NEK5
3/4 ton status
last months car show had an s10 pickup coverted to water/steam...had tank up front and boiler in back
CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.
Guy came up with a way to run an engine on water
- Thread starter Stickseler
- Start date
BIGBLAZE433 said:
you mean like a Choo-Choo train?
I a little different than swapping in a 383.
dyeager535 said:
Actually, "everyone" has no clue about nuclear power. We have had the technology to deal with nuclear waste for quite a while now, it really isn't that big of a problem. Enviro-nazis tell us that coal/oil/gas burning with destroy the atmosphere... dams slay fish habitats. I guess the question is: which would you prefer? Nuclear power doesn't make the Earth more radioactive or anything... all we do is collect minerals from the ground and purify them for the reactor. No nasty emissions to worry about.
Nuke power has by FAR the best "bang for the buck". Wind simply doesn't blow in some places... and sun doesn't shine in most places that matter. Ok, it shines a lot in North Africa... so what?! Even a 100% efficient solar cell wouldn't create enough juice to power a large industrial complex.
According to the article you linked too, its less than 6%... that really isn't much of a share at all, so its not a surprise that they could "live without it". France is over 40% last time I heard... that would be a better example. Sad that the French have to "lead" on this issue, but they appear to be doing so.
If that is the case, take them offline tomorow. The link you provide yourself says that by 2020 only 20% of their electricity will come from "renewable" sources... which could include stuff beyond wind/solar also. IMO this is probably an optimistic figure, but even if it was true where are they going to get the other 80% of their power? My guess is burning fossil fuels.. which is pretty funny considering that half the article they are beating their chests about helping the atmosphere. Burning a huge amount of coal/NG/oil is the answer to the energy crisis? Me thinks not.
This is where solar can be helpfull to lower the load on the grid... and believe me I'm all for it, as well as passive solar architectural design. Unfortunately for all of us, the energy crisis will continue regardless, because industrial centers simply need more power than a few cells on their factory roofs can provide. Where does it come from? At this point in time its a "pick your poison" situation... apparently, Germanys answer is to burn coal and or petro chemicals... all the while talking about how great the green technologies are.
j
stallion85
1/2 ton status
My head hurts 
MaxPF
1/2 ton status
What he said. Both wind and solar are unreliable as baseload power sources. Hydro is the only one that can reliably generate baseload power on a day-to-day basis, but even hydro can't guarantee a stable output over an extended timespan. A few seasons of below normal rainfall and the reservoir level will drop enough that you have to start shutting down turbines. Wind and solar are also low yield energy sources. In order to generate a large amount of power, you would literally have to cover the countryside in windmills or solar panels. Also, both wind turbines and solar panels have a very slow energy return span, meaning it takes quite a long time for their energy output to equal the amount of energy it took to build them. This is almost always overlooked by the people arguing for renewables. I won't even mention the fact that windmills, solar panels, and reservoirs are hardly enviromentally benign.jekbrown said:
Nuclear waste is a political problem, not a technological one. Yucca Mountain is sitting empty for political and emotional reasons. New reactor types (i.e. the gas gooled reactors) have their fuel sealed inside pellets made of graphite and silicon carbide, and it is impossible for these types of reactors to suffer a meltdown or other catastrophic accident. If the enviroweenies would check their facts, they would know that coal fired power plants release vastly larger amounts of radionucleides into the environment than nuclear plants.
So let me get this straight. An entire country decides that non-nuclear is the way to go, and they haven't done their research?
"Everyone" doesn't know the problems with nuclear? Uhh, lets see. The best we can do with waste that is deadly for what, 24,000 years, is bury it in the ground, and hope that it doesn't reach something that we might want to use in the next 24 centuries. Yeah, that makes sense. Seriously, that's the kind of thinking I'll have when I'm 80. What the hell do I care what happens next week, let alone 100 years or more from now.
Everything that touches nuclear sources ends up being disposed of. So even the cleanup/transport stuff we have to bury! Are you telling me that we've got some other way to get rid of nuclear waste?
And the comment about radiation being normal, the people that worked the Chernobyl disaster seemed to be a bit less well off than the rest of us exposed to normal background radiation didn't they?
Look at the charts again...it's not 6%, it's 27.5% for Germanys nuclear energy production.
The holes in the plan are of course that even now the production of Germany is about 60% "non-renewable ". Taking nuclear offline means a 25% increase in other sources need to take place, if it's non-renewable, they are wasting their time. No question that coal, oil, etc., is a more immediate threat to the environment, as opposed to nuclear, which could cause problems in say, 10,000 years, long after it was used as fuel. Techonology could solve that problem, or we might come up with something better than nuclear in the meantime.
Solar and wind MIGHT be unreliable for power. Talking about industrial usage...we know that there isn't enough wind at night to power industrial centers? I certainly don't. I *do* know that for most, electricity is still pretty inexpensive. Enough so that people leave computers running all the time, fans and AC constantly running, lights are always on, and the TV is never turned off. We don't just throw away everything that industry uses energy to produce? You can't tell me that conservation of energy and products can't go a LONG way towards alleviating the burden on the power grid. Were/are California's energy issues derived because of industry, or because we as a people waste power like there is no tomorrow?
You ("you" general here) know full well that shutting all reactors down now wouldn't be feasible, you can buy electric cars now, so no gasoline cars?
You talk about sun not shining in most places that matter. Umm, have you looked at Germany's climate? About equivalent to Washington. A lot of power can be derived from solar even in "colder" regions. Think about it. *Every* roof in the US feeding the grid during daytime? I would be surprised if that scenario didn't surpass the US' power production right now. Don't forget, the west and east coast see 3 hours time difference. 3am west coast and it's sunny on the east (depending on time of year obviously) Midnight east coast, sun still shining on the west. 3 hour coverage gap in the summer? Not bad at all.
Hydro is a nice setup, we are lucky we got dams in when we did, at the same time, the loss of fish in some areas is huge because of it. Maybe dam the Mississippi further upstream as often as possible? Not much for migratory fish there I guess. On any river with migratory runs though, IMO it isn't worth the damage caused. Sure, it's one species. But a lot of people enjoy fishing, and fish is a large part of the worlds diet. Shifting the load to another fish species is just proven to decimate those stocks so that the fisheries are no longer viable.
It sounds more like people don't want to believe that it's possible to produce energy on a large scale cleanly if you are willing to invest in it, to spite those that don't necessarily like the hazards that come with nuclear power. You come up with a way to dispose of nuclear waste that doesn't involve it being any more radioactive than when we mined it, I'm all aboard. I have faith that we can prevent meltdowns, harmful emissions, etc., but the simple fact is, we can't do anything better with the waste now than when we started. Solve the waste problem, and nuclear power is pretty hard to debunk. Burying it in the ground is not a solution to the problem anymore than dumping used motor oil in the backyard is.
"Everyone" doesn't know the problems with nuclear? Uhh, lets see. The best we can do with waste that is deadly for what, 24,000 years, is bury it in the ground, and hope that it doesn't reach something that we might want to use in the next 24 centuries. Yeah, that makes sense. Seriously, that's the kind of thinking I'll have when I'm 80. What the hell do I care what happens next week, let alone 100 years or more from now.
Everything that touches nuclear sources ends up being disposed of. So even the cleanup/transport stuff we have to bury! Are you telling me that we've got some other way to get rid of nuclear waste? And the comment about radiation being normal, the people that worked the Chernobyl disaster seemed to be a bit less well off than the rest of us exposed to normal background radiation didn't they?
Look at the charts again...it's not 6%, it's 27.5% for Germanys nuclear energy production.
The holes in the plan are of course that even now the production of Germany is about 60% "non-renewable ". Taking nuclear offline means a 25% increase in other sources need to take place, if it's non-renewable, they are wasting their time. No question that coal, oil, etc., is a more immediate threat to the environment, as opposed to nuclear, which could cause problems in say, 10,000 years, long after it was used as fuel. Techonology could solve that problem, or we might come up with something better than nuclear in the meantime.
Solar and wind MIGHT be unreliable for power. Talking about industrial usage...we know that there isn't enough wind at night to power industrial centers? I certainly don't. I *do* know that for most, electricity is still pretty inexpensive. Enough so that people leave computers running all the time, fans and AC constantly running, lights are always on, and the TV is never turned off. We don't just throw away everything that industry uses energy to produce? You can't tell me that conservation of energy and products can't go a LONG way towards alleviating the burden on the power grid. Were/are California's energy issues derived because of industry, or because we as a people waste power like there is no tomorrow?
You ("you" general here) know full well that shutting all reactors down now wouldn't be feasible, you can buy electric cars now, so no gasoline cars?
You talk about sun not shining in most places that matter. Umm, have you looked at Germany's climate? About equivalent to Washington. A lot of power can be derived from solar even in "colder" regions. Think about it. *Every* roof in the US feeding the grid during daytime? I would be surprised if that scenario didn't surpass the US' power production right now. Don't forget, the west and east coast see 3 hours time difference. 3am west coast and it's sunny on the east (depending on time of year obviously) Midnight east coast, sun still shining on the west. 3 hour coverage gap in the summer? Not bad at all.
Hydro is a nice setup, we are lucky we got dams in when we did, at the same time, the loss of fish in some areas is huge because of it. Maybe dam the Mississippi further upstream as often as possible? Not much for migratory fish there I guess. On any river with migratory runs though, IMO it isn't worth the damage caused. Sure, it's one species. But a lot of people enjoy fishing, and fish is a large part of the worlds diet. Shifting the load to another fish species is just proven to decimate those stocks so that the fisheries are no longer viable.
It sounds more like people don't want to believe that it's possible to produce energy on a large scale cleanly if you are willing to invest in it, to spite those that don't necessarily like the hazards that come with nuclear power. You come up with a way to dispose of nuclear waste that doesn't involve it being any more radioactive than when we mined it, I'm all aboard. I have faith that we can prevent meltdowns, harmful emissions, etc., but the simple fact is, we can't do anything better with the waste now than when we started. Solve the waste problem, and nuclear power is pretty hard to debunk. Burying it in the ground is not a solution to the problem anymore than dumping used motor oil in the backyard is.
dyeager535 said:
You seem to be assuming that intelligent thought trumps mass ignorance in the political world or general public. Anyone who has passed economics 101 can tell you that social security is a completely moronic system... and yet "an entire country" has decided its a "good" idea.
Several things about nuclear waste....
1) the longer the half life, the less dangerous a radioactive thing is... if I had to stand in a room with a ball of radioactive material, I'd take plutonium or uranium with their hella long half life way before I take something like cobalt 60. The shorter the half life, the faster "crap" is flying off at you. People seem to freak out when they hear something has a long half life. That is ignorance at work... as is the general "radiation is bad!" mindset that the modern media drone has. Without radiation, the Earth would probably be a lifeless ball. Your TV is emitting radiation... so does a banana. A plane flight exposes you to hella radiation.... more than nuke power ever will. Maybe we should ban airplane flights... not to mention x-rays! Lots more people are killed by gas explosions and coal mine disasters than nuke power (unless you're russian and turn off ALL your reactors safeties...) ever will... why are they ok?
2) The plan isn't to just "bury it in the ground". Waste is contained in multiple vessels so that if one breaks, it only leaks into another. Its not hard to use monitoring equipment to determine if stuff is leaking or not. If it is, you simply transfer it to a new containment vessel. The facility in Yucca mountain is a good choice because if all else fails and the stuff leaks, the ground water isn't exceptionally close to the surface etc. If I remember right, a good deal of Euro-nuke waste is actually stored in a facility that is below the Med. Talk about high-risk. In any event, it can be contained and it can be managed. How is Germany containing/managing its coal/oil emissions? Thats right, they ain't.
If we can put a man on the moon, we can manage radioactive waste.
The nuke waste was never "just buried" in the US, even back in the old days of Hanford. It was put in crappy containment vessels which leaked into the ground... but that was due to a lack of a) good containment methods/techniques and b) effort.
oh brother. Yes, its true that if you turn off all the safeties on your reactor and let the reaction run wild it will melt down. So? If a guy in Zimbabwe made a car out of bamboo and got in a wreck and died... does that mean that cars are a bad idea for the rest of the planet? Planes crash and people die, maybe we should quit flying. People slip in the shower and die, maybe we should just be dirty. etc etc etc etc. The answer isn't to roll over and die when faced with a problem... the answer is to innovate, overcome and achieve something.
if that is the case, Germany won't have enough power. They are talking 20% in 2020.... where does the other 7.5% come from? Their numbers also seem to assume a certain level of "need"... what if Germanies economy booms (never know!) and they need 50% more power than they expect in 2020? Gonna ask the sun to shine brighter? wind to blow harder?
actually, there is a lot of "question"... but lets not get into that. The real problem is global demand outstripping global supply. Its not an environmental concern nearly as much as an economic one. If the average temp goes up 2 degrees that could be annoying... if our entire civilization collapses into another dark age, neither you nor I will care what the temperature is.
One can only hope. I personally think it'd be cool if we could figure out a way to get heavy payloads into space... and then just launch "barges" full of nuke waste towards the sun. Problem solved. Every bit of nuke waste on the planet could go "poof!" in nano seconds.
Another idea that could be worth considering is figuring out a way to "unpurify" the waste and then simply disperse it. Uranium is all over the globe now... it just isn't that big of a deal because its dispersed around and not purified.Perhaps if every 10' there was a windmill... everywhere on the planet or something. How much energy would it take to build all the windmills? As far as being "unreliable" there is no "might" about it... I look out my window and see overcast skies and/or night for at least 75% of the year...
I wouldn't suggest such a thing. Of course, even if we did legislate power useage (good lord that'd be a boondoggle), its highly likely that both India and China will surpass the USA in energy usage in the next couple of decades. Both are rapidly growing and have 3x our population.
There was more demand than supply... its almost certain that it was a combination of both.
Anything can be done, just depends on how much pain you're willing to stand. This Germany thing really stinks of politics if you ask me. Think about it.. the guys in charge now can say "they'll be gone in 15 years!!!" and enjoy the posetive political points from that... but they never have to deal with any of the negative economic impact that might result. Pretty blatant if you ask me.
Sure, and it ain't doin much for me. Very little energy gets all the way through the atmosphere to the ground (relative to what it is in orbit). Like I said before, even if the cell was 100% efficient (and they aren't even close right now) it wouldn't make enough juice. For your house? Sure, it could provide most of the power for your house. That isn't the problem. The problem is factories and skyscrapers etc. How ya gonna feed the millions (billions?) of light bulbs you have in a place like Manhatten?
As with all things, it is an economic issue. Creating huge power (lets say 1000 megawatts, a good nuke facility could do that no problem) with solar power would require a gi-normous "investment". We're talking the mother of all investments probably... who is ponying up the money? You? Gonna make a new series of taxes?
IMO, what is going to happen is that global fossil fuel prices will continue to rise... slowly but surely. At some point, making power with alternative sources (solar or whatever) will become cheaper... and then, and only then, will the entire system make a shift away from petrochems.
So let me get this straight, the containment thingies they used in Hanford in the 1950s is the best there is in nuclear containment... today? Dude... do you really believe that? lol! Absolutely no progress has been made... monitoring equipment hasn't got any better.. our knowledge of how waste effects containers long term isn't any better? That is a stretch... a long one.
the only one on the planet suggesting we do "just bury it" is you... so I don't think we need to worry about that.
j
jekbrown said:
Their politcal leadership has already changed since that was passed. No change in their plans.
jekbrown said:
It seems pretty easy for you to dismiss the fact that high levels of radiation are harmful. We can talk about gas explosions and coal mine disasters, they don't cover multiple countries with radioactive contaminants, do they? Funny you mention x-rays, you know exposure is limited, right? That's right, high doses=bad. We aren't talking about background radiation here. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want to be anywhere near a ball of radioactive material, or in any situation where my exposure has to be time/dose limited.
jekbrown said:
That sounds suspiciously like a derivative of a typical US manufacturer statement...it will cost too much so it's not feasible. I know for a fact that they use scrubbers and what not for pollutants from production for those sources. (not saying they are wholly effective, just that they use them) That has nothing to with nuclear waste of course, except that I don't believe they have anything that can scrub uranium or plutonium.
jekbrown said:
That's right. We didn't have any accidents getting people there, and since technology is so good, we haven't had any space accidents since.
jekbrown said:
I might go so far as to say they didn't know any better. I can't say that we do either. In 100 years we'll probably be looked at as barbarians.
jekbrown said:
No, but if all the cars on the planet were made that way, and the problem affected more than just the one person, we might consider it, no? Akin to dumping pollutants in the Columbia River in Canada, it doesn't just affect the local area IF there is a problem.
jekbrown said:
That's OUR problem. We aren't willing to take an economic hit to do something. That's evident everywhere. Well, we just had New Orleans flooded, but to keep the economy going, we need to build in the same places. (California actually has a big problem with this too) Start calculating the costs of cleanup vs. the amount of actual "revenue" generated from the previous use/buildup of the area, and the economic viability of growth at the expense of common sense begins to come into question.
jekbrown said:One can only hope. I personally think it'd be cool if we could figure out a way to get heavy payloads into space... and then just launch "barges" full of nuke waste towards the sun. Problem solved. Every bit of nuke waste on the planet could go "poof!" in nano seconds.
No question there. If we can get nuke waste into space without having to worry what happens when the delivery vehicle explodes, I'm all for it.
jekbrown said:
You see exactly what Germany sees, but they are doing it. Point? Energy to build the power generation equipment? Come on, you know it's not that easy. What's the lifespan of the product, and what is its power output over that lifespan?
jekbrown said:
I'm not talking about legislating power usage. I'm talking about it being expensive enough for people to actually think about usage...similar to something that we pump out of the ground. I would be willing to bet the vast majority of those in India and China can't afford to have all the junk running that we do. They have millions more people than the US, yet we still use more power than them? That should tell us something about our society. Government telling us when to use power, I just don't see working.
jekbrown said:
Look at it this way: Who uses power in the day, and who uses it at night. Not talking industrial, you've got your commerce centers in the day, living areas at night to power. If your residential output is unused during the day (for the majority that work during the day) then the power grid is fed by that unused power. Makes perfect sense to me. I'm not implying that I know for certain there would be enough, but I do know there are trillions of square feet of otherwise unusable flat surface in the US. Imagine that put to use even without taking any other source offline?
jekbrown said:
Who is ponying up the money right now for the construction, monitoring, and transporting of nuke waste and its related?
jekbrown said:
To clarify: we pick a spot on the earth, we dig some tunnels, perhaps already existing from prior use, and we put nuclear waste in it. That's different than burying how? I'm not going to start crying if you want to call it "management" or some other buzzword instead of burying, but is it not underground, hopefully forgotten, at least until some alarm goes off? You yourself stated that leakage is possible, so for 24,000 years the burden (both financial and environmental) of monitoring and maintaining the waste falls on the public for what we created? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Of course, your scenario also assumes that our country/society and economy remains viable for 24,000 years. There is no way a powerful country could ever end up with nuclear warheads, ships, and waste, with no money or resources to properly manage it.
dyeager535 said:
you could say the same thing about social security in the US... once the decision was made by a past politician.. its sort of political suicide to reverse the decision. That makes you look like the bad guy. Not to mention that its still 14 years away. Why take the his politically now when you know you wont be in power when the doodoo hits the fan?
It is harmful, it also is a risk thats managable. If one guy gets radiation exposure to his pinky at a nuke plant it'll be on the front page of every paper on the planet. 20 people get blown up in a gas explosion and it might be on page 15D... maybe. Its a clear illustration of how the general population has a paranoia about "radiation".
No, but then CO2 emissions cover the entire planet...
You could hold a ball of uranium in your gloved hand for a few minutes and it wouldn't do a thing to you. Multi-billion year half life = not very radioactive at all.
I think "practical" would be a better word as opposed to "feasible". As I said before, anything could be done... just a question of how much pain you're willing to stand.
No nuke plant is made like chernobyl. It was VERY old, a cery crappy design... and they turned off ALL the safety mechanism and cranked the power to maximum output. They pretty much intentionally (via ignorance one would think) melted down the reactor. I don't think that is a reason not to use nuke power. 3 mile Island melted down and the result was minimal. They have tried to link cancer to it, but the cancer rate in that area isn't exceptional so its pretty much un-proven that ANYONE was killed by the accident. There are nuke plants all over the world... modern designs are exceptionally safe. In the history of nuke power there have been only a couple of accidents, and outside chernobyl they hardly ever cause human deaths. Other than "nuclear is scary!" paranoia, how can one justify freaking out about nuke energy when other kinds of energy (gas, coal, oil etc) result in more death/destruction?
good questions indeed. Fact remains, nothing has the bang for the buck, or energy density that fission has... other than fusion.
I would be willing to bet the vast majority of those in India and China can't afford to have all the junk running that we do. They have millions more people than the US, yet we still use more power than them? That should tell us something about our society. Government telling us when to use power, I just don't see working.
China and India aren't any better at conserving anything.... they just have a less mature modern economy.
Who is ponying up the money right now for the construction, monitoring, and transporting of nuke waste and its related?
whomever operates the plants I guess, as far as I know its generally a private enterprise.
Well, regular old "burying" doesn't include containment vessels of any kind... vitrification of the waste... or any kind of monitoring capability. Vitrification has been around since the 1970s... it isn't used much for political reasons. In general, the leftist eco-nazis don't want the process used... because it makes nuke waste much safer... and they don't want that. The danger is their leverage. At any rate, once its in a crystaline matrix, its impossible for nuke waste to "leak" into the ground water. Its litally a glass-like solid... no liquid to leak anywhere.
more later, have to go to work,
j
I checked into vitrification, best I can find from Pacific Northwest is "thousands of years" that it will hold, not sure if that's 2 or 200 thousand.
Bang for buck isn't a very good comparison. Nuclear power=waste that is problematic at best, and (although unlikely, no argument there) if something DOES go wrong, the potential for damage over huge areas lasting thousands of years is there. So you run nuclear power plant and solar/wind farm for 10 years. solar/wind farm produces half the energy, but there is no waste. Alost apples to oranges in that respect. Trading hazard for production.
Haven't even gotten into how they manage the effluent from the cooling process, I remember at one time it was an issue, somehow doubt the river water exiting is the same temp as that entering. Anyone that's had an aquarium with anything other than goldfish knows what problems that causes.
Bang for buck isn't a very good comparison. Nuclear power=waste that is problematic at best, and (although unlikely, no argument there) if something DOES go wrong, the potential for damage over huge areas lasting thousands of years is there. So you run nuclear power plant and solar/wind farm for 10 years. solar/wind farm produces half the energy, but there is no waste. Alost apples to oranges in that respect. Trading hazard for production.
Haven't even gotten into how they manage the effluent from the cooling process, I remember at one time it was an issue, somehow doubt the river water exiting is the same temp as that entering. Anyone that's had an aquarium with anything other than goldfish knows what problems that causes.
randy88k5
1/2 ton status
Just a small change in facts. They didnt crank Chernobyl up to full power. They were running tests, and wanted to try something that nobody knew the outcome. They wanted to see how much power would be generated at the least amount of reactor power. Kinda like seeing how much power you can get out of an idling engine. Safties started tripping, and they overrode them. Eventually they saw the reactor starting to get out of control, and they dropped in the control rods. Apparently from the design of the rods, the control rods made the reaction worse, and the reactor exploed killing thousands initially, and thousands more who volentarely poured concrete over the reactor to try and contain it for the future.jekbrown said:
There was only a partial meltdown of the reactor. The reactor housing never exploded. Most of the radiation that came from that was the venting of the coolant into the atmosphere, and the coolant all in the basement of the cooling tower.jekbrown said:
Funny all of this should come up now, it was just on the history channel last night...
EDIT: I forgot one thing, about the solar panels...
In order for the country to be solely reliant on solar power, with a panel of about 10-15% efficiency, we would need a panel roughly the size of California
MaxPF
1/2 ton status
Apparently, you never checked out the GT-MHR. It is an air-cooled design. Hence, no heating of river water, or ANY water for that matter. Still, even water-cooled reactors don't have to heat rivers. Palo Verde is the largest nuke plant in the US, and it sits in the middle of the freakin desert. It is cooled via cooling towers, just like most other nuke plants.dyeager535 said:
PWR and BWR reactors are not the pinnacle of nuclear technology. They never have been. The GT-MHR is much more efficient (48% vs 30%), generates less waste, has it's fuel and resulting waste already sealed inside pellets made of layered graphite and silicon carbide, is air cooled, absolitely can NOT melt down or suffer any other catastrophic failure, is more economical to build and run, and it is already a proven design. The only thing preventing them from being built is ignorance and the eco-nazis.
randy: I'm sure there were varying reports initially... because the Soviet guys rarely put out the truth and the guys who actually made the booboo probably didn't want to admit the truth either. In any case, good clarification on your part. In any event, crappy reactor design and kooky "operator error" were to blame. The same combo simply wouldn't happen with a new generation of uber reactors (if we decided to build jekbrown's nuke complexs for each city).
nuke plant water: Even if river water is used to cool a reactor, it doesn't mean that the river has to be heated at all... just let the water sit in a small resevoir before it is sent back into the river so it can get back up to normal temperature and all is fine. Fish won't mind at all.
vitrification:
here is a decent link showing the process...
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/eternity/vitri1.html
Its from the Seattle PI (ie left wing wackos) so its safe to say that there isn't any pro-"big nuke" spin there.
The technology for vitrification has been improved and can be improved more still. The better it gets, the more stable the crystalline structure, the closer you get to a perfect waste storage solution.
At any rate, despite what you might think from my posts, I love solar power, wind power, geothermal (even though it releases lots of radiation...), hydro and pretty much every other type of power generation. I also like the idea of our economy not totally flopping. Some people (and even some real scientists) tell us that massive CO2 production isn't a good thing... if that is the case, burning coal/oil/gas for the majority of our power probably isn't a good thing either. If we are going to be in a "pick your poison" position for the foreseeable future, nuke power (and the resulting waste) seems like a better answer than continuing massive CO2 emmissions which won't be contained in ANY way and will effect the entire planet, not just one mountain in Nevada.
j
nuke plant water: Even if river water is used to cool a reactor, it doesn't mean that the river has to be heated at all... just let the water sit in a small resevoir before it is sent back into the river so it can get back up to normal temperature and all is fine. Fish won't mind at all.
vitrification:
here is a decent link showing the process...
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/eternity/vitri1.html
Its from the Seattle PI (ie left wing wackos) so its safe to say that there isn't any pro-"big nuke" spin there.
The technology for vitrification has been improved and can be improved more still. The better it gets, the more stable the crystalline structure, the closer you get to a perfect waste storage solution.
At any rate, despite what you might think from my posts, I love solar power, wind power, geothermal (even though it releases lots of radiation...), hydro and pretty much every other type of power generation. I also like the idea of our economy not totally flopping. Some people (and even some real scientists) tell us that massive CO2 production isn't a good thing... if that is the case, burning coal/oil/gas for the majority of our power probably isn't a good thing either. If we are going to be in a "pick your poison" position for the foreseeable future, nuke power (and the resulting waste) seems like a better answer than continuing massive CO2 emmissions which won't be contained in ANY way and will effect the entire planet, not just one mountain in Nevada.
j
