Now that's a fear I can get behind. No need to invoke the radioactivity boogyman at all.
Lockneed breakthough in fusion reactors.
- Thread starter BoogieWoogieWookie
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Now that's a fear I can get behind. No need to invoke the radioactivity boogyman at all.
I think that it was invoked for one reason and one reason only - not even in the field of dreaded radioactivity is coal power safer than nuclear power.
McHrozni
I think that it was invoked for one reason and one reason only - not even in the field of dreaded radioactivity is coal power safer than nuclear power.
McHrozni
Yep. Be especially wary of the coal-fired dirty bomb. I'm surprised more terrorists haven't clued in on that.
Hehe
Assuming a dirty bomb involves 20 kg of nuclear material and your source material is coal with 20 ppm of Uranium and Thorium (rare, but achievable), this means you need to burn 10 000 tons of coal to get the said nuclear material if my math is right.
I suspect there may be substantial logistical issues with secretly placing a cruiser-sized bomb somewhere and blowing it up.
On the other hand, US coal consumption is about 80 million tons yearly, or 220 thousand tons daily. Coal is usually about ten times less radioactive as the above, but this still means about 40 kg of radioactive material is released in the air daily.
McHrozni
This last bit caught my eye. I have to admit not being well informed on the subject. Are the radioactive elements soluble in air? Are they carried by particulates? How does that work?
I'm trying to get my head around what "released in the air daily" means.
They're small, but heavy particles that will settle down after a period of time. How long depends on weight, 131I was carried around the world from Japan across the US and all the way to Europe. Uranium and Thorium in coal are roughly twice as heavy.
On the other hand, Uranium has a half-life of millions of years, versus 8 days for Iodine. In terms of mass, you need kilograms of uranium for micrograms of Iodine to get the same radiation hazard ... but radioactive Iodine is a beta emitter. Beta radiation penetrates better than Alpha radiation of U and Th, but the latter is much more harmful. Alpha emitters outside of body are thought to be harmless, skin is adequate protection, alpha emitters inside of body ... well Litvinenko. Name is explanatory enough, I think.
It's very difficult to compare the two. It really is. ... until you realize you're comparing the second worst nuclear disaster in history with a daily output worldwide. A preventable exceptional event with unpreventable business as usual.
How about this: coal-fired plants produce particles you can breathe in, that are a tiny radiation hazard if you breathe them in. Nuclear power plants don't even produce that
McHrozni
Gawdzilla Sama
121.92-meter mutant fire-breathing lizard-thingy
Can I get some layspeak here? Will this thing work or not?
The catch is that even without filters, the nuclear fallout from coal-fired plants is so small it's nearly harmless, and at the same time even with the current filtration rate, the fallout is still measurably bigger than that from nuclear power plants.
In other words, nuclear pollution from nuclear power plants really, really isn't a big concern. Warming up river water is probably the biggest environmental harm they do. This isn't as trivial as it sounds since it has a notable effect on ecosystem, but it's not that critical either.
McHrozni
Gawdzilla Sama
121.92-meter mutant fire-breathing lizard-thingy
You mean the Lockheed- Martin fusion reactors?
Probably a hoax
McHrozni
Thanks.
macdoc
Philosopher
There are WAAAYYY worse things released in the air daily than radioactive particles....and not just from coal plants.
That said there was a paper that indicated the underlying link to lung cancer and smoking was not tobacco directly but that tobacco captured radioactive particles on it's big sticky leaves which then were inhaled via smoking.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11378928
•••••
Hoax?
don't be gullible Gawd...
theory sound....many a slip etc but on a tight time frame of a decade this is much easier to chart progress than the behemoths of the "within 30 years scale" sort
after all - they built this with slide rules.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird
The very fact that Lockheed put it out there ( putting reputation on the line ) and asked for help and used their own money in this is the biggest reason for me to thing there is something to it.
As to scale...the laser progentitor was no small thing either
http://media-3.web.britannica.com/eb-media/65/96865-004-3B27881A.jpg
tho the scale of energies are enormously different.
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Hoax?
don't be gullible Gawd...
theory sound....many a slip etc but on a tight time frame of a decade this is much easier to chart progress than the behemoths of the "within 30 years scale" sort
after all - they built this with slide rules.
The very fact that Lockheed put it out there ( putting reputation on the line ) and asked for help and used their own money in this is the biggest reason for me to thing there is something to it.
Hey, slide rules rule!
http://www.technologyreview.com/new...in-really-have-a-breakthrough-fusion-machine/
Hutchinson says he was only able to comment on what Lockheed has released—some pictures, diagrams, and commentary, which can be found here. “Based on that, as far as I can tell, they aren’t paying attention to the basic physics of magnetic-confinement fusion energy. And so I’m highly skeptical that they have anything interesting to offer,”
I posted a possible explanation a page or two ago, which would explain it. It's a way to catch spies, a low hanging, sweet and juicy fruit, the holy grail of energy production. Who wouldn't want that?
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see their claims proven right, especially "within five years". I just think that if something is too good to be true it usually is.
McHrozni
Every one of these arguments: reputation on line; short and therefore verifiable timescale; own money: has been invoked in support of the authenticity of the Rossi e-cat contraption discussed in another very long thread here for the past three years. It is highly improbable that there's "something to it" in Rossi's case, except an impudent swindle.
Are Lockheed not seeking funding for this anyway?
To be fair, there is a profound difference between a convicted fraudster and a major defense contractor when ti comes to reputation being on the line.
This is why I think the motive behind this particular hoax is different, even legitimate.
McHrozni
Belz...
Fiend God
...did you just compare Rossi to Lockheed ?
Beelzebuddy
Penultimate Amazing
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If you were to build a nuclear reactor now, it would have no chance of meltdown, and produce waste that is trivial to handle. All of the problems people associate with nuclear power are faults of older generations (such as Fukushima, which was 40 years old and outdated even when it was new) and have since been solved, but the new plants actually need to be built to take advantage of it.
Belz...
Fiend God
And yet the only thing that went wrong is that the generators keeping the cooling going were not placed high enough for the tsunami.
Should I not have done that? I know Lockheed is thought to have cleaned up its act since http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals, while back then Rossi was being naughty as well with his Petrol Dragon scam. http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/RossiECat/RossiPetroldragonStory.shtml
Rossi's fanboys say he has cleaned up his act too, so there's another similarity. I wonder if Rossi's friends are right, though.
macdoc
Philosopher
Once more you repeat this issue with high level spent fuel.
It's a power source - you don't bury it - you reuse it. Google IFR.
Nuclear power is cheaper than coal when externalities are included for coal.
The capital cost of the plants is very high but the operating costs are negligible compared to other fuels.
China is building 26 of them.
40% of our power in Ontario is nuclear, some 75% of France' electric power is nuclear..
This is an interesting read as you can gain insight about the immense power source nuclear is....currently it remains cheaper to mine new uranium than to recycle spent rods in many cases.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/France/
This focus on nuclear waste is a red herring dragged up again and again by anti-nukes who lie and lie.
and they don't listen to the climate scientists.
http://www.the-weinberg-foundation....ear-technologies-to-stave-off-global-warming/
One main reason for an IFR aside from reusing fuel rods ( there is enough stored to fuel the planet for 400 years with no mining of uranium ) is that it also can recycle plutonium from decommissioned weapons....something that simply must be done at some point in time.
We are decades behind in moving to later generation nuclear facilities and eliminating coal plants in the first world ....mostly due to a combination of fear mongering and chicken **** politicians who are brainless in the first place about things in science.
It is akin to still using Eniac computers .....nuclear tech has moved on from the 50s but you would hardly know it given the North American fleet of reactors.