Darunion
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2010
- Messages
- 5,389
fair enough
Might have to whip that one out at work one day haha.
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fair enough
KEEP YOUR PANTS ON!fair enough
Might have to whip that one out at work one day haha.
Problem is, we've been 'conditioned' by decades' worth of movies/media, to think of nuclear reactors as little more than ticking nuclear bombs, with a teeny-tiny, weak "harness" for us to use.1.9 Mj in for 1.3Mj out? i dont get it but "go fusion!" as it will make more sense than any "green" energy.
Problem is, we've been 'conditioned' by decades' worth of movies/media, to think of nuclear reactors as little more than ticking nuclear bombs, with a teeny-tiny, weak "harness" for us to use.
I'm almost 100% certain, that if you asked someone on the street how good a modern nuclear reactor is, they will either say "not that good", or mention "Chernobyl", simply because TV show > real life.
And nothing I said challenges this idea. I would say mind your units when you're doing math, son.1 billion watts = 1 Gigawatt
1 trillion watts = 1 Terawatt, professor
Nobody is conditioned by media, it's just people being completely out of touch with reality.
It's always the non sequitur fallacy of "because our shiny new unbuilt reactors, RBMK is of no concern, neither are the 40, 50 and 60 year old reactor designs still in service and/or exist today" or "look at our theoretical thorium / molten salt reactors!" Basically using the lure of new technology to distract from the dilapidated falling apart thing poorly hidden behind the curtain, or in the case of Chernobyl, a giant dome.
Chernobyl wasn't the only RBMK reactor complex, there were 26 total RBMK reactors and 12 of them are still in service today. But hey, at least it wasn't a Windscale, blowing radioactive farts and debris all over the countryside for years.
Bird grease?What do they use to lubricate the moving parts of a windmill?
Asking for a friend
Lubricating oil of some sort. I don't know the specifics but my brother does QC for a company in Pittsburgh that makes the stuff.What do they use to lubricate the moving parts of a windmill?
Asking for a friend
Problem is, we've been 'conditioned' by decades' worth of movies/media, to think of nuclear reactors as little more than ticking nuclear bombs, with a teeny-tiny, weak "harness" for us to use.
I'm almost 100% certain, that if you asked someone on the street how good a modern nuclear reactor is, they will either say "not that good", or mention "Chernobyl", simply because TV show > real life.
Mentioning "fusion" to most folks nowadays, and they will think "nuclear bomb", followed by what I mentioned above (sadly).
Nobody is conditioned by media, it's just people being completely out of touch with reality.
It's always the non sequitur fallacy of "because our shiny new unbuilt reactors, RBMK is of no concern, neither are the 40, 50 and 60 year old reactor designs still in service and/or exist today" or "look at our theoretical thorium / molten salt reactors!" Basically using the lure of new technology to distract from the dilapidated falling apart thing poorly hidden behind the curtain, or in the case of Chernobyl, a giant dome.
Chernobyl wasn't the only RBMK reactor complex, there were 26 total RBMK reactors and 12 of them are still in service today. But hey, at least it wasn't a Windscale, blowing radioactive farts and debris all over the countryside for years.
What do they use to lubricate the moving parts of a windmill?
Asking for a friend
I disagree. People have been conditioned by media on all sorts of views, particularly this generation. The problem is that media no longer means newspapers, radio, TV, and movies. It's expanded to include social media and influencers as well, which are capable of conditioning their followers far more quickly than previous forms of media.
While yes, older nuclear reactors have their share issues, they shouldn't be used as reasons to preclude building new properly built reactors. Let the market determine what makes more economic sense without subsidies, whether that is nuclear, solar, or otherwise. And a fund to offset the environmental impact of said energy source should be built into the initial and operating costs to make the playing field fair, which is IMO where the government should step in to regulate.
Problem is, we've been 'conditioned' by decades' worth of movies/media, to think of nuclear reactors as little more than ticking nuclear bombs, with a teeny-tiny, weak "harness" for us to use.
I'm almost 100% certain, that if you asked someone on the street how good a modern nuclear reactor is, they will either say "not that good", or mention "Chernobyl", simply because TV show > real life.
Mentioning "fusion" to most folks nowadays, and they will think "nuclear bomb", followed by what I mentioned above (sadly).
Well, if that is the case, Nuclear Fission would lose big time. It is one of the most expensive sources of power on the market already, and that's even before you start considering the fact that we have no final solution for waste.
The only places where fission have been highly successful are places where there are huge government subsidies. And that doesn't make sense. Yes, we want more carbon neutral energy, but not if it just means piling on another problem which is final storage of spent fissile materials. With all nuclear fuel ever used in this country still sitting in open pools near the plant where it was used, and not as much as a plan for final storage, it really doesn't make any sense to do anything but stop using it all together.
And it's not even carbon neutral due to the resource intensive mining and large construction projects needed to construct the plants.
Now fusion is a different. Still pretty resource intensive to build the plant, but the fuel is just hydrogen that can easily be generated from sea water using the carbon neutral electricity the plant generates, and the waste is minimal with little to no radioactivity and that which is radioactive has an extremely short half life so it disappears quickly.
That might actually be worth subsidizing for it's potential benefits to society.
I'm not so sure about that. I imagine if people hear "Fusion" they will think "Science Fiction" more than anything else. Now if you preface it as "Nuclear fusion" you might get a different response. I mean, consider MRI machines. Originally they were called NMRI machines, Nucelar Magnetic Resonance Imaging, but they had to drop the "nuclear" because people got scared of the thing and refused to go in it. Now everyone seems fine with MRI's.
It's all about messaging to not needlessly trigger the fears of the uneducated.
Well, if that is the case, Nuclear Fission would lose big time. It is one of the most expensive sources of power on the market already, and that's even before you start considering the fact that we have no final solution for waste.
The only places where fission have been highly successful are places where there are huge government subsidies. And that doesn't make sense. Yes, we want more carbon neutral energy, but not if it just means piling on another problem which is final storage of spent fissile materials. With all nuclear fuel ever used in this country still sitting in open pools near the plant where it was used, and not as much as a plan for final storage, it really doesn't make any sense to do anything but stop using it all together.
And it's not even carbon neutral due to the resource intensive mining and large construction projects needed to construct the plants.
Now fusion is a different. Still pretty resource intensive to build the plant, but the fuel is just hydrogen that can easily be generated from sea water using the carbon neutral electricity the plant generates, and the waste is minimal with little to no radioactivity and that which is radioactive has an extremely short half life so it disappears quickly.
That might actually be worth subsidizing for it's potential benefits to society.
I'm not so sure about that. I imagine if people hear "Fusion" they will think "Science Fiction" more than anything else. Now if you preface it as "Nuclear fusion" you might get a different response. I mean, consider MRI machines. Originally they were called NMRI machines, Nucelar Magnetic Resonance Imaging, but they had to drop the "nuclear" because people got scared of the thing and refused to go in it. Now everyone seems fine with MRI's.
It's all about messaging to not needlessly trigger the fears of the uneducated.
interesting standpoint, not being sarcastic. i'll try to keep the politics minimal here....
with respect to fission, yeah it's not the cheapest thing out there but for same output with wind/solar it is cheaper....sort of. yes cost for care/disposal of the waste is a concern. they rarely factor in everything when making any claims publicly. claiming current nuclear fission has zero emissions has always been nonsense when you consider mining and processing of fuel, but emissions are significantly less than say coal or natural gas. as for storing of spent fuel, i'm optimistic. there's a lot of technology out there that we're not using or developing. reprocessing spent fuel as well as some newer molten salt designs. i can't speak for the rest of the world, but i do know for a fact that here in canada they're researching putting spent fuel directly into a molten salt SMR. not sure if there would be any reprocessing or not, remember that our spent fuel is natural uranium and not enriched. no idea about how the reactor physics would work either. a spent fuel bundle out of a candu has quite a bit of plutonium in it (more than most light water designs) and that is a fissionable fuel.
as far as government subsidies goes....well i guess it depends on who your ask. our original grid and power generation was completely owned by the provincial government years ago as was the company that ran/maintained it. it was a not for profit organization believe it or not. the result was some of the cheapest hydro rates in any developed nation. but that was a long time ago now. bureaucracy ruined it amongst other things. these days there are some privately owned generators, but the provincially owned operator is still the biggest. now they're all about making a profit but all money they get goes back to the province. any money for maintenance or construction must come from the province.
so in other words is very different. subsidies doesn't even really apply here. at some point maybe we should consider what our priorities are. i'm not going to argue for one system over the other because i can clearly see the pros and cons of both.
Thank you for that.
I do agree, I don't want to get into politics. (and I'm not even sure where the border between just stating the concerns of final spent fuel storage and politics goes here) but I do feel like it is irresponsible to continue using the stuff before we have an achievable plan in place for final storage (or further processing). I think it is clear that right now at least in the U.S. no such realistic plan that won't get defeated by NIMBY's exists, which means any continued use of fission just continues to pile on the already substantial (and highly radioactive) spent fissile materials sitting in open pools next to current (and former) plants.
I'm not advocating for one solution vs another, and honestly I am not well read enough about the alternatives to advocate for one vs another either, but I am suggesting we should at least have A solution, politically approved and shovel ready before we continue to expand the amount of waste we are generating.
i completely agree that we need some sort of a solution. i think it's another thing we just sweep under the rug and nobody wants to deal with it. it comes down to money as usual. there are alternatives, but it's going to cost us.
still, our current system isn't terrible. by the time the fuel has cooled off enough in the spent pool and gets into a dry cask, it just sits there. it's well sealed up. the containers are way too heavy to worry about anyone getting into them. my only concern is similar to yours - cost over thousands of years. this is why i think we should be putting a lot of effort into things like reprocessing and more advanced reactor designs so we can 'burn up' the current spent fuel. consider this: current reactor designs only use about 2% of the fuel give or take depending on which design you're using. what if we could use 10%? the fuel cycle gets pushed much further towards the stable end state of lead. we mine 5x less uranium and therefore 5x less carbon emissions to deal with. 5x less waste fuel too.
i admit, i'm just dreaming here. its 3am so what do you expect lol.
getting back to the topic of fusion, i'm a firm believer that this will happen and it is a matter of time. it's taking us a long time for several reasons. 1. this is a very complex problem. creating a sustained fusion reaction on earth is unlike anything humans have ever done. 2. we really wanted a new iphone more. shiny electronics seem to get more investments. this is why we need something better in the meantime.
While yes, older nuclear reactors have their share issues, they shouldn't be used as reasons to preclude building new properly built reactors.
Let the market determine what makes more economic sense without subsidies, whether that is nuclear, solar, or otherwise. And a fund to offset the environmental impact of said energy source should be built into the initial and operating costs to make the playing field fair, which is IMO where the government should step in to regulate.
I believe that will go to a mix of solar, wind, and hydro along with some sort of battery backup system. Central power plants will go away in favor of more distributed power generation.
No, while yes waste heat can affect the temperature at a local scale whether it's changing the overall albedo of an area by covering it with solar panels or using a lake as a place to dump waste heat from a reactor (whether coal or nuclear), but on a global scale waste heat isn't even a rounding error compared to how much energy from the Sun hits us.That said, our biggest problem isn't really one of where our energy comes from, but of how to eject our waste heat. Sure, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps some of our heat, but generating energy, whether by solar panels or fusion, will heat the earth.
Not sure mentioning fusion is a good idea either. Ford did, and almost got away with it. Just skip the scary parts. Call it:Well, if that is the case, Nuclear Fission would lose big time. It is one of the most expensive sources of power on the market already, and that's even before you start considering the fact that we have no final solution for waste.
The only places where fission have been highly successful are places where there are huge government subsidies. And that doesn't make sense. Yes, we want more carbon neutral energy, but not if it just means piling on another problem which is final storage of spent fissile materials. With all nuclear fuel ever used in this country still sitting in open pools near the plant where it was used, and not as much as a plan for final storage, it really doesn't make any sense to do anything but stop using it all together.
And it's not even carbon neutral due to the resource intensive mining and large construction projects needed to construct the plants.
Now fusion is a different. Still pretty resource intensive to build the plant, but the fuel is just hydrogen that can easily be generated from sea water using the carbon neutral electricity the plant generates, and the waste is minimal with little to no radioactivity and that which is radioactive has an extremely short half life so it disappears quickly.
That might actually be worth subsidizing for it's potential benefits to society.
I'm not so sure about that. I imagine if people hear "Fusion" they will think "Science Fiction" more than anything else. Now if you preface it as "Nuclear fusion" you might get a different response. I mean, consider MRI machines. Originally they were called NMRI machines, Nucelar Magnetic Resonance Imaging, but they had to drop the "nuclear" because people got scared of the thing and refused to go in it. Now everyone seems fine with MRI's.
It's all about messaging to not needlessly trigger the fears of the uneducated.
It's freakish looking at Christopher Lloyd's face and thinking it looks young. Ye gods I'm getting old.
We are still way too primitive to be allowed fusion technology. We would pose a threat to ourselves and anyone else essentially caught in the blast.
Think they more meant having such high amounts of power available for any task we set. There is certainly a high probability of abuse there.The chances of a runaway fusion reaction is almost zero. Once the field dissipates, fusion will stop pretty much immediately. You just have to deal with the residual heat, which can theoretically cause a pressure or steam explosion, but nothing like a bomb, and certainly nothing like a fission reactor.
Imagine if we DID develop such a thing! We could call it a ...FUSION BOMB!!!We are still way too primitive to be allowed fusion technology. We would pose a threat to ourselves and anyone else essentially caught in the blast.
If you see what he looks like now, you'll feel young againIt's freakish looking at Christopher Lloyd's face and thinking it looks young. Ye gods I'm getting old.
Young as when the world was new?If you see what he looks like now, you'll feel young again