 There's enough hydrocarbons to get us to fission, fusion and space - once.

Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 12:37 PM (FhXTo)

24 CBD, you're so ignorant of science. Everybody knows that nuclear power plants can explode in a mushroom cloud and bring about nuclear winter when they all explode at the same time.--Crazy Eyes-Horsey Teeth.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at February 24, 2019 12:37 PM (3sjI6)

25 PS - Aren't there one or two spacecraft with nuclear systems on board? Or am I not remembering correctly?
Posted by: Anonymous Guy In Ca at February 24, 2019 12:33 PM (RcMUX)


Space vehicles (usually unmanned probes) often have radiothermal isotope generators. So not a classical reactor with primary/secondary so much as a hot rock. RTGs are used on probes that will end up way beyond where photovoltaics will be of any use.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 12:37 PM (t+qrx)

26 Once we implement this Nuclear for everyone deal, we can then have those electric cars the lefties are so smitten with.

Posted by: dc at February 24, 2019 12:37 PM (u0crE)

27 Nuclear power was once thought of as the savior of mankind as the idea of cheap, plentiful energy became a reality and as time went on we would learn to master and control it for good, powering any and everything.

Then the politicians got involved.

Now people are taught to fear what they never did understand.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (Z+IKu)

28 21 You can't be serious about Global Warming, and not be for new generation nuclear. Unless you really want The End of the Word as We Know It.

I thing CAGW is a crock, but I'd join with true believers who were for new generation nucear.

But that's not on the menu. Why?
Posted by: Ignoramus at February 24, 2019 12:36 PM (1UZdv)

More? Nuclear Power is the only way we survive the coming Ice Age.

Posted by: Don Q at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (NgKpN)

29 GND:

There are respectable private companies, listed on the major exchanges,* that specialize in economically feasible renewable energy.

Why can't the private market handle GND, then, without a yuuge new govt program?

*AMRC, for example.

Posted by: strawdog at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (Cssks)

30 to generate hydrogen

No mine or well plus it's a PITA to deliver, use, etc.

Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (FhXTo)

31 >>I thing CAGW is a crock


I know it.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (Lo9Qr)

32 The biggest present problem with nuclear waste is that we don't have, or make, enough of it.

Posted by: pouncer at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (L/ssi)

33 Eh. Alex made a point in the last thread about a totally unrelated topic, but the point was that Americans are really bad at half-measures.

I was at school about 30 miles from Three Mile Island when that happened and, combined with the movie, it was scary. But no one was hurt.

On the other hand, Chernobyl and Fukushima were real, killed real people, and still aren't contained.

So, it's not like nuclear energy is free and without risk. We still don't know how to handle waste and even if we keep getting those forlorn western wastelands to accept it it has to be transported. TANSTASFL.

What we as a culture seem to have lost is the ability to balance costs and benefits in divergent circumstances. Everything is good or evil. Coal is bad! Nukes is bad! Oil is bad!

Solar isn't reliable and wind is ugly. (I really resent that wind is uglifying my favorite pretty pretty coastlines and slightly offshore areas).

Natural gas is pretty clean but fracking causes earthquakes in Ohio or something.

I'm in favor of a vast orbital array of solar converters beaming energy down to a safe desert collection area, but you know a mad scientist will turn that into a death ray focused on New Jersey.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (fuK7c)

34 But I want to be THE BOSS NOW HOW BOUT DA!?

Posted by: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez at February 24, 2019 12:39 PM (phoPy)

35 I would call them the Anti-Wheel Society.

Their entire rational for opposing nuclear power has nothing to do with science.
Without nuclear power, we will never develop past the need for petroleum fuels.

In effect, "those wheeled carts are leaving ruts all over our scenic vistas! We demand they be banned until levitating carts have been invented!!"

Posted by: RoyalOil, Vicroy Canadian Territories at February 24, 2019 12:39 PM (TN1P5)

36 26 Once we implement this Nuclear for everyone deal, we can then have those electric cars the lefties are so smitten with.
Posted by: dc at February 24, 2019 12:37 PM (u0crE)

Yup, that is the trade that you could sell.

Wind and Solar won't get us to electric cars.

Nuclear power can.

Posted by: Don Q at February 24, 2019 12:39 PM (NgKpN)

37 Before we go whole hog on Nuclear Energy, I'd like to eliminate Islam.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 12:39 PM (Lo9Qr)

38 Remember if we'd set fire to the globalwarmistas when they first started their crap they'd be out by now.
Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 12:34 PM (FhXTo)

You forget that there is an unlimited supply of renewable idiots.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at February 24, 2019 12:40 PM (3sjI6)

39 good idea.

Posted by: trapper's girl at February 24, 2019 12:40 PM (yRQGC)

40 Nuclear always sounded great to me, until you see plants go off in spectacular fashion and require years of cleanup: Fukushima

Also: what about the leftovers, they go to crazy extremes to deal with that stuff.

Posted by: Ghbucky at February 24, 2019 12:40 PM (D2q91)

41 I thing CAGW is a crock

-
I prefer the term fraud.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 24, 2019 12:40 PM (+y/Ru)

42 garrett - OK, that's a cool souvenir to have in a garage.
You should re-label one of the buttons to say "LAUNCH" and see if anyone notices.

Posted by: PabloD at February 24, 2019 12:40 PM (M1hAb)

43 In the distant future, global warming will be understood to be the most wide-reaching scam ever perpetrated on humanity.

Posted by: Ladyl at February 24, 2019 12:41 PM (TdMsT)

44 Or we could just reject the entire premise.

Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 12:33 PM (FhXTo)

I do reject the premise. This is a thought experiment only. In reality, the free market should decide what power generation is appropriate for each situation.

The issue is that political restrictions have twisted the market into a pretzel.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 12:41 PM (wYseH)

45 Follow-on to my previous rant in 13:

And another thing - people worry nuclear power is not safe - but how may die in coal mines (including black lung) or oil field accidents or would die in a war for oil? How many die from emissions from coal and oil fired plants? You'd think the AGW'rs would be all over nuclear - no emissions!

OK - no more unhinged rants today. We're finally back (mostly) to our usual beautiful weather here in 'the OC' so I'm going 'outside'.

Posted by: Anonymous Guy In Ca at February 24, 2019 12:41 PM (RcMUX)

46 It's scary because the first thing they think of is bombs.
Posted by: Bertram Cabot
------
Funny how what is horrible to some is a huge positive to others.

Go figure.

Posted by: Tonypete at February 24, 2019 12:42 PM (Y4EXg)

47
I just mentioned the movie "The China Syndrome" in the last thread. Starring the most anti-American piece of shit actress in the country. A movie that basically killed the American atomic power industry, with a slight assist from a hydrogen burp at Three Mile Island. It didn't help that at one point consideration was voiced that the entire state of Pennsylvania might have to be evacuated.

That being said... if anyone has seen the Fukushima 'exclusion zone' overlaid on a map of the USA to give scale, it's an incredible area.

But yeah, I'd like to see smaller. Less dangerous. Less potential for widespread effects.

Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 12:42 PM (jYje5)

48 ...the issue of the small amount of radioactive waste would be less....




Ahhhh...no. On this I disagree. A small amount of radioactive waste is like being just a little bit pregnant. Here in the NW no one wants to live downwind from Hanford. And WW2 aside, there are hundreds of acres there forever lost due to public use. Further, IR photos of the Columbia River shows a very clear difference in temperature downstream from the site.
I support nuke power, but be very very careful.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 24, 2019 12:42 PM (0tfLf)

49
I'm in favor of a vast orbital array of solar converters beaming energy down to a safe desert collection area, but you know a mad scientist will turn that into a death ray focused on New Jersey.
Posted by: Bandersnatch


Bill Maher would aim it at the deplorables.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at February 24, 2019 12:43 PM (aKsyK)

50 The reason nuke plants don't get built is because of insurers not wanting the hassle. This is then spun as because even insurers accept the Self-Evident Truth that nukes are "unsafe".

Take the SJWs off the insurers' boards and they will be falling over themselves to insure this generation of uranium and maybe even thorium plants.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 12:44 PM (ykYG2)

51 hey. lets build a nuc plant on the coast where we might get tidal waves (due to the earthquakes that happen all the time). IN case of a wave we will build a shield wall, (not high enough due to budget cuts). as we have a shield wall, lets put all the backup power generators in the basement under everything (so in the rare case of large wave (that will never happen) it will flood out and remove power from all the cooling pumps required to keep the nucs and waste pools cool. lot of STUPID there

Posted by: Tnuctipun revenge at February 24, 2019 12:44 PM (Wa5hI)

52 I'm coming for you!

Posted by: Yellowstone Caldera at February 24, 2019 12:44 PM (wxZSX)

53 >>I'm in favor of a vast orbital array of solar converters beaming energy down to a safe desert collection area, but you know a mad scientist will turn that into a death ray focused on New Jersey.


It beats having a bunch of Radioctive Goombas running around in nuclear powered IROCs.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 12:45 PM (Lo9Qr)

54 I have a little sympathy for people who are reflexively afraid of
nuclear power because they simply don't understand it. I guess at first
glance it is sort of scary, because...um...actually I have no idea why.
We are surrounded by "nuclear" power in our everyday lives; from the
sun, the isotopes that we use to diagnose and cure disease, the plants
that power our navy ships, and the commercial power plants that have a
rather remarkable safety record (show me the injuries and deaths from
Three Mile Island and I will delete that statement).


The average person is scared of it because the fist use of "nuclear power' was the atomic bomb. Then in the mid to late 60s when the surge in building the plants initially got started the MFM declared war on them broadcasting the most outrageous lies about them. The utilities did not know ho to effective respond to this because they were ran by staid old men who tried to keep in the background and were not used to a bunch of outrageous lies from. And why was MFM wanting to go hermityle with all these lies?

They were fresh over their victory in the propaganda against the Vietnam war. They needed a new bogus issue to drum up.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 12:45 PM (mpXpK)

55 24 .....Everybody knows that nuclear power plants can explode in a mushroom cloud and bring about nuclear winter when they all explode at the same time......
Posted by: Anonymous White Male at February 24, 2019 12:37 PM (3sjI6)
--------------------------------------
And the problem is?
Hey, I've always said that, if we really DO see catastrophic global warming, we can cure it with nuclear winter!

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at February 24, 2019 12:45 PM (Rxduq)

56 The "Green New Deal," like all other communist horseshit with an environmentalist wrapper, isn't meant to save the planet, help the "disadvantaged," reduce pollution or do anything beneficial at all. It's meant to destroy economic mobility, grind the middle class to dust, and cement Our Betters as an untouchable ruling class that controls the lives of us peasants/vassals/serfs/proles/plebes.

Posted by: Insomniac at February 24, 2019 12:45 PM (NWiLs)

57 We still don't know how to handle waste and even if
we keep getting those forlorn western wastelands to accept it it has to
be transported.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (fuK7c)

We actually do know how to handle waste. It's the political restrictions placed on it rather than the technical that have caused the problems.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 12:45 PM (wYseH)

58 Fukushima was probably the end of the nuclear energy discussion for the foreseeable future.

The problem of nuclear waste disposal was purely a POLITICAL problem, however.

Btw, except for Biden, would Dem voters REALLY want to spend their lunch hour with any of those freaks?

Posted by: strawdog at February 24, 2019 12:45 PM (Cssks)

59 lot of STUPID there


So nukes can be totes safe as soon as we stop human organizations from being stupid.

Got it.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 12:46 PM (fuK7c)

60 On the other hand, Chernobyl and Fukushima were real, killed real people, and still aren't contained.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (fuK7c)


(disclaimer: I am not a nuc)

Chernobyl's reactors had a positive void coefficient of reactivity so were unstable by design and to put it simply, couldn't stop themselves without intervention. Reactors can be designed to throttle themselves so that a runaway like that is physically impossible. Fukushima Daiichi was running just fine until a tsunami flooded it and shorted out the power to the coolant pumps. So there are ways do to it right, but not much incentive if you can't get it built anyhow.

Trivia: anybody know the only prompt criticality excursion in an ordinary reactor in the US that caused immediate on-site fatalities?

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 12:46 PM (t+qrx)

61 On the other hand, Chernobyl and Fukushima were real, killed real people, and still aren't contained.

Chernobyl was the government's fault.

Your point is taken about Fukushima; that reactor was built entirely in the wrong place and, even given that, with the wrong architecture.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 12:47 PM (ykYG2)

62 Nuclear always sounded great to me, until you see plants go off in spectacular fashion and require years of cleanup: Fukushima

Also: what about the leftovers, they go to crazy extremes to deal with that stuff.
Posted by: Ghbucky at February 24, 2019 12:40 PM (D2q91)

I see nuclear power in the same light I see air travel. Air travel is one of the safest forms of transportation, it is the most intelligent way to traverse large distances, and is less expensive per mile than other forms of conveyance. But, if a plane crashes, usually everybody on board dies. Ya gotta take the good with the bad, break eggs to make omelettes, no one gets out alive, yada yada yada.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at February 24, 2019 12:48 PM (3sjI6)

63 DaveA. I just remember when I bought my Priuus about 16-17 years ago, there was talk that 'Detroit' was experimenting with fuel cells and they would be the next new thing. I believe they are in use on some spacecraft.

You would need super cheap energy like in golden age of Sci-Fi when nuclear would be developed and then you wouldn't worry about the inefficiency of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen as I recall. If the fuel cell is a closed system you don't even have to worry about H20 vapor as a greenhouse gas by-product. In a world with really plentiful cheap power and if burning hydrocarbons was a real problem fuel cells would make sense. Of course neither condition is true today.

Posted by: PaleRider is simply irredeemable at February 24, 2019 12:48 PM (jUcoH)

64 We actually do know how to handle waste. It's the political restrictions placed on it rather than the technical that have caused the problems.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 12:45 PM (wYseH)

How to handle waste safely has been known for YEARS. It's not the chemistry/engineering that's the problem, it's as CBD says - political and envirohysteria are the problems.

Posted by: Insomniac at February 24, 2019 12:48 PM (NWiLs)

65 Damn.

Looks like we have Winter Storm Warnings / Watches for the next 72 hours...

Calling for a foot in the valleys.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 12:49 PM (Lo9Qr)

66 And the problem is?
Hey, I've always said that, if we really DO see catastrophic global warming, we can cure it with nuclear winter!


Ski resorts in Panama in the daytime followed by mai tais on the Caribbean coast at night? I'm in

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 12:49 PM (ykYG2)

67 The usefulness of some solar panels on house roofs, for example, could be to reduce the peak hour requirements. Capacity has to be built to accommodate those peaks, so at least in sunny places, solar can reduce the amount of normal capacity that needs to be built.


I'm not sure that makes solar "farms" practical, but at least in CA where peak might cost 40 cents /kWh, it can be useful for the homeowner and some businesses. Solar thermal can also be useful for home heat in sunny places, but I've advocated for nuclear for 20 years. Open Yucca Mountain ... or Reid's buddies give the money back.


There is just no simple way to store power at night, on a large scale. One old friend works at a dam where they pump water to a higher lake for storage, but that is a rare situation. Even a 10% reduction/offset in peak demand would help a lot, imo. I haven't really researched the numbers though.

Posted by: illiniwek at February 24, 2019 12:49 PM (Cus5s)

68 I support nuke power, but be very very careful.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 24, 2019 12:42 PM (0tfLf)

Steam engines used to blow up all of the time and kill people like crazy!

Technology advances, makes stuff much safer, and the world is a better place.

An old friend did simulations of both Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. He was amazed by Chernobyl, because the design was so stupendously dangerous, but very good at power generation. The TMI simulation was remarkable for another reason; he found that the operators did pretty much everything wrong, and still, no harm was done.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 12:49 PM (wYseH)

69 57 We still don't know how to handle waste and even if
we keep getting those forlorn western wastelands to accept it it has to
be transported.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (fuK7c)

We actually do know how to handle waste. It's the political restrictions placed on it rather than the technical that have caused the problems.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 12:45 PM (wYseH)

Yup, Jimmy Carter in 1977 outlawed reprocessing of waste.

Which pretty much stopped the US from researching better ways to do it.

Posted by: Don Q at February 24, 2019 12:49 PM (NgKpN)

70 False Flag event in Venezuela, right on cue. It's the same playbook every time.

Except the anti-globalist candidate we miraculously elected in '16 was supposed to be different.

Posted by: Mr. Wednesday Night at February 24, 2019 12:49 PM (ismre)

71
You forget that there is an unlimited supply of renewable idiots.
Posted by: Anonymous White Male at February 24, 2019 12:40 PM (3sjI6)


Check. The source for reactor shielding is there, then.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 24, 2019 12:50 PM (mUa7G)

72 My grand unified theory of modern liberalism is simpler: in the 1900s it became indistinguishable to differentiate rich from poor by what they had access to. The only difference is in degree, not in actual availability. (And in many cases the mass-market version is superior: a Toyota Camry will run for hundreds of thousands of miles longer than any European exotic).

Hence the not-that-well-hidden agenda of the New Rich Left: come up with reasons to take technology away from The Poors and The Middle Class so that they can (quite literally) lord it over all of us and party like it's 1599.

Nuclear power is a problem for them, which is why they spend so much effort demonizing it.

Posted by: Ian S. at February 24, 2019 12:50 PM (53at6)

73 I am ok with the nuke plan. In fact, I would like them all to be a pre-approved exact replica of each other to speed them along and to simplify maintenance and operation.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 12:51 PM (r+sAi)

74 Hence the not-that-well-hidden agenda of the New Rich Left: come up with reasons to take technology away from The Poors and The Middle Class so that they can (quite literally) lord it over all of us and party like it's 1599.

Yep. This is exactly what they want.

Posted by: Insomniac at February 24, 2019 12:51 PM (NWiLs)

75 Soylent Green Energy is our only Hope.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 12:51 PM (Lo9Qr)

76 75 Soylent Green Energy is our only Hope.
Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 12:51 PM (Lo9Qr)

I thought Obi-Wan Kenobi was.

Posted by: Insomniac at February 24, 2019 12:52 PM (NWiLs)

77
We actually do know how to handle waste. It's the political restrictions placed on it rather than the technical that have caused the problems.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 12:45 PM


Fukushima was the result - in my humble opinion, because the Japanese are pretty silent - of them storing mixed oxide waste in pools in an arrangement that had never been approved or tested by GE. I have no doubt those pools cracked and lost water and chain reactions began.

Once they got some firefighters near enough to those pools to get water into them again everything calmed down. By then a huge land area was covered with radioactive debris. Should never have happened. But Chernobyl should never have happened either.

Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 12:52 PM (jYje5)

78 The average person is scared of it because the fist use of "nuclear power' was the atomic bomb.
Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 12:45 PM (mpXpK)

Yeah, "fist" is as good as "first" in this statement.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at February 24, 2019 12:52 PM (3sjI6)

79 I thought Obi-Wan Kenobi was. <<<<<<<
He's dead, Jim.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 12:52 PM (r+sAi)

80 sugar snow now, with wind picking up. can't wait.

Posted by: trapper's girl at February 24, 2019 12:53 PM (yRQGC)

81 76 75 Soylent Green Energy is our only Hope.
Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 12:51 PM (Lo9Qr)

I thought Obi-Wan Kenobi was.
Posted by: Insomniac at February 24, 2019 12:52 PM (NWiLs)

If only we could harness the power of the decay of intelligence we are seeing in certain parts of the US.

All that energy MUST be going somewhere!

Posted by: Don Q at February 24, 2019 12:53 PM (NgKpN)

82 Trivia: anybody know the only prompt criticality
excursion in an ordinary reactor in the US that caused immediate on-site
fatalities?
Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 12:46 PM (t+qrx)


It blew the rods out and speared one of the techs, and killed another immediately, but I don't remember where it was.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 24, 2019 12:54 PM (mUa7G)

83 You have to build a wall around these reactors. Just sayin'.

Posted by: Fritz at February 24, 2019 12:54 PM (wxZSX)

84 Again, I'm not anti-nuke.

When I was doing an FX semester a German housemate took me out to a (coal) strip mining site. Just let me look around for a while and said,

"This is why I support nuclear power".

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 12:54 PM (fuK7c)

85 I was hoping by now, 2019, that I would have had a nuclear power gizmo in my garage as promised me in the scfi comics from the 50's.

Instead of dreaming of better things to come today, people enjoy living in fear.



Posted by: Hairyback Guy at February 24, 2019 12:54 PM (Z+IKu)

86 All that energy MUST be going somewhere!<<<<<<<<<
I am not sure the conservation of energy and the conservation of intelligence are the same. I'll have to see the math.


Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 12:55 PM (r+sAi)

87 It blew the rods out and speared one of the techs, and killed another immediately, but I don't remember where it was.
Posted by: Kindltot at February 24, 2019 12:54 PM (mUa7G)


Winnah

http://tinyurl.com/y3yy8mff

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 12:55 PM (t+qrx)

88 It blew the rods out and speared one of the techs, and killed another immediately, but I don't remember where it was.


Posted by: Kindltot
http://www.radiationworks.com/sl1reactor.htm

Posted by: Tonypete at February 24, 2019 12:56 PM (Y4EXg)

89 60 Fukushima was a location nightmare. It should never have been built in an area subject to earthquakes and tsunamis and that would not have been allowed in the US.

Chernobyl was a design nightmare of huge proportoins but the accident could still have been prevented by the operators if the "party bosses" had not overidden them on everything. This is something the public never hears about. I have actionally talked to some of those Russian Operators.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 12:56 PM (mpXpK)

90 Curse you hogmartin!

*shakes fist lovingly*

Posted by: Tonypete at February 24, 2019 12:56 PM (Y4EXg)

91 Trivia: anybody know the only prompt criticality excursion in an ordinary reactor in the US that caused immediate on-site fatalities?
Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 12:46 PM

------------

Watts Bar? Brown's Ferry?

Posted by: EyeTest at February 24, 2019 12:57 PM (3GA8E)

92 Winnah

http://tinyurl.com/y3yy8mff
Posted by: hogmartin



Are you, perchance, Daniel Berrios?

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 12:57 PM (fuK7c)

93 Curse you hogmartin!

*shakes fist lovingly*
Posted by: Tonypete at February 24, 2019 12:56 PM (Y4EXg)


Well, you had the right answer.

Idaho Falls is a good book if that sort of thing interests you.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 12:58 PM (t+qrx)

94 soylent Green it is as unlimited supply of useful idiots

Posted by: Tnuctipun revenge at February 24, 2019 12:58 PM (Wa5hI)

95 Interesting plan, but most cities in Diversity America are turning out students who aren't proficient in basic math, which makes one wonder who'd be running all those nuclear plants.


"Meltdown!"
"Sheeeeeeiiiit!"

Posted by: Mr. Wednesday Night at February 24, 2019 12:58 PM (ismre)

96 Are you, perchance, Daniel Berrios?
Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 12:57 PM (fuK7c)


Nope.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 12:58 PM (t+qrx)

97 Technology advances, makes stuff much safer, and the world is a better place.


*******
Totally concur CBD. This needs a major focus in order to find and develop better safety protocols. I'm convinced it can be done.

Interestingly, I've read the Chernobyl plant was essentially a dupe if the original site at Hanford. I can't find the reference now. But I recall being surprised. I saw the original plant when I was a teen.
It just looked...foreboding.

But then I remember "Atomic Pills" that they sold back then, guaranteed to pick you up!

Posted by: Diogenes at February 24, 2019 12:58 PM (0tfLf)

98 I've been married for 45 years

not bad for a 2 time loser

Posted by: REDACTED at February 24, 2019 12:59 PM (RZ6R1)

99 anybody know the only prompt criticality excursion in an ordinary reactor in the US that caused immediate on-site fatalities?

Wasn't there that guy on the Manhattan Project who got himself too close to the radiation source and nuked himself but good? Dr Manhattan in The Watchmen was loosely based on that.

*looks it up*

Louis Alexander Slotin. Poor bastard. Though that was a couple years after Little Boy.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 01:00 PM (ykYG2)

100 But then I remember "Atomic Pills" that they sold back then, guaranteed to pick you up!
Posted by: Diogenes at February 24, 2019 12:58 PM (0tfLf)


Radium suppositories! Gonna make a comeback any day now. I've still got a couple pallets of them in the stockpile out in my garage next to the drums of Alar and tetraethyl lead. It's my retirement plan.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 01:00 PM (t+qrx)

101 Interesting plan, but most cities in Diversity
America are turning out students who aren't proficient in basic math,
which makes one wonder who'd be running all those nuclear plants.





"Meltdown!"

"Sheeeeeeiiiit!"
Posted by: Mr. Wednesday Night at February 24, 2019 12:58 PM (ismre)



That's OK. They will just hide under some coats, and hope that somehow everything will work out.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 24, 2019 01:00 PM (mUa7G)

102 IIRR, France gets about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power: some 300 plants all over the country.

Posted by: Captain Obvious at February 24, 2019 01:00 PM (Hx3Yn)

103 Alar? Pffft... the real money's in Thalidomide!

Posted by: PabloD at February 24, 2019 01:01 PM (M1hAb)

104 most cities in Diversity America are turning out students who aren't proficient in basic math, which makes one wonder who'd be running all those nuclear plants.

The funniest thing I read last week was Amy Harmon's whinge that only 0.7% of mathematicians in America were black.

I'd take any of them for a math prof over Harmon. We know Harmon cannot suss out a normal distribution curve.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 01:02 PM (ykYG2)

105 Radium suppositories!


Posted by: hogmartin
----
That certainly would explain some of the thermonuclear events in the men's room at work.

Good God people!! How do you do that?

Posted by: Tonypete at February 24, 2019 01:02 PM (Y4EXg)

106 My reaction to the rebuilding camps of the Green Leap Forward:

A Pol in every Pot!

Posted by: Axeman at February 24, 2019 01:02 PM (9KpLw)

107 I thing CAGW is a crock

Anyone remember the ClimateGate leaks when all the climate change hard drives at the University of East Anglia were leaked on the Internet? WUWT spent years feasting on the admissions in the email stash, but it also included FORTRAN and other source code for how they were calculating CAGW. And it's all a fucking crock.

Translated into C: "if (year > 1980) temp += fudge_factor(year-1979);"

That's your CAGW. That's it. Right there.

Posted by: Ian S. at February 24, 2019 01:03 PM (53at6)

108 Louis Alexander Slotin. Poor bastard. Though that was a couple years after Little Boy.
Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 01:00 PM (ykYG2)


Yes, Slotin was killed by an accident with the same core that killed Daghlian a few months earlier I think.

The difference is that those were in lab experiments, while SL-1 was a running reactor.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 01:03 PM (t+qrx)

109 I was in Narita airport (Tokyo) shortly after Fukishima melted down. Damn place looked like a ghost town. Anyone who could, had already fled.

I like the concept of nuclear (even toured the Yucca Mtn nuclear repository back in the day). However, any thing the gummit is involved in I am highly doubtful of.

Since the gummit couldn't find its own dick at night while wearing glowing in the dark condoms I need some convincing about how they aren't going to fuck this up big time like they do everything else.

Posted by: The Walking Dude at February 24, 2019 01:03 PM (cCxiu)

110 Radium suppositories! Gonna make a comeback any day now. I've still got a couple pallets of them in the stockpile out in my garage next to the drums of Alar and tetraethyl lead. It's my retirement plan.

I'd prefer meth if I knew I was checking out the next day.

Nah. Actually not even then.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 01:03 PM (ykYG2)

111 This needs a major focus in order to find and develop better safety protocols. I'm convinced it can be done.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 24, 2019 12:58 PM (0tfLf)

One of the smarter people I know is an old friend who got his Masters in Nuclear Engineering from MIT. His thoughts on nuclear power are illuminating. The concept is a simple one, and if one designs from the perspective of safety first (as most complex systems should be) then the design challenges are manageable. And we have plenty of perfectly safe plants already operating, so the "best practices" file is huge!

Imagine if we had treated airplanes or automobiles the way we treated nuclear power....

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:03 PM (wYseH)

112 Alar? Pffft... the real money's in Thalidomide!
Posted by: PabloD at February 24, 2019 01:01 PM (M1hAb)

********

The Smothers Brothers did a skit on The Thalidomide Kid. Fastest flippers in the West.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 24, 2019 01:03 PM (0tfLf)

113 68 The TMI simulation was remarkable for another
reason; he found that the operators did pretty much everything wrong,
and still, no harm was done.


Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 12:49 PM (wYseH)

The operators did about as good as they could do with the poor design they had for the control board and the fact that just about everyone of them were rookies at the time. The critical indications they need to diagnose what the problem was were located on back panels on the opposite of the control panel. The other incredibly poor design issue was the control panel indication for the valve that had failed in containment was not the actual position, it was the demand position. So that incorrectly assumed that it was closed. and then some very stupid decisions were made first to stop the RCP pumps which at the time were still circulating a two-phase slug mixture for the core. when they stopped those pumps the water level in the reactor vessel settled out below the core. That is when the melt started occurring.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 01:04 PM (mpXpK)

114 A Reactor On Every Block

*******


Unclear On The Concept - a limerick

At first glance this plan looks ridooc-yular
Though on closer look is really spectooc-yular
But before we announce it
Let's learn how to pronounce it
The smarter folks all call it nook-yular!

Posted by: Muldoon at February 24, 2019 01:04 PM (m45I2)

115 Whatever happened to fuel cell technology? Of course it would require a nice cheap energy supply to generate hydrogen to renew the cells but around 10-15 years ago fuel cells were going to be the answer to the pollution generated by making the lithium or whatever batteries for electric or hybrid cars.

I'm trying to figure out why I want drunk illegal aliens and texting teenagers piloting around miniature Hindenburgs.

Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 01:05 PM (lD3vL)

116 Posted by: Mr. Wednesday Night

Go away asshat.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 01:05 PM (ykYG2)

117 Let me posit a truism: If we could miraculously have government create a self-contained energy source at the micro (appliance) level, that had no emissions and ran for pennies a year, they would NOT allow it to be distributed. For the leftists are NOT about promoting "clean engergy." They are about CONTROLLING people's beviour. Period.

Posted by: Jonah Kyle at February 24, 2019 01:05 PM (SH7Tr)

118 "until you see plants go off in spectacular fashion and require years of cleanup: Fukushima"

Fukushima did a number of things that were not very safe. Earthquake zone, plus close enough to the ocean to be vulnerable to tsunami, plus they failed to have their backup generators above any potential flood zones ... and they had a lot of storage right on site, which became the biggest issue, iirc.


The US is much safer on all counts ... from what I've read. I do think using Yucca mountain would make it even safer ... better to not have long term storage and 1000 sites, I'd guess. That is why we spent billions on Yucca (unless, like high speed rail in CA, it was just an excuse to embezzle more billions from middle America)

Posted by: illiniwek at February 24, 2019 01:06 PM (Cus5s)

119 Judging by ChiDi's reaction to the children camped outside her office, AOC can expect a visit from one of the old succubus' hit men.

Posted by: kallisto at February 24, 2019 01:07 PM (NHFx+)

120 That's your CAGW. That's it. Right there.

Posted by: Ian S. at February 24, 2019 01:03 PM (53at6)


Imma gonna need the FORTRAN source code before I believe you!

Posted by: Comrade Hrothgar at February 24, 2019 01:07 PM (f3oO4)

121 I'm trying to figure out why I want drunk illegal aliens and texting teenagers piloting around miniature Hindenburgs.
Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 01:05 PM (lD3vL)


*shrug*

Hydrogen's lighter than air. Gasoline isn't. I don't think hydrogen venting into open is any more dangerous than a ruptured gas tank spilling onto a roadway, which is a pretty rare event by itself.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 01:07 PM (t+qrx)

122 117 Let me posit a truism: If we could miraculously have government create a self-contained energy source at the micro (appliance) level, that had no emissions and ran for pennies a year, they would NOT allow it to be distributed. For the leftists are NOT about promoting "clean engergy." They are about CONTROLLING people's beviour. Period.
Posted by: Jonah Kyle at February 24, 2019 01:05 PM (SH7Tr)


Take it to the bank. The left has never been about love and compassion-- it has only been about controlling others.

Posted by: Ladyl at February 24, 2019 01:08 PM (TdMsT)

123 Why is hydro not considered "renewable"?

Posted by: Jean at February 24, 2019 01:09 PM (25Dt7)

124 ChiDi wishes she could nuke AOC or at least drone strike her.

Posted by: kallisto at February 24, 2019 01:09 PM (NHFx+)

125 The operators did about as good as they could do with the poor design they had for the control board and the fact that just about everyone of them were rookies at the time.

Many things, in retrospect, are of "poor design" because we are thinking, creative and innovative beings.

It is because of insurance and government regulation that made innovation and the correcting of "poor design" nearly impossible, at the very least prohibitively expensive to even try.

Installing a 50 cent light bulb would cost several hundred dollars because it had to be a special approved light bulb, the long paper work chain before and after, the testing, the authorization, the scheduling and training of unionized specialists who had the license and credentials to get behind the panel to change the bulb...

Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 01:09 PM (lD3vL)

126 Why is hydro not considered "renewable"?
Posted by: Jean at February 24, 2019 01:09 PM (25Dt7)
-----
Dams make Mother Gaia cry.

Posted by: Captain Obvious at February 24, 2019 01:09 PM (Hx3Yn)

127 I drew out the concept for a small water cooled fission reactor in colored pencils for a science project in the fifth grade.

Those things are relatively safe. And, in the interim, people much smarter than a fifth grade YD have devised markedly safer alternatives (for energy, anyway) like Thorium and pebble bed reactors.

All of the above, even water-cooled, are cleaner, safer, cheaper, and (done correctly) more environmentally responsible than petrochemicals and coal for large-scale electric generation.

Everyone knows this. Everyone in the business of electric generation knows it, anyway.

The fact that we haven't nuked up our power grid is solely down to political considerations. Enviros, socialists, and extraction businesses have successfully held us back, in this case.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 24, 2019 01:10 PM (5aX2M)

128 Judging by ChiDi's reaction to the children camped outside her office, AOC can expect a visit from one of the old succubus' hit men.
Posted by: kallisto at February 24, 2019 01:07 PM (NHFx+)

Not if my people get there first. *hic. Hey, Huma! Bring that sweet booty over here and let me cop a feel.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at February 24, 2019 01:10 PM (3sjI6)

129 Why is hydro not considered "renewable"?

Fresh water is at a premium this far west of the Mississippi. Sure it renews... over the winters, on top of the mountains. Not always consistently.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 01:11 PM (ykYG2)

130 This has me remembering my early days in the Army as a young officer. I was in an artillery unit where I was the ammunition platoon leader. Had to co-sign for the classified government high explosives. I'll never forget walking into the storage bunker.
Creepy!!!

Posted by: Diogenes at February 24, 2019 01:11 PM (0tfLf)

131 75th anniversary of D-Day this Summer. Would love see Prez Trump attend in France in June

Posted by: Jonah at February 24, 2019 01:11 PM (oNoS3)

132 Why is hydro not considered "renewable"?


It is. It still sucks. I'm one of those enviro whackos who thinks that halting fish migration and deforming entire ecosystems is a bad idea.

Damn the dams.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 01:11 PM (fuK7c)

133 130. Thanks for your service Dio

Posted by: Jonah at February 24, 2019 01:12 PM (oNoS3)

134 I like that concept of the Old Succubus.

There you are on earth getting seduced by that curvy chick in the Monster Manual ... until you get to Abyssal Layer #12. Where she reveals her true form - Helen Thomas, and she needs a face place to sit on.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 01:13 PM (ykYG2)

135 >>>Good God people!! How do you do that?<<<

Denial. We have yet to embrace and harness the vitality of jalapenos.

Posted by: Fritz at February 24, 2019 01:13 PM (wxZSX)

136 It was my honor to serve Jonah.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 24, 2019 01:13 PM (0tfLf)

137 I was hoping you'd comment here Bandersnatch. You're right of course.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 01:14 PM (ykYG2)

138 A Reactor On Every Block

Since Uranium naturally decays it clearly is a "Use It Or Lose It" [potential] energy source.

Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 01:14 PM (lD3vL)

139 Hopefully we get some judges confirmed this week

Posted by: Jonah at February 24, 2019 01:14 PM (oNoS3)

140 There's actual a workable, already-testd and already successful design for power plants that not only generate very cheap electricity but COMPLETELY ELIMINATE ALL HUMAN GARBAGE, and thus solve the "pollution problem" completely. But for some reason these types of plants are rarely built.

It's called "Plasma Arc Gasification," which is basically fancy-talk for "burning up trash at such high temperatures that all toxins are neutralized and detoxified."

Basically, it works like this: Dump waste OF ANY KIND in a special chamber. Fill the chamber with a certain kind of gas. Run "plasma arcs" through it, which raises the temperature inside the chamber to some unimaginably high temperature. The stuff inside "catches fire" (not really, but that's the best way to visualize it) so intensely that it is molecularly deconstructed, resulting in two results: At the bottom is a completely inert slag that is basically indestructable, while the rest of chamber is now filled with a gaseous substance called "syngas," which is basically the organic hydrocarbon molecules of the trash being turned into a kind of manmade "natural gas."

This works with basically anything and everything that humans throw away: all organic material, all plastic, wood, plant matter, etc. etc. Even medical waste, biohazard material, poisons, etc. The only thing that doesn't break down this way is rocks and cement. And oh yeah, don't put radioactive stuff in there either, but of course that doesn't change simply due to heat.

Anyway, you might think that the amount of energy required to blast the plasma arcs through there is so large that the plant consumes more energy than it could ever produce. But at test plants they actually crossed the break-even barrier and the amount of energy harvested from the resulting syngas was greater than the amount of energy it took to create it. Plus, as a bonus, the slag material (which looks like black pebbles) is apparently an incredibly good road-building material; they've paved streets with it and it is basically permanent and undamagable. The syngas meanwhile can be used to power natural-gas power plants (which are simply the other half of the plasma-arc plant). If you keep feeding it garbage and keep arc-zapping it, overall you end up a net producer of energy.

And the best part (and the whole reason this system was invented in the first place) is that when it's all done, THERE IS NO GARBAGE.

No need for landfill. No need for recycling. No trash in the ground or water. It's all rendered into inert pebbles and natural gas.

There are functioning plasma-arc gasification plants running right now in Japan and Norway, and the cities that have them have NO MUNICIPAL WASTE, and are practically energy self-sufficient.

Why are they not more commonplace? One reason: Very expensive to build. But if we went on a crash program of funding and building several of these, we'd prove that they were a good investment in the long run.

And there's none of the downsides of nuclear (no radioactive waste, no dwnager of meltdown) or solar (very small footprint) or coal (no air pollution) or any other power-plants.

Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:14 PM (c+2jX)

141 Kamalnot said on tv today we can afford the trillions of $ for the green new deal. Leftism has chose the enviro-fraud and climate hoax to try to convince enough people as the route to get their socialist and commie utopia.

On the other hand she likes to smoke dope and pole.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 01:14 PM (r+sAi)

142 >>It is. It still sucks. I'm one of those enviro whackos who thinks that halting fish migration and deforming entire ecosystems is a bad idea.


We need more and better dams...not less of them.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:14 PM (Lo9Qr)

143 75th anniversary of D-Day this Summer. Would love see Prez Trump attend in France in June
Posted by: Jonah at February 24, 2019 01:11 PM (oNoS3)

And if the yellow vest movement is still in the trenches, he could put on a yellow vest and pose with them. The French government would collapse after that.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at February 24, 2019 01:14 PM (3sjI6)

144 Green has always ment in reality graft to Leftists backers.

Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2019 01:15 PM (/rm4P)

145 75th anniversary of D-Day this Summer. Would love see Prez Trump attend in France in June
Posted by: Jonah

*******

I'm sure he will. And fill up AF1 with Veterans.

I'd also like to see him hit Woodstock this summer too. 50th anniversary for that. Orange Man rockin' to some Joplin!!!

Posted by: Diogenes at February 24, 2019 01:16 PM (0tfLf)

146 I knew a guy who was living almost completely off grid, on the Big Island. Solar, catchment water, compost toilet, propane fridge, etc.
He was happy as a clam.
I asked him what he did when the sun went down.
He told me he went to sleep.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at February 24, 2019 01:16 PM (w7KSn)

147 122---Take it to the bank. The left has never been about love and compassion-- it has only been about controlling others.
Posted by: Ladyl at February 24, 2019 01:08 PM (TdMsT)
-----------------------------
Sheesh.
You guys are so cynical.
Control over others is not the ONLY motivation.
Some of these pols have simpler, purer aims --- like graft.

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at February 24, 2019 01:16 PM (Rxduq)

148 125 Many things, in retrospect, are of "poor design" because we are thinking, creative and innovative beings.



It is because of insurance and government regulation that made
innovation and the correcting of "poor design" nearly impossible, at the
very least prohibitively expensive to even try.



Installing a 50 cent light bulb would cost several hundred dollars
because it had to be a special approved light bulb, the long paper work
chain before and after, the testing, the authorization, the scheduling
and training of unionized specialists who had the license and
credentials to get behind the panel to change the bulb...





Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 01:09 PM (lD3vL)

Be that as it may be, but the Westinghouse designs that were started in the 60s had no such human factors crap as the newer design at Three Mile Island. And at least at my old plant when I reported aboard you did not put together an entire crew of recently graduated operators on one shift.

Of course I was in the SE while TMI was in PA and it was UNION. So the rookies got the shit graveyard shift based on seniority.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 01:16 PM (mpXpK)

149 I'm one of those enviro whackos who thinks that halting fish migration and deforming entire ecosystems is a bad idea.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 01:11 PM (fuK7c)

Me too! They say that Hetch Hetchy Valley was more beautiful than Yosemite, until it was clear-cut and dammed to supply San Francisco with water.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:16 PM (wYseH)

150 The whole idea of 'ecosystems' that remove the human component is retarded.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:17 PM (Lo9Qr)

151 We need more and better dams...not less of them.

Posted by: garrett



The word you mean is "fewer", but that's the least of your errors.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 01:17 PM (fuK7c)

152 It is. It still sucks. I'm one of those enviro whackos who thinks that halting fish migration and deforming entire ecosystems is a bad idea.

Damn the dams.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 01:11 PM (fuK7c)

Sod the fish.

Dams give more than power. They prevent flooding and their reservoirs provide regular irrigation water.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 01:17 PM (gDSJf)

153 >>The word you mean is "fewer", but that's the least of your errors.


OK, Todd.

Shouldn't you be sniffing someone's panties?

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:18 PM (Lo9Qr)

154 We need more and better dams...not less of them.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:14 PM (Lo9Qr)

Great! Let's start by damming your favorite river.

I'll take a nuclear power plant any day over a hydroelectric power plant.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:18 PM (wYseH)

155 I drew out the concept for a small water cooled fission reactor in colored pencils for a science project in the fifth grade.

An I hammered in two metal stakes into the ground strung a wire that is a harmonic of Earth's electromagnetic frequency (approx 7.5 Hz) coupled it to some transformers and a large capacitor to feed a pure sine wave UPS and powered the school ...

Then in second grade designed and built a Thorium reactor during recess.

Third grade came the matter/ant-matter ion propulsion systems but then the government told me to stop.

Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 01:19 PM (lD3vL)

156 Dams give more than power. They prevent flooding

*glubble* *blubble*

Posted by: the citizens of Johnstown at February 24, 2019 01:19 PM (ykYG2)

157 >>Great! Let's start by damming your favorite river.


I would love 5-6 more dams in this valley.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:19 PM (Lo9Qr)

158 Me too! They say that Hetch Hetchy Valley was more beautiful than Yosemite, until it was clear-cut and dammed to supply San Francisco with water.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:16 PM (wYseH)

And that logic has led to the federal government owning most land in the west. There's thousands of parks, we don't need to preserve every single valley.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 01:20 PM (gDSJf)

159 a true meltdown does (seems to me) have the potential to be MUCH worse than any airline disaster, AND nuclear waste in the hands of a terrorist could be much worse than even 9/11. So it is not a great comparison really. And a full meltdown of Fukushima for instance ... with winds the wrong way ... wow.


But there are a lot of nuke sites in unfriendly countries, so terror is not the biggest threat, and safeguards are ample. So do best practices, move waster to Yucca ... and it works. But if we ever end up with Idiocracy, or a demand a minority hire Maxine Waters type be put in charge (like she is being put in the finance committee head spot, sheesh) ... then there might be reason to fear.


We can also use coal ... stop the crazy CO2 fears and open the coal plants again, and we have cheap energy out the wazoo ... or wherever you want it. I spoke with my local coop guy recently, and he lamented they shut down coal fired Meredosia ... he wondered if it would take rolling brownouts to change minds.

Posted by: illiniwek at February 24, 2019 01:20 PM (Cus5s)

160 Dams give more than power. They prevent flooding and their reservoirs provide regular irrigation water.

And provide a much larger and diverse fish habitat than an untamed river.

Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 01:20 PM (lD3vL)

161
I like dams and the recreation and the views, and people having fun out on the water. There have always been a diverse population of fish* in them, and trout downstream in the outflow of the dam.

Plus, they're a dependable 24/7 source of power. That's gold.

* Walleye, perch, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, sunnies, to name just a few.

Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 01:20 PM (jYje5)

162 I would love 5-6 more dams in this valley.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:19 PM (Lo9Qr)

Well, that's because you hate people.


Seriously...why?

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:21 PM (wYseH)

163
Sheesh.
You guys are so cynical.
Control over others is not the ONLY motivation.
Some of these pols have simpler, purer aims --- like graft.
Posted by: Margarita DeVille at February 24, 2019 01:16 PM (Rxduq)


Graft is simply an intended consequence of control.

Posted by: Ladyl at February 24, 2019 01:21 PM (TdMsT)

164 I still like the idea of wave generation plants in the ocean. I'd add those to my energy plan along with nukes.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 01:21 PM (r+sAi)

165

Don't need reactors, your bodies will feed the power plants for many years!

Posted by: Little Lupe Occupied-Cervix at February 24, 2019 01:21 PM (5rfs8)

166 Great! Let's start by damming your favorite river.

As long as I get to sell the lake front properties and marinas that result of the new reservoir.

Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 01:22 PM (lD3vL)

167 Green has always ment in reality graft to Leftists backers.
Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2019 01:15 PM (/rm4P)


In every government program, there's always enough "green" built in to accommodate our betters!

Posted by: Comrade Hrothgar at February 24, 2019 01:22 PM (f3oO4)

168 154 I'll take a nuclear power plant any day over a hydroelectric power plant.


Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:18 PM (wYseH)

Hydro plants are the cheapest generating plants in existence. But you don't have to worry about that, all the best available sites have already been used up and the few that would be available for smaller dams are off limits permanently due to the insane eco-Nazis.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 01:22 PM (mpXpK)

169 Plus, they're a dependable 24/7 source of power. That's gold.

And a dependable source of protein during a TEOTWAWKI.

Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 01:23 PM (lD3vL)

170 And that logic has led to the federal government
owning most land in the west. There's thousands of parks, we don't need
to preserve every single valley.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 01:20 PM (gDSJf)

That's a fair point. But there are also two separate issues...one is power, which can be supplied by nuclear, and the other is water, which is in some ways an even more intractable issue!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:23 PM (wYseH)

171 Here's a rudimentary overview of plasma arc gasification:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification

One aspect of the wiki article is out of date, it lists as a "Disadvantage": "Little or even negative net energy production." This was true until fairly recently; they've increased efficiency and now can run them consistently as net positive energy production sources.

Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:24 PM (c+2jX)

172 Let's compromise: dam every river with thorium dams.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 01:24 PM (t+qrx)

173 1.Anthropogenic global warming is a falsified hypothesis.

2. By this I mean, the positive feedback computer models that predicted several degrees of warming by now, the models that are the entire basis for the moral panic and Tourette's-like fascist rants about how something drastic must be done right away, extreme scarcity imposed on us immediately whether we like it or not, have utterly failed by their own criterion for successful modeling. Twenty years of no warming trend whatsoever. They claimed they knew. They knew not.

3. Follow the money. Trillions of dollars to be moved around at the arbitrary will of politicians and bureaucrats, government power to be greatly expanded. We saw the massive grifting during the Obama administration; what they would like do in the future would dwarf that.

You want natural? Natural gas.

Posted by: Semi-Literate Thug at February 24, 2019 01:24 PM (t5m5e)

174 Shouldn't you be sniffing someone's panties?
Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:18 PM


Is that a Bad Thing? Because I wouldn't do it if I had known ...

Posted by: Japanese Vending Machine Customer at February 24, 2019 01:24 PM (DMUuz)

175 Trivia: anybody know the only prompt criticality excursion in an ordinary reactor in the US that caused immediate on-site fatalities?

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 12:46 PM (t+qrx)

I want to say it was the Navy's prototype reactor in Idaho. Small H explosion blew the lid off and squished a guy to the ceiling.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at February 24, 2019 01:24 PM (q7IoS)

176 To the rons who are talking safety--nothing in life is always 100% safe, especially during the early years of a developing technology. I'd wager nuclear power production could be made much safer in the future, akin to air travel. As for the problem of nuclear waste, outer space would seem to provide an immense land fill; countless lightyears of empty vacuum. I may be all wrong about this, I'm a lowly musician. But who knows. This sounds as plausible as AOC's NGD to me.

Posted by: Michael Croy at February 24, 2019 01:25 PM (muDr9)

177 Hydro plants are the cheapest generating plants in existence. But you don't have to worry about that, all the best available sites have already been used up and the few that would be available for smaller dams are off limits permanently due to the insane eco-Nazis.

Dittos with the solar and wind farms. The best sites were exploited first and were built-up with the least efficient early generation designs.

Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 01:25 PM (lD3vL)

178 >>Seriously...why?


It would improve the river. We have a shit ton of water escape every year and a untenable cycle of Flood / Drought.

A series of small reservoirs would allow for smaller local power development and a healthier river.

If you remove the dams, you need to remove all development in the Thousand Year Floodplain and allow the rivers to do their thing. Which we can never do...

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:25 PM (Lo9Qr)

179 Just tell 'em that most of the sissy French live near a nuke plant.

They're about the size of Colorado and have 30 some plants all cooking away. No accidents, no deaths. Hmmm.

If even the French can get it right, why can't we?

I think the biggest problem has been policy. Because of the size of investment they build really big plants which tend to be complicated and the bigger something is the more likely it has flaws when building it. Now most all the flaws are caught before going on line but that costs extra money.

Your throw off line of one on every block is nearer to the best in my view.

Build these things in modules so they can be scaled up or down. Bring the modules in, hook them up and bingo instant power plant.

Buy on get one free. maybe build just enough for the area with some spare say a 1 or 2 megawatt for a small town. All hooked up to the grid and interacting.

That's something else too we didn't have in the '70's; computerized control systems so that the grid can be hooked up to just about anything at any point and it blends with all the rest as needed.

This also makes handling emergencies less threatening and easier to put a stop to. Water might be a problem for cooling but there are other designs. Build a gas plant alongside as a back up they're cheap and gas is cheap right now. Coal could be done away with within 50 years if they started now.

FAT. CHANCE. We don't solve problems anymore in America it seems.

Posted by: jakee308 at February 24, 2019 01:26 PM (uin19)

180 Well, that's because you hate people.

Seriously...why?
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:21 PM (wYseH)

Countless orchards in CA died off just a few years ago due to drought conditions. A couple of water projects could have saved most of them.

Why do you hate people?

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 01:26 PM (gDSJf)

181 Nuclear reactors, if I'm not mistaken, require massive volumes of a cooling media. Dams or pumps, what's the problem here?

Posted by: Fritz at February 24, 2019 01:27 PM (wxZSX)

182 You want natural? Natural gas. <<<<<<<
Cow farts are bad.

Posted by: Alexandria Oxy-Communist at February 24, 2019 01:27 PM (r+sAi)

183 Nice piece, CBD.

Where the link missed the mark, you nailed it in your last word. It isn't "natural" that people want, it's "alternative" -- alternative energy, alternative lifestyles, alternative rock. That word is the red flag, and I avoid (or I'm reflexively against) anything described as such.

Posted by: FireHorse at February 24, 2019 01:27 PM (ECylE)

184 Why do you hate people?

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 01:26 PM (gDSJf)

Then let us maximize for water storage and not worry about power generation. I imagine that the dam systems in America would look vastly different.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:28 PM (wYseH)

185 We hear about "Democracy" an awful lot. Bolton, Pompeo, Rubio etc. (even Hillary and Kamala) are pretty excited about bringing "Democracy" to another foreign land and of course taking in their refugees (to live in YOUR neighborhood, not theirs).

But what is it, precisely? Is there a formula? Yes!

Majority non-white country: Democracy = Central Banking + Sodomy

Majority white country: Democracy = (Central Banking + Sodomy) x Diversity

Posted by: Mr. Wednesday Night at February 24, 2019 01:28 PM (ismre)

186 You want to help fish, you remove the topwater fow dams and you build better migration paths and time releases for spawning runs.

It's not a difficult chore.

But it doesn't jive with the 'Eco' notion of a Perfect World without the influence of humanity.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:29 PM (Lo9Qr)

187 159
a true meltdown does (seems to me) have the potential to be MUCH worse
than any airline disaster, AND nuclear waste in the hands of a terrorist
could be much worse than even 9/11. So it is not a great comparison
really. And a full meltdown of Fukushima for instance ... with winds the
wrong way ... wow.
Posted by: illiniwek at February 24, 2019 01:20 PM (Cus5s)

The containment vessels built at plants in the US are design to take a meltdown, or what is known as "fuel failure". TMI was the big bad boy, but it proved that. Chernobyl was a big bad boy and they had NO containment structure. Nobody at TMI was injured or killed in any manner. There were fatalities at Chernobyl, but almost all of them were operators who refused to go in the core area and fight the fire. They were shot on site by the Russian Army.


And Nuclear waste comes in two categories, high level from spent fuel and low level contaminated stuff like gloves trash etc.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 01:29 PM (mpXpK)

188 I want to say it was the Navy's prototype reactor in Idaho. Small H explosion blew the lid off and squished a guy to the ceiling.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer at February 24, 2019 01:24 PM (q7IoS)


Close, but Army. Idaho Falls, 1961. Anyone who would've suggested a design like SL-1 to Rickover would've been flayed alive.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 01:29 PM (t+qrx)

189 I had a 3MI oval sticker on my last car.

Posted by: Weasel at February 24, 2019 01:30 PM (MVjcR)

190 181 Nuclear reactors, if I'm not mistaken, require massive volumes of a cooling media. Dams or pumps, what's the problem here?

True of most thermal power plants except maybe pure gas turbine installations.

Theyre built at the shore or along rivers and in some places output can be limited during fish spawning and migration.

Posted by: JEM at February 24, 2019 01:30 PM (mJzia)

191 Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:25 PM (Lo9Qr)

Good points all.

So, as I just mentioned in an earlier comment, maximize for water storage (control) instead of stupid power generation.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:30 PM (wYseH)

192 Mario "Sfacheem" Cuomo killed the Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long Island before any concrete was poured. His son, Andrew "Sfacheem junior" is in the process of decommissioning the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County. That plant supplies about 20 percent of New York City's electricity.

Although Indian Point sits a few hundred yards from an earthquake fault line, I think most people, in there ignorance, oppose nuclear power because of Chernobyl, Fukushima, and the huge fight over nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Posted by: mercenary13 at February 24, 2019 01:30 PM (wyUZs)

193 >>So, as I just mentioned in an earlier comment, maximize for water storage (control) instead of stupid power generation.


You can do both. You just need to work on the scale of impoundments and generation.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:31 PM (Lo9Qr)

194 One of the things that has occurred to me concerning the Green New Deal (besides its horrific intentions) is that the very title proves that the claim that the Republican and Democrat parties "flipped" after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a lie. If that transformation had actually taken place, why would a Current Year Democrat harken back to the times of FDR? That is point that is not surprising to any of the Horde but it might be a valid point to make with a LIV.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 24, 2019 01:32 PM (5Yee7)

195 Then let us maximize for water storage and not worry about power generation. I imagine that the dam systems in America would look vastly different.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo


I agree with this. But then, I would; that's how Boulder County deals with it.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at February 24, 2019 01:32 PM (ykYG2)

196 Andrew "Sfacheem junior" is in the process of decommissioning the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County. That plant supplies about 20 percent of New York City's electricity.

Given they're basically trying to make it trivial to black out NYC I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.

Posted by: Ian S. at February 24, 2019 01:33 PM (53at6)

197 My plan for saving the fish in the gulf .. is lots of dams ... at the pond and small lake level. And lots of dry dams leading into them, which will collect the topsoil lost from big rains on saturated ground. I already built a couple of those ... they work very well, love my pond. I might build the 10 acre pond, but that creek drains ~650 acres so requires engineering and $$$.


But the concept is sound ... slow the water, recreational resource, energy source in some cases. Those valleys are mostly overgrown ditches. Properly done, there could also be flood control efforts that could be useful even to the mighty Mississippi.


I'm not sure about navigable waterways and lock and dams ... but holding and using fresh water seems more resourceful than dumping it into the sea ... especially in the west where there is demand. VD Hanson speaks of this.

Posted by: illiniwek at February 24, 2019 01:33 PM (Cus5s)

198 I want to say it was the Navy's prototype reactor in Idaho. Small H explosion blew the lid off and squished a guy to the ceiling.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer at February 24, 2019 01:24 PM (q7IoS)


Also not a hydrogen explosion, there wasn't time. Steam explosion, with the entire coolant mass of the primary. About 200 msec from start to finish, I think. The book's upstairs.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 01:33 PM (t+qrx)

199 There were fatalities at Chernobyl, but almost all of them were operators who refused to go in the core area and fight the fire. They were shot on site by the Russian Army.


Good god you're so wrong. The fatalities were the helicopter pilots who tried to drop cement on the thing to contain it and the firefighters who stayed in the zone too long.

Chernobyl killed people by radiation run amok.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 01:34 PM (fuK7c)

200 One thing the Feds have invested a fair amount of money is small modular nuclear reactors (SMR), which is a bank of small reactors at a single site, with a single control room.

Having a number of small reactors reduces the problems with having a huge amount of electrical generation on a single shaft, and because the reactors are small, they can be air-cooled, so you don't need to run pumps to keep the reactors cool in an emergency.

Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 01:35 PM (I2/tG)

201 I have the inkling that technology will moot the debate of nuke vs. hydro vs wind and solar. Not sure what it will be or when as I only play a scientist on the interweb, but our children will enjoy that in their lifetimes I think. And a bonus, it would kill enviro as the commie gobbleygook dream to control us.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 01:35 PM (r+sAi)

202 There's way to much Hubris involved in all things Ecological.

You can't stand outside of a system (which you are an integral part of) and measure it.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:36 PM (Lo9Qr)

203 Years ago I worked in Nuclear Plant Licensing. That was when I learned how far Left is the media. They never really told the truth about the plants. They knew the truth but never printed the truth. For example a Nuclear Plant cannot explode as the enrichment is not high enough. Enrichment over 95% is required for a bomb and a Nuclear Plant enrichment is less than 5% depending on core position. Spent some time on Maine Yankee and the stories the media were writing in Maine and the flyers being passed around by the anti-nukes were lies. However, the power company management and industry management were not able to mount a good offense. I do not think they had the gonads or ovaries to be confrontational. The Left can only be treated with contempt and never take a prisoner.

Posted by: rich at February 24, 2019 01:36 PM (BATdn)

204 To the rons who are talking safety--nothing in life is always 100% safe, especially during the early years of a developing technology. I'd wager nuclear power production could be made much safer in the future, akin to air travel. As for the problem of nuclear waste, outer space would seem to provide an immense land fill; countless lightyears of empty vacuum.
Posted by: Michael Croy at February 24, 2019 01:25 PM


There's a branch of the U.S. Government that has operated nuclear reactors safely for over 60 years. Thank you for leading the way, Hyman George Rickover.

As for waste, if nuclear power were providing 100% of the electrical energy for the U.S., the amount of nuclear 'waste' produced would be the equivalent in size of two aspirin tablets (including glass cladding) for each man, woman, child, and xim/xer in the U.S.

Disposal could be dumping them into the Marianas Trench, a subduction zone, where they would be returned to the core from whence they came.

Our grand- or great-grandchildren will likely curse us for wasting radionuclides, but it solves the Yucca Mountain problem.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at February 24, 2019 01:36 PM (DMUuz)

205 The cleanest, most-renewable power we have comes from hydroelectric dams. And the assholes on the left want to tear them out, too.

It's not about clean energy or any other bullshit they spew. It's about control.

Posted by: Bea Arthur's Dick at February 24, 2019 01:36 PM (jWe5r)

206 Forget damming the rivers, just turn them bright yellow.

Posted by: The EPA at February 24, 2019 01:37 PM (VLfxt)

207 Mario "Sfacheem" Cuomo killed the Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long Island before any concrete was poured.

Not true - Shoreham was complete, and ready to be fueled, when Cuomo pulled the plug.

Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 01:37 PM (I2/tG)

208 Energy Tip: Turning off a 60W bulb for 8 hrs. will save enough energy to power a 60W bulb for 8 hrs.

Posted by: Mr. Wednesday Night at February 24, 2019 01:37 PM (ismre)

209 185
Majority non-white country: Democracy = Central Banking + Sodomy

Majority white country: Democracy = (Central Banking + Sodomy) x Diversity
Posted by: Mr. Wednesday Night at February 24, 2019 01:28 PM (ismre)


Did I just see math on the blog?

Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 01:38 PM (sdi6R)

210 >>Not true - Shoreham was complete, and ready to be fueled, when Cuomo pulled the plug.


This is true. We also Demolished that Emergency Control Room.

Though, the hardware wasn't quite as retro cool.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:38 PM (Lo9Qr)

211
In my state of Pennsylvania, we have electric supplier 'choice'.

* You may now laugh at the idea that because you chose a hydroelectric plant 150 miles away that that is actually whose electricity is coming through your circuits in your home. *

Through laughing? Okay. Anyway, they've discovered that given 'choice' people will not choose a nuke company to provide them with electricity. The owners/operators of Three Mile Island quickly discovered this and are threatening to shut the plant down early. Because everyone else gets to provide near 100% of their capacity while TMI is... I don't know for certain, but not nearly as much as they'd like to generate to make a profit.

Me? I'm a slut. Whoever sends me a $100 gift card I choose. TMI chooses not to appeal to sluts like me.

Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 01:38 PM (jYje5)

212 Then let us maximize for water storage and not worry about power generation. I imagine that the dam systems in America would look vastly different.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:28 PM (wYseH)

Once you have the storage, you need to control the release anyway, what's the harm of having the water pass through some turbines?

In either case you still have to deal with the types that lobby for unimpeded river flows, so nothing changes there.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 01:38 PM (gDSJf)

213 Hydrogen flammability in air is 4 percent. It's about as dangerous as acetylene. Acetylene is more common in use and storage. Here are some pictures from acetylene accidents. It's not a stretch to extrapolate these to accidents caused my malfunctioning hydrogen engines.

I just had a tankless gas water heater installed in my apartment. It is a nightmare of control. Built in China and constantly shuts itself off because it thinks it's in some unsafe condition.

Pics:

http://tinyurl.com/y53qqj4e

Hydrogen is impractical as a auto fuel for other reasons, particularly one associated with distribution and storage. Liquid hydrogen is at -423 F. You need to use helium as a purge gas.Helium is not cheap or plentiful. You would need a lot to make a storage system safe. These are commonly done at rocket launch pads, not your neighborhood 7-11.

Posted by: pawn at February 24, 2019 01:38 PM (audXl)

214 Shoreham was complete, and ready to be fueled, when Cuomo pulled the plug.

Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 01:37 PM (I2/tG)

That cocksucker is a danger to everything sane in NY.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 01:39 PM (wYseH)

215 Has anyone said "elephant's foot" yet?

Elephant's foot.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 01:39 PM (t+qrx)

216 Bottom line is that if the environmentals really were worried about carbon, nuclear would be their top priority. It is not and they are not. It is just a form of their ultimate goal, as they are now telling us openly, of total government control.


I do not see us voting our way out of this.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Profoundly Unserious at February 24, 2019 01:39 PM (pw+jk)

217 I want to say it was the Navy's prototype reactor in Idaho. Small H explosion blew the lid off and squished a guy to the ceiling.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer


Amazing trivia fact:

The first man-made object to reach orbital escape velocity and enter into outer space was NOT the Sputnik rocket or any other rocket built by the Americans, the Russians or the Germans (or anyone else), but instead was...(can you guess?)...



...the hatch door of the underground detonation chamber at some early US nuke test in Nevada, some time in the early '50s I believe. When the test bomb was detonated, the military was filming the explosion with ultra-high-speed cameras, and someone noticed that in the first milliseconds after detonation, the door covering the tunnel leading down to the detonation chamber blow off intact and was propelled straight upward by the shockwave at unimaginable speed, outracing even the nuclear fireball itself. It rocketed straight up into the sky and was never seen again; later calculations proved that it was going far beyond escape velocity and almost certainly went into space and just keept going, and is by now halfway to the Andromeda Galaxy.

Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:39 PM (c+2jX)

218 don't think even Trump could sell nuclear after the 30+ years of brainwashing and dumbing down of people by the educational complex.
Posted by: PaleRider


Executive Order:

1. Energy security is a critical national security issue.
2. The SECNAV is instructed to develop, procure and install in every Congressional district a nuclear reactor capable of providing 150% of the current base power utilized.
3. Provide for future expansion to 500% of current utilization.
4. Transition to GOCO model with local utilities
5. All NRC, DoE, and State or Locally regulations are to be considered advisory in nature.
6. Minimize waste utilizing breeder reactors and transfer of enriched materials to the nuclear weapons Enterprise.
7. Accomplish power up grid connect in 18 months.

Go.

Signed, Your Orange Emperor

Posted by: Jean at February 24, 2019 01:40 PM (25Dt7)

219 >> It rocketed straight up into the sky and was never seen again; later calculations proved that it was going far beyond escape velocity and almost certainly went into space and just keept going, and is by now halfway to the Andromeda Galaxy.


Damn! Not like a solid steel door is very aerodynamic, either.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:41 PM (Lo9Qr)

220 I'd also point out that, for modern humans, energy is the basic unit of life. Every dollar made is backed by a unit of energy. Any avenue that produces it is worth exploration.

But, here's where we're at: most energy is produced by coal, oil, and natural gas, and will remain so in the near-to-medium term.

"Renewable" resources like hydro, solar, and wave motion are interesting ideas, and should be researched. But it'll be up to a future generation of scientists to refine these to a point of feasibility as widespread sources of or backups to basic energy production for regular people. We're just not there yet.

In the meantime, the power of the atom is the best answer. It is known. It has been known since the advent of the water-cooled reactor. Even the French know this.

Do we want to be dumber than the French, waste precious coal, gas, and oil on consumer electric generation?

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 24, 2019 01:41 PM (5aX2M)

221 Two hundred years ago Shad use to yearly run up the Schuylkill river, hasn't happened in over a 150 years because dams have been put in it.

Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2019 01:41 PM (/rm4P)

222 22 time to develop Thorium reactors.
Posted by: Tnuctipun revenge

Agree wholeheartedly. Best option both medium and long term for safe and efficient energy production.

Most current "renewable" technologies either have fatal flaws or require the "then a miracle occurs" step between theory/pilot and scalable production.

Posted by: Doc Nova at February 24, 2019 01:42 PM (90cx5)

223 It rocketed straight up into the sky and was never seen again; later calculations proved that it was going far beyond escape velocity and almost certainly went into space and just keept going, and is by now halfway to the Andromeda Galaxy.
Posted by: zombie at February

F U Elon

Posted by: Jean at February 24, 2019 01:42 PM (25Dt7)

224 175 I want to say it was the Navy's prototype reactor in
Idaho. Small H explosion blew the lid off and squished a guy to the
ceiling.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at February 24, 2019 01:24 PM (q7IoS)

It was SL-1 which was a "test" Reactor. I don't remember if it was Navy or army but it doesn't matter. Someone has a link up-thread that described it. I did not read the link but here is a synopsis of what was reconstructed from examination of the site after the accident.

It is though that one of the technicians was pulling a control rod from the test core by hand. while another standing next to him observed the evolution. Reactivity is added to the core by withdrawing the control rod. However it is supposed to be calculated that withdrawal of one rod will not add enough reactivity to cause the core to go critical. (It is called shutdown margin or SDM)

But that assumes that the control rod is pulled slowly as the normal motors pull them out. The guy was pulling it by hand with NO safety interlocks and it added much more reactivity than normal due DELTA-K-DOT, I can't add the correct term to that due limitations in pixy. It is also a complicated issue which I can't explain w/o complicate formula.


What happened was they had a "prompt criticality" in the local channel the rod was being removed in. This resulted in a small steam excursion in that channel which was enough to forcibly eject the rod from the core impaling the operator who was bent over pulling the control rod using its operating rod thread. The exposed control rod when it came out of the shield water killed the observer.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 01:42 PM (mpXpK)

225 So riddle me this, if the energy company sends electricity through a circuit and it all travels back through the line, why am I charged for electricity?
Bastards!

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 01:43 PM (r+sAi)

226 There's a great picture from a rail line explosion in Kingman Arizona that shows a rail tanker car about 750-1000 feet above the deck.

Looks like a balloon in the picture. Then it hits you that it's a Rail Tanker!

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:43 PM (Lo9Qr)

227 Good god you're so wrong. The fatalities were the helicopter pilots who tried to drop cement on the thing to contain it and the firefighters who stayed in the zone too long.

Chernobyl killed people by radiation run amok.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 01:34 PM (fuK7c)


The melt-down at Chernobyl occurred because of (as I remember) the technicians were doing some sort of experiment to see how hot the core would get when they withdrew the graphite cooling rods. The temperatures got so high that the cooling rods warped and couldn't be put back into place. Oops...BOOM.

The only good thing about Chernobyl is that all those a$$holes paid for their stupidity with their lives. Unfortunately, they took quite a few brave men with them. There is a novelization of the disaster (written by an American sci-fi author, but I don't recall his name) that was published a couple decades ago.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 24, 2019 01:43 PM (5Yee7)

228 and is by now halfway to the Andromeda Galaxy.
Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:39 PM


Given the Andromeda Galaxy is ~780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years) away, that would mean it's velocity is approximately .5c.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at February 24, 2019 01:44 PM (DMUuz)

229 Bottom line is that if the environmentals really were worried about carbon, nuclear would be their top priority.

This has led to something of a civil war in the environmental movement - a handful of environmentalists do support nuclear, as a carbon-free resource that isn't dependent on whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.

Most environmentalists still hate nuclear of course.

Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 01:44 PM (I2/tG)

230 Another problem is that in this time and place we have 80IQ people running a major political party. Higher academic institutions churn out so many lies that ill informed people with participation awards believe.


Common sense is an endangered commodity.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Profoundly Unserious at February 24, 2019 01:44 PM (pw+jk)

231 So riddle me this, if the energy company sends electricity through a circuit and it all travels back through the line, why am I charged for electricity?
Bastards!
Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 01:43 PM (r+sAi)


The electrons don't cost a thing, you're paying for the current.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 01:44 PM (t+qrx)

232 >>Two hundred years ago Shad use to yearly run up the Schuylkill river, hasn't happened in over a 150 years because dams have been put in it.


And 2000 years ago there was a run of spawing salmon in Western Montana.

Then a geologic shift occurred, blocking their migration path.


Extinction Happens.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:45 PM (Lo9Qr)

233 It rocketed straight up into the sky and was never seen again; later calculations proved that it was going far beyond escape velocity and almost certainly went into space

The very first Orion spacecraft.

Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 01:45 PM (I2/tG)

234 Did I just see math on the blog?

Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 01:38 PM (sdi6R)

--

This concerns regime change, which qualifies as "Smart Military" posting.

lol

Posted by: Mr. Wednesday Night at February 24, 2019 01:46 PM (ismre)

235 I stand corrected on Shoreham. Thanks.

By the way, Donkey Chompers was at some conference where she challenged anyone who opposed her bad Red deal to come up with one of their own, and until then, "I am the boss."

Very telling.

Posted by: mercenary13 at February 24, 2019 01:46 PM (wyUZs)

236 I'll be 80 in 12 years

Had a damn good run

please don't fuck up the time I have left

Did I tell you that I'm a selfish shit ?

Posted by: REDACTED at February 24, 2019 01:46 PM (RZ6R1)

237 I was just snarking.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 01:46 PM (r+sAi)

238 Nobody at TMI was injured or killed in any manner.
Luckily. As part of my work, I was browsing some library journals on spent fuel treatment and as I recollect, the Journal of Nuclear Materials happened to have a detailed writeup of the TMI accident some years after the fact.
Yes, the core didn't melt down to the center of the Earth, nothing escaped, etc. But it was a near thing. Melting of the fuel rods released a large number of curies of radioactive noble gases that came within a gnat's ass of escaping containment.
Long story short, I think Diogenes has the right attitude. Yes, we should pursue nuclear but be aware that it, like all energy sources, has significant safety risks. Combine that with a spent fuel treatment issue that's almost always tied in political knots due to proliferation concerns, it's not as straigthforward a solution as proponents usually think.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM guy at February 24, 2019 01:46 PM (7s3Gx)

239 219 >> It rocketed straight up into the sky and was never seen again; later calculations proved that it was going far beyond escape velocity and almost certainly went into space and just keept going, and is by now halfway to the Andromeda Galaxy.


Damn! Not like a solid steel door is very aerodynamic, either.
Posted by: garrett


Basically, they accidentally designed a "nuclear-powered rail gun," or perhaps a better way to think of it is a "thermonuclear rifle," with the tunnel being the barrel of the rifle, the door being the bullet, and the thermonuclear bomb being the gunpowder blast. Except millions of times more energetic.

Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:46 PM (c+2jX)

240 208 Energy Tip: Turning off a 60W bulb for 8 hrs. will save enough energy to power a 60W bulb for 8 hrs.
Posted by: Mr. Wednesday Night at February 24, 2019 01:37 PM (ismre)

Just got to find a blonde or a Polish guy to screw it in first.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at February 24, 2019 01:47 PM (Ct55T)

241 By the way, Donkey Chompers was at some conference where she challenged anyone who opposed her bad Red deal to come up with one of their own, and until then, "I am the boss."

Big talk for someone who is Congress because she got 18,000 votes in a Democratic primary.

Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 01:47 PM (I2/tG)

242 The best thing would be for a small enough power plant to be sold to individuals. They would then vote with their electric bill and the Power companies would have to do something to be competitive.

There's a couple already out there but right now the cost is prohibitive for a residential owner.

It's a hydrogen matrix of some sort. (I think)

Posted by: jakee308 at February 24, 2019 01:47 PM (uin19)

243 Good god you're so wrong. The fatalities were the
helicopter pilots who tried to drop cement on the thing to contain it
and the firefighters who stayed in the zone too long.



Chernobyl killed people by radiation run amok.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 01:34 PM (fuK7c)

Good God you are so wrong. You forget that I have actually talked to some of those operators. The public has never got the full story on Chernobyl.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 01:47 PM (mpXpK)

244 Agree completely.

IIRC, the French were doing a lot of innovation on nuclear power generation. Most of our plants were 50 year old designs around 10 years ago. France was working on plants to be able to recycle spent fuel as well as several different reactor designs that were supposed to be safer.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at February 24, 2019 01:48 PM (ycWCI)

245 The US is the only developed country that has decreased carbon dioxide emissions. We're out of the Paris Agreement now, and yet of all the signatories we are the only one that achieved our target. It was due almost entirely to new technology that made economic sense, rather than government-imposed restrictions. The Left never mentions that because it's a two-fer of wrong-think: we did good and it was a market solution. Provides no excuse to demonize this country or take over the economy.

Posted by: Semi-Literate Thug at February 24, 2019 01:48 PM (t5m5e)

246 >>Good God you are so wrong.


He has that problem a lot.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:48 PM (Lo9Qr)

247 I would think if the hatch door escaped during a daytime test then it was facing the sun and got pulled gravitationally to its final melt.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 01:48 PM (r+sAi)

248
For example a Nuclear Plant cannot explode as the enrichment is not high enough. Enrichment over 95% is required for a bomb and a Nuclear Plant enrichment is less than 5% depending on core position.

Posted by: rich at February 24, 2019 01:36 PM


That's not the problem to me. The fuel caught fire in both Fukushima and Chernobyl spewing radioactive shit all over vast areas of land. You know what your homeowners policy tells you they will pay when the government tells you you can't return to your home because there are unsafe levels of radiation strewn all over your property? And will be for the next 10,000 years?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I'll take the dam upriver by 20 miles. Sure it could flood a 100 mile area for a couple of days A little safer then a 10,000 mile area for 10,000 years.

Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 01:49 PM (jYje5)

249 228 and is by now halfway to the Andromeda Galaxy.
Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:39 PM

Given the Andromeda Galaxy is ~780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years) away, that would mean it's velocity is approximately .5c.
Posted by: Duncanthrax at February 24, 2019 01:44 PM (DMUuz)


Considering that the incident happened about 60 years ago, I'd place the velocity at about 20X c.

Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 01:50 PM (sdi6R)

250 It rocketed straight up into the sky and was
never seen again; later calculations proved that it was going far beyond
escape velocity and almost certainly went into space and just keept
going, and is by now halfway to the Andromeda Galaxy.





Damn! Not like a solid steel door is very aerodynamic, either.

Posted by: garrett



Basically, they accidentally designed a "nuclear-powered rail gun,"
or perhaps a better way to think of it is a "thermonuclear rifle," with
the tunnel being the barrel of the rifle, the door being the bullet, and
the thermonuclear bomb being the gunpowder blast. Except millions of
times more energetic.

Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:46 PM (c+2jX)

The novel Footfall by Niven and Pournelle used nuclear bombs to propel spacecraft.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Profoundly Unserious at February 24, 2019 01:50 PM (pw+jk)

251 228 and is by now halfway to the Andromeda Galaxy.
Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:39 PM

Given the Andromeda Galaxy is ~780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years) away, that would mean it's velocity is approximately .5c.
Posted by: Duncanthrax


Well, that last bit was a bit of literary hyperbole. More likely the door went out into space but never fully escape Earth's gravity completely, and settled into an unstable orbit and eventually fell back to Earth (or burned up in the atmosphere) some time much later, unrecorded. If it did escape earth's gravity, it's probably still drifting comparatively slowly in the outer reaches of the solar system.

Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:51 PM (c+2jX)

252 The technicians at Chernobyl were conducting a test to see if the flow in the system was enough to give the diesel generators time to come online and power the pumps in the event of a failure of power to the pumps from the turbines. They had to put it off because of unexpected load demand from Kiev (?). By the time they were ready for the test, the next shift had come on and had expected it to be completed already and weren't briefed on it. There were lots of other complicating factors, but it's one of the most studied engineering and human factors failures ever, so there are a lot of reports out there. I'll see if I can find one but again I am not a nuc so someone else around here is probably better qualified to vet a report.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 01:51 PM (t+qrx)

253 I don't think dams necessarily halt fish migration altogether. I've visited a number of dams and they've had fish ladders that appear to work rather well. Fish hatcheries also allow for continued population growth.

Posted by: washrivergal at February 24, 2019 01:51 PM (aWjrD)

254 Site placement is also important. Try not to choose either a geologically active area or one subject to Tsunamis.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at February 24, 2019 01:51 PM (ycWCI)

255 Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 24, 2019 01:43 PM (5Yee7)

-------

Americans rejected the idea of the graphite cooled reactor, almost immediately. Cool idea, too damn dangerous.

Also easy, cheap, and allowed for simultaneous energy production and uranium enrichment.

The Soviets built Chernobyl because their engineers were very capable, and their bosses were cheap, lazy, aggressive,and incapable.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 24, 2019 01:51 PM (5aX2M)

256 Yes, we should pursue nuclear but be aware that it, like all energy sources, has significant safety risks.

"Nuclear safety culture" is very interesting - something invented by Hyman Rickover to deal with a technology that required constant control. Fanaticism, in a word.

It would be good to implement one of the new reactor designs where if you lose control of the plant and its pumps, the plant coasts to a stop, instead of melting down.

Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 01:51 PM (I2/tG)

257 "Graft is simply an intended consequence of control.

Posted by:"

well, not sure what came first. Graft is the nuclear fuel that drives BigGov, BigCommie. Power corrupts ... so I'm willing to believe that the founders tried to limit BigGov, but the power structure enables LittleGraft on the individual level to become BigGov, then DeepState, working hand in hand with BigMafia.


But this is my first draft on that hypothesis, open to revision.

Posted by: illiniwek at February 24, 2019 01:51 PM (Cus5s)

258 Basically, they accidentally designed a "nuclear-powered rail gun," or perhaps a better way to think of it is a "thermonuclear rifle," with the tunnel being the barrel of the rifle, the door being the bullet, and the thermonuclear bomb being the gunpowder blast. Except millions of times more energetic.

Posted by: zombie



Did you provide the original source? 'Cuz this sounds like utter bullshit.

If it can happen why haven't we built an outer space cannon?

Posted by: Bandersnatch at February 24, 2019 01:52 PM (fuK7c)

259
Two hundred years ago Shad use to yearly run up the Schuylkill river, hasn't happened in over a 150 years because dams have been put in it.

Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2019 01:41 PM


I wouldn't eat a shad out of the Schuylkill river if you paid me. Actually I wouldn't eat any fish out of that mess. Even Valley Creek that ran through Valley Forge Park was laced with PCB's.

Fish downstream of waste plants? Not for me.

Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 01:53 PM (jYje5)

260 You know what your homeowners policy tells you they will pay when the government tells you you can't return to your home because there are unsafe levels of radiation strewn all over your property? And will be for the next 10,000 years?

That is vastly overestimated. A large portion of the Chernobyl exclusion zone and most of Fukushima's is liveable now. You'd probably be worse off radiation wise living in Denver or near a coal plant unless you intend to plop down a tent adjacent to the reactor.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 01:54 PM (gDSJf)

261 Well the whole point of controlling the means of production is the graft, as example.... Maduro.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at February 24, 2019 01:54 PM (r+sAi)

262 the door covering the tunnel leading down to the detonation chamber blow off intact and was propelled straight upward by the shockwave at unimaginable speed, outracing even the nuclear fireball itself. It rocketed straight up into the sky and was never seen again; later calculations proved that it was going far beyond escape velocity and almost certainly went into space and just keept going, and is by now halfway to the Andromeda Galaxy.
Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:39 PM (c+2jX)

---

I've seen reasoning to the effect that it burned up in the atmosphere from frictional heating. A flat non-aerodynamic shape with no heat shield would not get far at that speed.

Posted by: Semi-Literate Thug at February 24, 2019 01:54 PM (t5m5e)

263 The Soviets built Chernobyl because their engineers were very capable, and their bosses were cheap, lazy, aggressive,and incapable.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 24, 2019 01:51 PM (5aX2M)

This.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at February 24, 2019 01:54 PM (ycWCI)

264 Any thread that starts discussing Project ORION is a good thread.

Keep the flame of big ball thinking alive, brothers and sisters.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at February 24, 2019 01:55 PM (ycWCI)

265 256 It would be good to implement one of the new reactor
designs where if you lose control of the plant and its pumps, the plant
coasts to a stop, instead of melting down.

Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 01:51 PM (I2/tG)

We already have that with existing plants. They coast to a stop under natural circulation, but the coolant still needs to be cooled to pull off decay heat from the core which never coasts to a complete stop.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 01:56 PM (mpXpK)

266
I've seen reasoning to the effect that it burned up in the atmosphere from frictional heating. A flat non-aerodynamic shape with no heat shield would not get far at that speed.
Posted by: Semi-Literate

Unless it turned sideways

Posted by: Jean at February 24, 2019 01:57 PM (25Dt7)

267 Generation IV nuc power plants seem interesting.

Posted by: squeakywheel at February 24, 2019 01:57 PM (HVwtx)

268 Any thread that starts discussing Project ORION is a good thread.

Keep the flame of big ball thinking alive, brothers and sisters.
Posted by: Aetius451AD at February 24, 2019 01:55 PM (ycWCI)
-----
"God was knocking on the door, and He wanted in bad."

Posted by: Captain Obvious at February 24, 2019 01:57 PM (Hx3Yn)

269 I've seen reasoning to the effect that it burned up in the atmosphere from frictional heating. A flat non-aerodynamic shape with no heat shield would not get far at that speed.
Posted by: Semi-Literate

Unless it turned sideways
Posted by: Jean at February 24, 2019 01:57 PM (25Dt7)


Like Guam.

Wheels within wheels, people.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 01:57 PM (t+qrx)

270 258 Basically, they accidentally designed a "nuclear-powered rail gun," or perhaps a better way to think of it is a "thermonuclear rifle," with the tunnel being the barrel of the rifle, the door being the bullet, and the thermonuclear bomb being the gunpowder blast. Except millions of times more energetic.

Posted by: zombie


Did you provide the original source? 'Cuz this sounds like utter bullshit.

If it can happen why haven't we built an outer space cannon?
Posted by: Bandersnatch


Detonating a hydrogen bomb in Nevada every time we want to launch something into orbit is probably an extremely inefficient way to do space travel, I would imagine. Also, the thing being "launched" this way would probably half-melt (or entirely melt) from the heat, destroying at payload.

As for the source, I'll have to search for it. I saw the film once, so I know it''s real.

Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 01:57 PM (c+2jX)

271 >>Unless it turned sideways


Then it likely went straight to Plaid.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:57 PM (Lo9Qr)

272 >>If it can happen why haven't we built an outer space cannon?


It's the G Force that gets you.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 01:58 PM (Lo9Qr)

273 You'd probably be worse off radiation wise living in Denver or near a coal plant unless you intend to plop down a tent adjacent to the reactor.
Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 01:54 PM (gDSJf)

--#--

Not sure about Denver proper, but this is likely true. I used to play with the old man's Geiger counter as a kid up in the front range, and a given quartz deposit would hit higher than the exclusion zone today.

It's been a miracle for the wildlife, though

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 24, 2019 01:59 PM (5aX2M)

274 LA is shutting down their 3 natural gas power plants in just a few short years. They want to be the first city in NA that goes 100% renewable....I suppose they will end up buying power from outside of California, then they will be able to say they are green, green green. With the probable state takeover of PGE, what could go wrong.

Posted by: Colin at February 24, 2019 01:59 PM (pN1uB)

275 I used to sign my work emails: "Founder, Physicians for Social Irresponsibility." When asked, I explained that our motto was "Guns, booze and a nuclear power plant in every backyard."

Of course, that was back when even my liberal co-workers had a sense of humor...

Posted by: Dr Alice at February 24, 2019 01:59 PM (lBBGI)

276 256
It would be good to implement one of the new reactor designs where if you lose control of the plant and its pumps, the plant coasts to a stop, instead of melting down.
Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 01:51 PM (I2/tG)


I've read that that is supposedly what would happen in a molten salt thorium reactor. I'm not a nuclear engineer, so I could be wrong.

Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 01:59 PM (sdi6R)

277 If it can happen why haven't we built an outer space cannon?

Gerald Bull, a very smart man, was working on a "supergun" - an artillery piece that could shoot satellites into space.

Unfortunately, Bull decided to go to work for Saddam Hussein, who wanted a supergun for other purposes. Some unknown agency apparently took exception to this, and he was assassinated outside his apartment in Brussels in 1990.

Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 01:59 PM (I2/tG)

278 This entire Green New Deal is based on the old, and now completely discredited idea of an "Energy Crisis". It first began with Hubble's Decline Curve in the 50's (although in his defense, he wasn't wrong; it's just that nobody remembered to put the big disclaimer over all of his work that said "UNDER CURRENT TECHNOLOGY")

So then in the 60's and 70's all of the neo-Malhusians, starting with Paul Erlich, jumped all over the idea of an Energy Crisis, helped out by the Arab Boycott after the Yom Kippur war.

And then Jimmy Carter REALLY wrecked the energy markets with schemes almost as crazy as AOC's. Reagan got rid of them, and things started to get in balance again.

AND THEN - in the 90's, without a lot of people realizing it, Technology changed radically. That's what the left really hates - there's nothing wrong with fraccing, except that it blows their entire philosophical mental framework out of the water.

Reality - we easily have 100 years of oil production still in the ground, at current levels, and we easily have 300 years of Gas production still in the ground. (maybe 500, drill deep enough and it seems to be everywhere)

THERE IS NO ENERGY SHORTAGE. Not in the lifetimes of anyone reading this, not in the lifetimes of the Children of anyone reading this. It is a Make Believe "Crisis".

And I could go on about how CO2 levels are a make-believe crisis too. We could start with the observation that there have been times in earths history when CO2 levels were far above what they are now, and those have been the most life-prolific ages in the 4 billion year history of this planet.

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 24, 2019 01:59 PM (V2Yro)

279 Thanks Bander for the correction - I read about the incident a while back and forgot most of it. I remembered Idaho and just assumed Navy.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at February 24, 2019 02:00 PM (q7IoS)

280 Did you provide the original source? 'Cuz this sounds like utter bullshit.

Posted by: Bandersnatch


Here we go:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#Propulsion_of_steel_plate_cap

"Propulsion of steel plate cap
During the Pascal-B nuclear test, a 900-kilogram (2,000 lb) steel plate cap (a piece of armor plate) was blasted off the top of a test shaft at a speed of more than 66 km/s (41 mi/s; 240,000 km/h; 150,000 mph). Before the test, experimental designer Robert Brownlee had estimated that the nuclear explosion, combined with the specific design of the shaft, would accelerate the plate to approximately six times Earth's escape velocity.[8] The plate was never found, but Dr. Brownlee believes[9] that the plate did not leave the atmosphere, as it may even have been vaporized by compression heating of the atmosphere due to its high speed. The calculated velocity was sufficiently interesting that the crew trained a high-speed camera on the plate, which unfortunately only appeared in one frame, but this nevertheless gave a very high lower bound for its speed. "

Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 02:00 PM (c+2jX)

281 Considering that the incident happened about 60 years ago, I'd place the velocity at about 20X c.
Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 01:50 PM


Och, Captain, the engines cannae take much more of of this!

Posted by: Scotty at February 24, 2019 02:01 PM (DMUuz)

282 Considering that the incident happened about 60 years ago, I'd place the velocity at about 20X c.

Getting a door up to that speed would require more energy than man has ever created.

Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 02:01 PM (lD3vL)

283 If the alternative is death by global warming in 12 years, nuclear power is far less concerning.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Profoundly Unserious at February 24, 2019 02:01 PM (pw+jk)

284 I've read that that is supposedly what would happen in a molten salt thorium reactor. I'm not a nuclear engineer, so I could be wrong.
Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 01:59 PM (sdi6R)

I have heard good things about Thorium plants as well. IIRC, the development of these plants was sidelined because they could not produce the materials needed for nuclear weapons. Kind of funny, if you think about it. In that 'Well, that's stupid' kind of way.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at February 24, 2019 02:01 PM (ycWCI)

285 I'll just put this out there: Radioactive consumer ptoducts. My favorite is the Fiestaware line of ceramic plates glazed with a coating that's about 10% uranium. Followed by U-containing dentures.

https://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/consumer%20products/consumer.htm

Overall, I'd say the message is, relax. Low level exposure has always been a fact of life.

The Earth's crust is 2 ppm uranium overall. It's already in everything at low levels.

Posted by: Semi-Literate Thug at February 24, 2019 02:01 PM (t5m5e)

286
That is vastly overestimated. A large portion of the Chernobyl exclusion zone and most of Fukushima's is liveable now. You'd probably be worse off radiation wise living in Denver or near a coal plant unless you intend to plop down a tent adjacent to the reactor.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 01:54 PM


Not overestimated at all. You put an event of that size near Manhattan, for instance, and you have 10 million people displaced. It was only fortunate it occurred in a sparsely inhabited area.

Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:02 PM (jYje5)

287 I am opposed of using H2 in any form for vehicle engines. while true the exhaust would only be water but there are significant problems with H2. The biggest problem is that H2 leaks, it leaks from almost any container. True you can keep it to a very small amount in a H2 bottle, but it still leaks. I would not want these roaring around on the highways subject to damage from some of the most incompetence drivers we have.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 02:02 PM (mpXpK)

288 but the coolant still needs to be cooled to pull off decay heat from the core which never coasts to a complete stop.

The problem is that the 5% of remaining decay heat after the reactor turns off is still enough to melt the plant down if the cooling pumps aren't working.

Posted by: The ARC of History at February 24, 2019 02:02 PM (I2/tG)

289
Considering that the incident happened about 60 years ago, I'd place the velocity at about 20X c.



Getting a door up to that speed would require more energy than man has ever created.





Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 02:01 PM (lD3vL)

===
and rolling back some physics laws.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Profoundly Unserious at February 24, 2019 02:02 PM (pw+jk)

290 ... and just assumed Navy.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer at February 24, 2019 02:00 PM


Tell us about it.

Posted by: Rum, Sodomy, & Thelash at February 24, 2019 02:02 PM (DMUuz)

291 Nu Clear pots in every demon crats promises,big EYES a bonus,...hoaxes r 'fer folkes too.... we gots free shitz fer ever Wang from guatemalia all the way south and we have not scraped the BOTTOM YET...not buy a Bernie warren cameltoe yet....so hang in their delusionals......jussie is with ya kisses ..........

Posted by: saf at February 24, 2019 02:03 PM (5IHGB)

292 SONG FOR THE SINGER OF REM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA21dyNY3V4



'The Drawer can't tell you more than to deal with the Door'

Posted by: fIREHOSE at February 24, 2019 02:03 PM (Lo9Qr)

293

I thing CAGW is a crock

And you'd be 100% right about that. The idiotic idea that mankind has the capability to change the weather of the whole planet has been proven to be incorrect more than once.
Not so long ago, you'd get laughed out of the bar for saying something that stupid. And get stuck paying the tab. But these days, what with Progressivism infesting the MFM, education and politics, we the people never hear the truth of anything. That makes people weak (intellectually, emotionally and morally) and susceptible to any sort of bullshit idea.

Like the idea that mankind has the capability to change the weather of the whole planet.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at February 24, 2019 02:03 PM (HaL55)

294 "I wonder whether Alexandria Donkey-Chompers will be interested in my plan, since she challenged us to come up with alternatives!"

She's too busy anathematising hamburgers.

Posted by: aelf at February 24, 2019 02:04 PM (Zy9Yy)

295 Like the idea that mankind has the capability to change the weather of the whole planet.
Posted by: BackwardsBoy at February 24, 2019 02:03 PM (HaL55)


*whistles nonchalantly*

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 02:04 PM (t+qrx)

296 https://www.businessinsider.com/fastest-object-robert-brownlee-2016-2

The fastest object ever launched was a manhole cover - here's the story from the guy who shot it into space

Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 02:04 PM (c+2jX)

297 I have lived most of my life within a very few miles of a coal burning power plant here in NYS. I have heard next to nothing about the plant, but now it has been converted to natural gas probably from PA. Only one of the two burners are going to be used, the other shut down. Cuomo also wants to get rid of that evil gas from PA. I have noticed next to nothing about my health from living that close to a coal burner. The other 3 coal burning plants have been shut down over the last 5 years. Schumer played a hand in that.

Posted by: Colin at February 24, 2019 02:05 PM (pN1uB)

298 You forget that I have actually talked to some of those operators. The public has never got the full story on Chernobyl.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 01:47 PM (mpXpK)

I doubt this very much. Has it occurred to you that maybe they were lying?

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 02:05 PM (wYseH)

299 Considering that the incident happened about 60 years ago, I'd place the velocity at about 20X c.

=====

Getting a door up to that speed would require more energy than man has ever created.
Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at February 24, 2019 02:01 PM

=====

and rolling back some physics laws.
Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Profoundly Unserious at February 24, 2019 02:02 PM


Duh. We just have to be "inventing technology that's never even been invented yet"

Posted by: Alexandria Donkey Chompers at February 24, 2019 02:06 PM (DMUuz)

300 298
You forget that I have actually talked to some of those operators. The public has never got the full story on Chernobyl.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 01:47 PM (mpXpK)

I doubt this very much. Has it occurred to you that maybe they were lying?


Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 02:05 PM (wYseH)

I'm out of here before we generate into a flame war.

Posted by: Vic at February 24, 2019 02:06 PM (mpXpK)

301 280
During the Pascal-B nuclear test, a 900-kilogram (2,000 lb) steel plate cap (a piece of armor plate) was blasted off the top of a test shaft at a speed of more than 66 km/s (41 mi/s; 240,000 km/h; 150,000 mph).
Posted by: zombie at February 24, 2019 02:00 PM (c+2jX)


That's mighty impressive.

Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 02:07 PM (sdi6R)

302 >>The idiotic idea that mankind has the capability to change the weather of the whole planet has been proven to be incorrect more than once.


Only the Jooos can do that sort of thing.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 02:08 PM (Lo9Qr)

303 More? Nuclear Power is the only way we survive the coming Ice Age.
Posted by: Don Q at February 24, 2019 12:38 PM (NgKpN)

Exactly!!!

Posted by: Pete Seria at February 24, 2019 02:08 PM (7ZQe3)

304 302 >>The idiotic idea that mankind has the capability to change the weather of the whole planet has been proven to be incorrect more than once.

Only the Jooos can do that sort of thing.
Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 02:08 PM (Lo9Qr)

So i guess you've never waxed your car and left it outside, have you?

Posted by: Warai-otoko at February 24, 2019 02:09 PM (Ct55T)

305 Not overestimated at all. You put an event of that size near Manhattan, for instance, and you have 10 million people displaced. It was only fortunate it occurred in a sparsely inhabited area.
Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:02 PM (jYje5)

Yeah it was so sparsely populated that over a thousand people were killed by the tsunami.

And then everyone freaked out about the reactor and the panic to evacuate a much larger amount of people than necessary contributed to over a thousand deaths.

Meanwhile the radiation? No deaths.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 02:09 PM (gDSJf)

306 Strange. Any hydroelectric dam that doesn't have a nuclear reactor at the bottom where the water comes out is a clear indicator of our silliness as a species. Gravity, - how does it work?

Posted by: Fritz at February 24, 2019 02:09 PM (wxZSX)

307 277 If it can happen why haven't we built an outer space cannon?

Gerald Bull, a very smart man, was working on a "supergun" - an artillery piece that could shoot satellites into space.

Unfortunately, Bull decided to go to work for Saddam Hussein, who wanted a supergun for other purposes. Some unknown agency apparently took exception to this, and he was assassinated outside his apartment in Brussels in 1990."

I remember that case! And that brings up the point that pissed *me* off about the Kashoggi case; it was done so clumsily and so badly, leaving no doubt as to who did it. (C'mon, Prince, you mean you didn't know that your rivals the Turks had an agent inside your embassy recording everything????)

Bull's assassination was a real professional job (probably Mossad) - that's why it stuck in my mind. As I recall, he answered his door one morning to a nicely dressed gentleman, witnesses only remember a hat and a beard (which were no doubt ditched within 2 blocks) As soon as Bull opened the door, a silenced pistol plugged him several times, and with no words at all, the assassin walked away and vanished. Brussels police later figured he was probably on a plane out of the country within a few hours, never to be seen in that city again.

See if you're going to kill an enemy quietly and efficiently, that's how you do it.

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 24, 2019 02:09 PM (V2Yro)

308 So i guess you've never waxed your car and left it outside, have you?
Posted by: Warai-otoko at February 24, 2019 02:09 PM (Ct55T)

Nice. Subtle.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at February 24, 2019 02:09 PM (ycWCI)

309 So i guess you've never waxed your car and left it outside, have you?
Posted by: Warai-otoko at February 24, 2019 02:09 PM


It's not just cars ...

Posted by: Gwenyth P., Livin' the Lifestyle at February 24, 2019 02:10 PM (DMUuz)

310 Can't we harness the kaiju for power?


I'd be in favor of feeding all Leftards to Godzilla for power generation.

They get to stop worrying about the world ending in 12 years.

And we get a fat, dumb, and happy atomic lizard.

Win-win!!!

Posted by: naturalfake at February 24, 2019 02:10 PM (9X624)

311 I don't think we'll ever get a trusted and true evaluation of the damage caused by the Fukushima disaster. Even up to a couple years ago they were still constructing hastily built containment vats and running out of room to store them. The Japanese keep a very tight lid on anything that smacks of weakness or failure and would rather not say anything than admit a mistake.

Posted by: washrivergal at February 24, 2019 02:10 PM (aWjrD)

312

Nice. Subtle.

And true, too.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at February 24, 2019 02:10 PM (HaL55)

313 208 Energy Tip: Turning off a 60W bulb for 8 hrs. will save enough energy to power a 60W bulb for 8 hrs.
Posted by: Mr. Wednesday Night at February 24, 2019 01:37 PM (ismre)
----------------------------------

Oooooh! I have a diet like that!
By not eating a big slice of chocolate cake, I save 600 calories. So I can eat a 600 calorie hot-fudge sundae and break even!

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at February 24, 2019 02:11 PM (Rxduq)

314
I read of some guys who went back into the Chernobyl area with Geiger counters and the fireman's clothing was still in the basement of the hospital and they had to leave the area almost immediately. Year time exposure within minutes. Decades later.

I consider myself one of the stupidest persons on the planet for thinking that 'half-life' actually meant half-life. My perception of the risk as disappearing after 2X half life was incredibly stupid. Not sure what my excuse is.

Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:12 PM (jYje5)

315 306 Strange. Any hydroelectric dam that doesn't have a nuclear reactor at the bottom where the water comes out is a clear indicator of our silliness as a species. Gravity, - how does it work?"

ummmm.....

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 24, 2019 02:12 PM (V2Yro)

316 "If it did escape earth's gravity, it's probably still drifting comparatively slowly in the outer reaches of the solar system"

the Soviets had one of their rockets miss the moon, in the moon race days ... and it is still orbiting the sun. Escape velocity from the earth is one thing, escape velocity from the sun is another.


Our "free return" plan for Apollo missions depended on getting close enough to the moon to be flung back to earth. (distance squared is in the denominator or the gravity equation). So missing the moon by too much means orbiting the sun, unless captured by Jupiter or some other large object ... but even then it would still be orbiting the sun.


(or that is what I understand from the last time this came up and I spent under an hour becoming an expert /s)

Posted by: illiniwek at February 24, 2019 02:13 PM (Cus5s)

317 313
Oooooh! I have a diet like that!
By not eating a big slice of chocolate cake, I save 600 calories. So I can eat a 600 calorie hot-fudge sundae and break even!
Posted by: Margarita DeVille at February 24, 2019 02:11 PM (Rxduq)


Just like how you can save money by buying something when it's on sale.

Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 02:14 PM (sdi6R)

318 219>>It rocketed straight up into the sky and was never seen again; later
calculations proved that it was going far beyond escape velocity and
almost certainly went into space and just keept going, and is by now
halfway to the Andromeda Galaxy.

As in Jules Verne's 1865 book "From the Earth to the Moon" ?

oh - wait - not the book thread.....

Have a great week everyone - I think there's a car race on now....

Posted by: Anonymous Guy In Ca at February 24, 2019 02:14 PM (RcMUX)

319 Support the right of cows to fart.

My fart, my choice!

Posted by: Daisy at February 24, 2019 02:14 PM (DMUuz)

320

Support the right of cows to fart.



My fart, my choice!

Posted by: Daisy at February 24, 2019 02:14 PM (DMUuz)


Preach it, sistah!

Posted by: Elsie at February 24, 2019 02:16 PM (HaL55)

321 And then everyone freaked out about the reactor and the panic to evacuate a much larger amount of people than necessary contributed to over a thousand deaths.

Meanwhile the radiation? No deaths.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 02:09 PM


*Only* 88,000 people lived in the evacuation zone in Japan. A zone which would cover all of New York City and well into New Jersey.

You wanna compare occupants of those same areas? Go ahead.

Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:16 PM (jYje5)

322 317
Just like how you can save money by buying something when it's on sale.
Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 02:14 PM (sdi6R)
------------------------------
Yes!
You can make a tidy fortune that way!

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at February 24, 2019 02:17 PM (Rxduq)

323 >>*Only* 88,000 people lived in the evacuation zone in Japan. A zone which would cover all of New York City and well into New Jersey.


Fortunately, neither are located on/in the Ring of Fire.

Posted by: garrett at February 24, 2019 02:17 PM (Lo9Qr)

324 Just to put this in. Hydroelectric is the only solar power that makes mass consumer sense.

OAN, I can believe in Abiotic Oil production. Had a very old petroleum engineer give a convincing argument for it.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Profoundly Unserious at February 24, 2019 02:18 PM (pw+jk)

325 I read of some guys who went back into the Chernobyl area with Geiger counters and the fireman's clothing was still in the basement of the hospital and they had to leave the area almost immediately. Year time exposure within minutes. Decades later.
Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:12 PM (jYje5)


Exposure to daily weather can dissipate the contamination. Wind, rain all that. Contamination that could give you a fatal dose if you're in a room with it might be a higher-than-baseline level when spread over a large area in the open. Contamination that seeped into a basement (protected from wind and rain) and accumulated from the upper floors as it was washed down there with rainwater could still be present in lethal concentrations; if the building were gone and the same contamination washed into a large body of water, it could be diluted enough that it doesn't pose any significant risk.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 02:18 PM (t+qrx)

326 Democrats and eco-terrorists sure are stupid. Don't they know that the Grand Canyon National Park and the Navajo Rez have/had uranium mining that's been going on for years. The Park had a large sample of uranium ore in one of their museums. If you go along their logic, the GCNP ought to be shut down and the Rez needs to be moved. But No! Over the years they have been more concerned with a coal fired power plant output that they say ruins views of the canyon and the Glen Canyon dam.

Posted by: AzDesertRat at February 24, 2019 02:18 PM (/2TXu)

327 I consider myself one of the stupidest persons on the planet for thinking that 'half-life' actually meant half-life. My perception of the risk as disappearing after 2X half life was incredibly stupid. Not sure what my excuse is."

Used to work with isotopes back in the day. What's in effect is that natural logarithmic decline curve that pops up in all natural and statistical calculations. (almost like it's one of the fundamental laws governing how this universe is structured or something) After 8 half lives, whatever isotope your dealing with is decayed down to where it's pretty safe, after 10 half lives it's mostly all gone.

The problem comes with things like U-238, which has a half life of about 4.5 Billion years. U-235, on the other hand, has a half life of "only" 700 million years.

Posted by: Tom Servo at February 24, 2019 02:18 PM (V2Yro)

328 Injuries from TMI?

Dr. Edward Teller did claim he had a heart attack dealing with the idiots in the clueless idiots in the news media.

Posted by: rd at February 24, 2019 02:20 PM (EK+Pw)

329

Off, tasty steak sock.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at February 24, 2019 02:21 PM (HaL55)

330 314
I consider myself one of the stupidest persons on the planet for thinking that 'half-life' actually meant half-life. My perception of the risk as disappearing after 2X half life was incredibly stupid. Not sure what my excuse is.
Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:12 PM (jYje5)


The funny thing about "half-life" is that a radioactive substance with a long half-life is less dangerous than a substance with a short half-life. Anti-nukers like to scare people by saying that such-and-such has a half life of a billion years.

But that means it releases its radiation slowly. An object with a half-life measured in hours or minutes releases a shit-ton of radiation really really fast.

Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 02:21 PM (sdi6R)

331 My green new deal?

The absolute holy grail of green technology.

Nuclear fusion.

My plan? An initiative creating a corporation that other corporations and individuals will be able to buy stock in (and eventually buy out) to spur the rapid development of the technology. In the past decade, we've gotten a lot closer, and a lot of the test reactors out there might pave the way for commercialization. There's an issue there, they're all in Europe. Let's beat them to the punch by putting some serious funding into it.

I propose the construction of 3 test reactors, built around tokamak, stellarator, and laser-initiated designs, to be fully staffed 24 hours a day, with testing schedules that push the absolute limits of man and machine.

Nuclear fusion is possible, life on Earth exists because of the fusion reactor we call the Sun. It's been out of our grasp for decades because we didn't have the computer technology necessary to aid in the design or operation.

If we dare to take this step, the environmentalists will be crying in their beer. Cheap, clean energy with no pollution, no radiation, and no downside. It'll expose them for the control freak frauds they always have been.

Posted by: Cato, Media Delenda Est at February 24, 2019 02:22 PM (113G5)

332 Vic,

The leakage can be managed. Everything leaks to a certain degree. Cryogenic vs. ambient storage temperatures complicates this to a very expensive degree. Keeping the hydrogen at ambient T keeps it in a more manageable state (gas) but the energy density sucks. You would need a tank that weighs almost half a ton to contain the equivalent of a normal gas tank.

Liquid hydrogen boils off pretty quickly due to the extream delta T. As I recall, only about 2/3 to a half of the LH2 is left in the tanker after a trip from LA to FL.

Posted by: pawn at February 24, 2019 02:22 PM (audXl)

333 Grab the nearest feasible means at hand to produce the largest number of BTUs, ergs, whatever you like to call them, and don't question it... it's how societies prosper.

On a lighter note, my suburban black girlfriend went east to Aurora to get a cheaper price on her hair extensions.

She just called and told me she got them, but wouldn't go back because a couple of the shopgirls had to clothesline a Mexican girl trying to run out with stuff. "It's too hood for me. I'm from the 'burbs," she said. LOL.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 24, 2019 02:22 PM (5aX2M)

334 "See if you're going to kill an enemy quietly and efficiently, that's how you do it.Posted by Servo

I don't assume they wanted Kashoggi doggie to die quietly ... they wanted to send a message. (maybe it was stupid for the ego driven young Saudi to do that, idk).


Same with Mueller sending 121 agents and a tank and a CNN reporter to handcuff a cooperative old man (Roger Stone). Mueller was not being quiet (except with all the Hilda evidence he is burying), he was sending the public message that the FBI is the Stasi, and you better accept the coup, and DeepState's permanent dictator status, or he will come for you.

Posted by: illiniwek at February 24, 2019 02:22 PM (Cus5s)

335 The problem comes with things like U-238, which has a half life of about
4.5 Billion years. U-235, on the other hand, has a half life of "only"
700 million years.


From a control standpoint, we get a lot of heartburn from things like Pu-239 (t(1/2) ~24,000 yrs), Np, Am, etc. Leastways as it relates to performance calculations on the WIPP repository.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM guy at February 24, 2019 02:23 PM (7s3Gx)

336 R. Kelly, always thinking.

Met underage girl while on trial for child porn...

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 24, 2019 02:23 PM (+y/Ru)

337 ARC-100 reactor. You gotta love a reactor that shares the name of something developed in a Marvel comic strip. Based on the EBR-II, which ran without accident for thirty years. Will go without refueling for twenty years. Literally a fast reactor, meaning it starts running on U-235, then produces its own plutonium and runs on that. Canada is going to pass us on reactor technology, a factory-built reactor that they can use in off-grid areas.

Posted by: Nancy at 7000 ft at February 24, 2019 02:23 PM (Nrxta)

338 >> Everything leaks to a certain degree


This.

Posted by: Hillary at February 24, 2019 02:24 PM (Lo9Qr)

339 Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:12 PM (jYje5)

Top Gear has driven through bother the Chernobyl and Fukushima exclusion zones.

Cancer rates from the cleanup workers at Chernobyl are within the margin of error of control populations.

The most dangerous isotopes have a short half-life. The stuff that lasts ten thousand years is more on the scale of the radiation from a banana or a chunk granite.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 02:24 PM (gDSJf)

340 The fastest object ever launched was a manhole cover - here's the story from the guy who shot it into space

*******

So we are now playing nuclear intergalactic Tiddlywinks.

Posted by: Muldoon at February 24, 2019 02:27 PM (m45I2)

341 PENN: Hillary will run if field 'too left'......

-
Breaking! Field is too left!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 24, 2019 02:28 PM (+y/Ru)

342 Addendum for Vic,

12 K-bottles weigh almost a ton.

Posted by: pawn at February 24, 2019 02:28 PM (audXl)

343 Cubic Meter of Coal 93,337 kilowatt hours
That would require about 100 solar panels or 2000 sq ft of space

Posted by: rhennigantx at February 24, 2019 02:29 PM (JFO2v)

344 Speaking of energy, the METAR from the airport a few blocks away is reporting 30kt winds with 42kt gusts. I'm so getting called in to work, and the power's going to be out at my house when I get back.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 02:29 PM (t+qrx)

345 radiation from a banana or a chunk granite.
Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 02:24 PM (gDSJf)

I always love people. In most discussions these days, rather than comforting someone, they would start giving the side eye to bananas and their kitchen counter tops.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at February 24, 2019 02:29 PM (ycWCI)

346 Wind and Solar won't get us to electric cars.



Nuclear power can.


Sorry, batteries still suck for range, cost, etc.

Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 02:30 PM (FhXTo)

347 Bush should have declared emergency and put mass produced Navy sized reactors at every arm faces base with a water source!

Posted by: rhennigantx at February 24, 2019 02:30 PM (JFO2v)

348 *Only* 88,000 people lived in the evacuation zone in Japan. A zone which would cover all of New York City and well into New Jersey.

You wanna compare occupants of those same areas? Go ahead.
Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:16 PM (jYje5)

300,000 people were evacuated.

The panic to evacuate them cost far more lives than the radiation or cancer ever would've.

The legacy of the meltdown is irrational hysteria.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 02:30 PM (gDSJf)

349 341 PENN: Hillary will run if field 'too left'......

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 24, 2019 02:28 PM (+y/Ru)
-------------------------------
LOL.
In Clintonese, "too left" means "too openly and obviously left."

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at February 24, 2019 02:31 PM (Rxduq)

350 Sorry, batteries still suck for range
Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 02:30 PM


You're gonna need a bigger trebuchet.

Posted by: Chief Brody at February 24, 2019 02:32 PM (DMUuz)

351 The funny thing about "half-life" is that a radioactive substance with a long half-life is less dangerous than a substance with a short half-life. Anti-nukers like to scare people by saying that such-and-such has a half life of a billion years.

But that means it releases its radiation slowly. An object with a half-life measured in hours or minutes releases a shit-ton of radiation really really fast.
Posted by: rickl at February 24, 2019 02:21 PM (sdi6R)


This.

Fun fact: thermodynamically all isotopes are unstable with respect to Fe-56, lighter ones wrt fusion, heavier ones wrt to fission.

So in principle everything except Fe-56 is radioactive, albeit some have half-lives much longer than the age of the universe.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara, Fear Mongrel at February 24, 2019 02:33 PM (GgtsI)

352 Fun fact: thermodynamically all isotopes are unstable with respect to Fe-56

Fe, FTW!

Posted by: Tony Stark at February 24, 2019 02:35 PM (DMUuz)

353
The legacy of the meltdown is irrational hysteria.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 02:30 PM


You've now shifted 180 degrees away from the original idea that your home is now worthless because some government entity has told you that you can not return to your home because your government has decided it's not safe and your homeowners policy says, 'Tough shit. Learn to code.'

There's nothing irrational at being mad as fvck in that scenario. Maybe the Japanese are different. Are you Japanese?

Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:35 PM (jYje5)

354

Even the semi-leftist soyboy Tim Pool had enough of Alexandraderriere.

Tim Pool says "fuck yourself" to Alex Cortez:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DelJra2Zc3s


Posted by: Soothsayer -- Fake Commenter at February 24, 2019 02:35 PM (ApM8l)

355 339
Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:12 PM (jYje5)



Top Gear has driven through bother the Chernobyl and Fukushima exclusion zones.



Cancer rates from the cleanup workers at Chernobyl are within the margin of error of control populations.



The most dangerous isotopes have a short half-life. The stuff that
lasts ten thousand years is more on the scale of the radiation from a
banana or a chunk granite.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 02:24 PM (gDSJf)

+++
I do admit that I am suspicious of people's views with "absolutes" in either direction. However, it ruffles my feathers when one uses a produced t.v. show as proof to one's argument.

Posted by: washrivergal at February 24, 2019 02:35 PM (aWjrD)

356 Nood

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 02:36 PM (t+qrx)

357 Sorry, batteries still suck for range, cost, etc.
Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 02:30 PM (FhXTo)


Yep, but the big problem is their unpredictability. Battery performance declines over time, but how much, exactly? Hard to say. How much battery life remains if it's also powering AC or heating?

It's easy to measure how much gasoline is left. How much battery life is left is another matter entirely.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara, Fear Mongrel at February 24, 2019 02:36 PM (GgtsI)

358

btw, Alex Cortex received a mere 15K votes to send her to Congress.

She speaks for the Very Very Very Few.

Posted by: Soothsayer -- Fake Commenter at February 24, 2019 02:36 PM (ApM8l)

359
325 I read of some guys who went back into the Chernobyl area with Geiger counters and the fireman's clothing was still in the basement of the hospital and they had to leave the area almost immediately. Year time exposure within minutes. Decades later.
Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:12 PM (jYje5)

Exposure to daily weather can dissipate the contamination. Wind, rain all that. Contamination that could give you a fatal dose if you're in a room with it might be a higher-than-baseline level when spread over a large area in the open. Contamination that seeped into a basement (protected from wind and rain) and accumulated from the upper floors as it was washed down there with rainwater could still be present in lethal concentrations; if the building were gone and the same contamination washed into a large body of water, it could be diluted enough that it doesn't pose any significant risk.
Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 02:18 PM (t+qrx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I think they were referring to the contaminated clothing. It sat there for years, soaked in the radioactive material it picked up when they were spraying water directly into the nuclear core of Chernobyl. Most of the dead were firemen, God Rest theirs souls.

Posted by: rd at February 24, 2019 02:36 PM (EK+Pw)

360 As someone who worked in the nuclear equipment supply business for a considerable amount of time, I can only partially agree. Yes the cost of construction are high, but the costs of dismantling are even higher. At this stage I would suggest an alternative. That would be an Apollo program for the development of fusion power.
1. The fuel source is virtually inexhaustible.
2. The radiation concerns are negligible.
3. The energy level output per sq. ft. dwarf even that of existing fission plants.
4. The materials processing capabilities of such concentrated energy also dwarf conventional methods. This includes refuse recycling and reprocessing.
5. Space travel would become far less complex. Launched at the proper time (orbital relationship) a trip to Mars could be completed in 12 days and the detrimental effects of extended weightlessness would be eliminated.

Posted by: Davis at February 24, 2019 02:37 PM (v4K82)

361 Someone once asked me what a nuclear chicken tasted like.

Mmm, chicken.

Posted by: Fritz at February 24, 2019 02:38 PM (wxZSX)

362 R. Kelly, always thinking.

Met underage girl while on trial for child porn...
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 24, 2019 02:23 PM (+y/Ru)

--------

🎶 The law is telling me no,

But my bladder, my bladder is telling me yes 🎶

Posted by: Robert, always peeing on people at February 24, 2019 02:38 PM (5aX2M)

363 The most dangerous isotopes have a short half-life. The stuff that lasts ten thousand years is more on the scale of the radiation from a banana or a chunk granite.

Disposal method for Tc-99 (not Tc-99m, the isotope used in nuclear medicine)?

Pouring it down the drain. Seriously. Tc-99 has a half-life of around 250,000 years (IIRC), and is a beta emitter (again, IIRC), so no biggie.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara, Fear Mongrel at February 24, 2019 02:39 PM (GgtsI)

364 I think they were referring to the contaminated clothing. It sat there for years, soaked in the radioactive material it picked up when they were spraying water directly into the nuclear core of Chernobyl. Most of the dead were firemen, God Rest theirs souls.
Posted by: rd at February 24, 2019 02:36 PM (EK+Pw)


Oh, I might have misread that. I thought it referred to the clothing that was left there for decades, not the turnout kit that they would have removed at the decon station.

Posted by: hogmartin at February 24, 2019 02:42 PM (t+qrx)

365
221 Two hundred years ago Shad use to yearly run up the Schuylkill river, hasn't happened in over a 150 years because dams have been put in it.
Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2019 01:41 PM (/rm4P)


Now the shad take SEPTA for their runs.

Posted by: SEPTA: We do it all! at February 24, 2019 02:42 PM (pNxlR)

366 Posted by: Newest Nic at February 24, 2019 02:35 PM (jYje5)

My point was that most of the evacuation was completely unnecessary. The government took away access to homes out of panic and fears of liability. Yes losing their homes is a bad thing, but a lot of that blame falls on the government, not the reactor.

-

I do admit that I am suspicious of people's views with "absolutes" in either direction. However, it ruffles my feathers when one uses a produced t.v. show as proof to one's argument.
Posted by: washrivergal at February 24, 2019 02:35 PM (aWjrD)

I brought it up more as a counterpoint to the idea that these exclusion zones are lethal deathtraps. The BBC had no qualms sending a few of it's biggest stars and a dozen crew members on a trip through these places, including joke challenges like try not to run out of gas halfway.

Posted by: Sjg at February 24, 2019 02:43 PM (gDSJf)

367 I'm a scientist working on a nuclear fusion program. While the research is interesting, intellectually engaging, and it is important to pursue (because it's important to pursue every source of energy that we can - we need energy like nothing else.), fusion is still a very hard problem that will require machines of immense complexity even when we finally get a plasma trap with an adequate confinement time working.

I'm extremely disappointed at what our civilization did to the nuclear industry. Nuclear fission is the most potent, densest (by a factor of 10-100,000 by mass), cleanest source of energy that we've ever developed. If you want a real alternative to fossil fuels, nuclear fission is pretty much it at the moment. In a sane world, we would have built a reactor in every city. Container ships that cross the pacific ocean on an equal volume of fuel oil to the cargo they haul could do so hundreds of times on a single charge of uranium or thorium fuel.

A solar powered civilization might be possible theoretically, but people have to understand that what they're asking for isn't a photovoltaic panel on a roof - it's somehow paving the desert southwest with solar-thermal collectors and somehow storing it all effectively. To run industrial civlization would require collection areas on the order of Arizona+Nevada. Not necessarily impossible, but not trivial. A solar panel on the roof of a skyscraper can just about run the lightbulbs on the top two floors. In the daytime.

Posted by: MadRocketSci at February 24, 2019 02:58 PM (dDuYP)

368 Sorry, batteries still suck for range, cost, etc.
Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 02:30 PM (FhXTo)

But the heater would be FANTASTIC!

Posted by: Warai-otoko at February 24, 2019 03:03 PM (Ct55T)

369 TLDR: Fission is dirt simple compared to fusion. (Hell, it's mechanically simple compared to *internal combustion*). With fission, you just need to pile up enough of the right materials for the reaction to go. (Hence the term "fission pile".)


Posted by: MadRocketSci at February 24, 2019 03:03 PM (dDuYP)

370 It gets so much worse.

There is something new, a small modular nuclear power plant that generates 60MW. You can build a dozen at a single plant. They are utterly incapable of failure - they literally cannot melt down, ever.

Posted by: GT at February 24, 2019 03:06 PM (8Xxh3)

371 Green New Deal?

Toxic GREEN snow in polluted Russian town forces residents to wear masks and sparks environmental protests

https://dailym.ai/2T8ZNyc

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at February 24, 2019 03:09 PM (+y/Ru)

372 Watched a TED Talk the other day by a definite lefty hippie who finally got it that nuclear is the only way to go. He was startled to discover how few people have died from nuclear. Let's get on board with this. Doesn't matter if climate change is real or not. France has relied on pebble reactors for decades.

Posted by: IanDeal at February 24, 2019 03:13 PM (4zQrR)

373 I've often said that the anti-nuclear movement will ensure that the ONLY thing mankind ever does with it's fission-metals is make bombs.

Posted by: MadRocketSci at February 24, 2019 03:17 PM (dDuYP)

374 Nuclear waste: The Canadians have developed a reactor that uses that nuclear waste for fuel to make electricity. It is so efficient that it can turn unprocessed uranium ore into electricity. Thus, you use the fuel, concentrate it, use it again, concentrate, us, repeat until it is totally non-radioactive.

So much for nuclear waste.

As for "renewable power", it is a hot night. It is a hot night because the wind has stopped blowing in cool air from the sea (which can be some distance away, as in hundreds of miles). So, no wind, how much wind power do you have? And it is night, how much solar power do you have? Batteries, you say? Do you know how much it would take to store enough power for this windless night in just one state of the USA? TRILLIONS. Can you imagine your power bill thirty times larger? Yes, thirty times, that is how much batteries cost.

A typical wind power plant, in one year, killed over 60,000 bats, over 20,000 birds, and over 150 large birds of prey, does that sound like you are "saving the planet"?

It takes so much power to make solar panels that you will be lucky to ever make that amount back over the entire useful lifetime of that solar panel, does that sound like you are "saving the planet"?

"Sustainable power" is neither sustainable nor power.

Posted by: SanityClause at February 24, 2019 03:18 PM (CwACU)

375 Greetings:

More people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than American nuclear power plants.

Went to Indian Point when it opened in the '60s. Ain't glowing yet.

Posted by: 11B40 at February 24, 2019 03:32 PM (evgyj)

376 275 I used to sign my work emails: "Founder, Physicians for Social Irresponsibility." When asked, I explained that our motto was "Guns, booze and a nuclear power plant in every backyard."

Of course, that was back when even my liberal co-workers had a sense of humor...
Posted by: Dr Alice at February 24, 2019 01:59 PM (lBBGI)

Might I "borrow" &/or paraphrase that? I'm in Oklahoma where we still have a slight sense of humor.

Posted by: Doc Nova at February 24, 2019 03:33 PM (90cx5)

377 The BBC had no qualms sending a few of it's biggest stars and a dozen
crew members on a trip through these places, including joke challenges
like try not to run out of gas halfway.


The Beeb also nearly got them mangled driving through Argentina. Once again, as someone else pointed out, you are not arguing from a particularly rigorous position.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM guy at February 24, 2019 03:35 PM (7s3Gx)

378 I call BS. You forgot to mention the tons of radioactive waste generated by nuclear reactors--deadly substances with half lives of a thousand years or more, that we have to bury in mountains or launch into space. That's a little different than the speck of Americum in a smoke detector.

Posted by: kimoloka at February 24, 2019 03:40 PM (ZO1EW)

379 I call BS. You forgot to mention the tons of radioactive waste generated by nuclear reactors--deadly substances with half lives of a thousand years or more, that we have to bury in mountains or launch into space. That's a little different than the speck of Americum in a smoke detector.
Posted by: kimoloka at February 24, 2019 03:40 PM (ZO1EW)

How many tons?

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at February 24, 2019 03:43 PM (3sjI6)

380 That's a little different than the speck of Americum in a smoke detector.

Posted by: kimoloka at February 24, 2019 03:40 PM (ZO1EW)

Take a physics class and figure out the volume of the waste, then get back to me.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 24, 2019 04:01 PM (wYseH)

381 "It takes so much power to make solar panels that you
will be lucky to ever make that amount back over the entire useful
lifetime of that solar panel, does that sound like you are "saving the
planet"? "Sustainable power" is neither sustainable nor power.Posted by: SanityClaus


not sure where you get those numbers, they seem completely wrong to me. A 300W panel may cost $180 now (not counting the subsidy). It might generate one kWh/day ... at 12.5 cents, that is $45/year. So if half the cost of the panel was for energy (seems like a high estimate) ... it would pay that cost in energy production in two years.


As for storage, the cost for a battery over its lifetime is about 15 cents/kWh, so grid tie makes more sense. Using solar for peak production (grid tied, daytime peak hours) might make sense, for maybe 5-10% of the peak hour total. imo Using a battery system works for those that want cheap property (cheap because it is far from the grid)

Posted by: illiniwek at February 24, 2019 04:02 PM (Cus5s)

382 367 "Container ships that cross the pacific ocean on an equal volume of fuel
oil to the cargo they haul could do so hundreds of times on a single
charge of uranium or thorium fuel."

So if I understand this statement correctly - 45% approx of the container ship volume is fuel, 45% is cargo and assume 10% is the ship itself? Or 40/40/20 - whatever...So everything stacked up on the deck is cargo and everything below is fuel?

I had no idea.

Posted by: Anonymous Guy In Ca at February 24, 2019 04:36 PM (RcMUX)

383 Rep. Donkey-Chompers will hear your alternative viewpoints. Then she will send a police officer to your house, and the police officer will explain to you that she is right, you are wrong, and that the police officer WILL KILL YOU if you persist in your delusions. "The badge says I do as I damn well please", he explains.

(Well, is there any doubt that she wants to do that?)

If France can generate 70% or so of its power from nukes, why can't we? (Note this: France has no place to permanently store its nuclear waste. No problem: it reprocesses so much of it that the amount they have that they can't do anything with is negligible. Only the United States and Finland have permanent disposal sites. Imagine if the United States could reprocess its waste - it CAN, it just doesn't WANT to - and put the rest in either WIPP or Yucca Mountain.)

Besides, I wonder if most Americans know that our nuclear arsenal is manufactured and maintained in the middle of some of the most productive farm/ranch country the United States has to offer?

Posted by: CatchThirtyThr33 at February 24, 2019 04:44 PM (RbbSz)

384 One more thing:

TMI released 15 curies of radiation.
Chernobyl released 50 MILLION curies of radiation.

Which of the two were run by agencies accountable to the public?

Posted by: CatchThirtyThr33 at February 24, 2019 04:46 PM (RbbSz)

385 While you're at it.....get a used fuel-rod from a nuke, set it in the middle of a large concrete tank full of water. Run heat-exchanger pipes from this tank to an even-larger surrounding tank filled with water.
VOILA!!! Hot water for your home, including hot-water heating, forever and ever, and ever. Only about $250K for the license plus large bribes for zoning.
BONUS!! You get to have those triangular yellow "Nuclear Hazard" signs in your yard to keep the unwanted types out of your yard!

Posted by: dad29 at February 24, 2019 04:47 PM (7Kti7)

386 The curse of being old is having lived what is now considered to be History I remember ...stuff.
Back in the late 60s early 70s ? One of the well known leaders of an organization concerned with saving the environment supported nuke power.
He made the point that no damns, coal, wood fired, or other such environmentally destructive energy sources would be involved and if it melted down/blew up it would only kill people because the nuke plant would be located near industrialized areas with large population centers.
I found his logic to be impeccable.

Posted by: Waepnedmann at February 24, 2019 04:48 PM (sLk2X)

387 Late to the party, but no, nuclear reactors should not be built as a tradeoff for closing coal-fired power stations. That is simply buying into the bullshit meme that "carbon pollution" is real, and a hazard.

Build nuclear reactors, because they are cheap, and they work, unlike windmills and solar panels, which are not cheap, and do not work, leastwise for utility-scale generation.

And if the nukes are cheap enough, and sufficiently plentiful, the coal-fired plants will simply be retired by market forces, no mandate needed.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 24, 2019 05:12 PM (nPGq2)

388 Or we could just reject the entire premise.

Posted by: DaveA at February 24, 2019 12:33 PM

We should have an entire thread on just all the science-based reasons why the entire premise is bogus.

I listed a few here in a rant I went on the other day...
+++++

So... what is Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez's 12-year plan to save the world? Besides eliminate cow farts and air travel and exponentially increase railway travel.

Does she have some kind of milestone targets? I work in the auto industry and we have plans setup for each vehicle build. We have targets we need to hit by certain points in the program. We also have targets we need to hit for each system within the vehicle. We also have to run all our designs by the Manufacturing group to make sure we are designing things that can actually be assembled at the vehicle plant.

And, of course, we also have to go in front of program management to provide all the benefits and status of the program to convince management that the program is worth investing company money into.

In other words, we work to important things like deadlines and science and feasibility. And we don't tell management that "unless you have a better idea, you better give us money for *this* idea".

So... what is the actual status of the earth right now?
Does this imbecile even know? What is the science behind her 12-year timeline? Is it the same science Al Gore used to tell us in 2006 that we had 10 years to live? Oh that's right, he never told us any details then either. Does AOC know what her "carbon footprint" is? Does she know the math regarding the USA's contribution to the supposed demise of the earth and how much we need to decrease that contribution each year in order to prevent the 12 year end of the world date? Does she also know the contributions of every other country in the world? Has she taken into account that none of them will be decreasing their contributions to the earth's demise and included that in her estimate for how much the USA must decrease?

The fact that we have tens of millions of people in this country for whom these questions do not even cross their minds, yet they unconditionally support this absolute imbecile... is mind-blowing. Utterly mind-blowing.

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at February 24, 2019 05:25 PM (7A4qQ)

389 Federalize your standardized reactors and put them under the authority of the Navy. Where there aren't coastlines, built ponds for Navy reactor boats, like for floating casinos.

Posted by: Marooned at February 24, 2019 05:51 PM (8hRlF)

390 Toshiba 4S and/or thorium cycle (thorium can be extracted from coal, btw) reactors.

Posted by: Still Another Zap Rowsdower at February 24, 2019 06:10 PM (cUpB1)

391 first !!

Posted by: facube Itches at February 24, 2019 06:13 PM (KdryZ)

392 Nuclear waste: Why don't we just shoot it into the sun?

Posted by: Ree at February 24, 2019 06:55 PM (TSjzP)

393 CBD,

We disagree on a great many things.
I am in complete agreement with you here.

Posted by: Xenophon at February 25, 2019 12:09 AM (2vzX9)

394 CO2 is not a pollutant, so the amount of CO2 produced should not be used to determine which plants to shut down.

Posted by: Mitch McSoze at February 25, 2019 09:39 AM (nFotx)

395 @367 "Container ships that cross the pacific ocean on an equal volume of fuel oil to the cargo they haul"

Yeah, that's not right by a massive amount.

It's more like 20,000 to 30,000 bbls of heavy fuel oil per Pacific crossing for an 4,000 container vessel.

Posted by: Mitch McSoze at February 25, 2019 09:58 AM (nFotx)

396 Fair enough. You have an opinion.

So, here's mine: I hope Fukushima kills you and your family LAST. That way you can relish the fears of pain, terror and humiliation by renewable radioactive death. Enjoy the ride, send postcards, write if you get woke.

Posted by: Ray at February 25, 2019 01:42 PM (AVxHd)

397 https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/technology/2019/nuclear-goes-retro-much-greener-outlook

Posted by: MarcusZ1967 at February 25, 2019 08:29 PM (H35AK)

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