Only of interest to USA citizens...

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.

This is so very Crazy Years stuff, and I am motivated to at least TRY
to fight it; so I have for the first time created one of those online
petitions to "Save Paul Broun from the Lies of Science!" and get him off
a committee he is obviously completely unqualified to serve on.

http://signon.org/sign/save-paul-broun-from

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[David Loewe, Jr.]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 11:17:16, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

> Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
>basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
>Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
>Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.
>
> This is so very Crazy Years stuff, and I am motivated to at least TRY
>to fight it; so I have for the first time created one of those online
>petitions to "Save Paul Broun from the Lies of Science!" and get him off
>a committee he is obviously completely unqualified to serve on.
>
> http://signon.org/sign/save-paul-broun-from

Did you know that The Honorable Paul Broun is a Medical Doctor?

I'm wondering if there is something in the water down there.

Cynthia McKinney.

Hank Johnson.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Johnson#Comments_on_Guam_tipping_over>

And now Broun.
--
"I took a shower and I put on my best blue jeans,
I picked her up in my new VW van.
She wore a peasant blouse with nothing underneath,
I said, Hi, and she said, Yeah, I guess I am."
Dean Friedman

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 10/8/12 2:03 PM, David Loewe, Jr. wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 11:17:16, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
>> basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
>> Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
>> Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.
>>
>> This is so very Crazy Years stuff, and I am motivated to at least TRY
>> to fight it; so I have for the first time created one of those online
>> petitions to "Save Paul Broun from the Lies of Science!" and get him off
>> a committee he is obviously completely unqualified to serve on.
>>
>> http://signon.org/sign/save-paul-broun-from
>
> Did you know that The Honorable Paul Broun is a Medical Doctor?
>

No, but it seems not uncommon for MDs to be fairly contemptuous of
science anywhere else (see, for instance, Crichton, who made his living
biting the scientific hand that fed him).

[Will in New Haven]

On Oct 8, 2:13 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"

MDs and, which is a surprise to me, engineers both have large
minorities of enthusiastic anti-science loonies. I think they are all
infected with "I'm just as good as Sheldon any day" disease.

--
Will in New Haven

[Don Kuenz]

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
> basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
> Big Bang theory are "lies from hell".

He must not be Catholic.

The cosmological debate acquired religious and political
aspects. Pope Pious XII announced in 1952 that big-bang
cosmology affirmed the notion of a transcendental creator
and was in harmony with Christian dogma. Steady-state
theory, denying any beginning or end to time, was in some
minds loosely associated with atheism.

http://www.aip.org/history/cosmology/ideas/bigbang.htm

Note: steady-state was an earlier iteration of the electric universe.

--
Don Kuenz

[JRStern]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:50:42 -0500, Don Kuenz <gar...@crcomp.net>
wrote:

>Note: steady-state was an earlier iteration of the electric universe.

I would quibble with this, but it would require me admitting I'd ever
heard of too many different lunacies.

J.

[JRStern]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 11:17:16 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

>
> Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
>basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
>Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
>Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.

Yeah, and meanwhile the "pro-science" crowd are throwing billions into
scams like Solyndra and the Chevy Volt, so what are these, lies from
heaven?

These are crazy times, roll with it.

J.

[Moriarty]

On Oct 9, 2:17 am, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"

<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>         Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
> basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
> Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
> Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.
>
>         This is so very Crazy Years stuff, and I am motivated to at least TRY
> to fight it; so I have for the first time created one of those online
> petitions to "Save Paul Broun from the Lies of Science!" and get him off
> a committee he is obviously completely unqualified to serve on.

I think this is of interest to nobn-USAians too. If only so we can
point and laugh.

Feel free to laugh at our kooks in return.

-Moriarty

[Kip Williams]

JRStern wrote, On 10/8/12 3:00 PM:

Solyndra was an investment that failed. The Volt is in the process of
succeeding, apparently.

But of course, their failure, and the sinister nature thereof, are
articles of faith on the Republican side.


Kip W
rasfw

[Dimensional Traveler]

On 10/8/2012 8:17 AM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>
> Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial
> of basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
> Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
> Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.
>
> This is so very Crazy Years stuff, and I am motivated to at least
> TRY to fight it; so I have for the first time created one of those
> online petitions to "Save Paul Broun from the Lies of Science!" and get
> him off a committee he is obviously completely unqualified to serve on.
>
> http://signon.org/sign/save-paul-broun-from
>

Signed.

--
The 'Enterprise' crew in the 2009 Star Trek are adrenaline addicted,
hyper-active teenagers with ADD whose Ritalin got replaced with
methamphetamine, displaying a level of discipline that a Somali pirate
wouldn't tolerate.

[Rod Speed]

Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote
> JRStern wrote

>> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote

>>> Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
>>> basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
>>> Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
>>> Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.

>> Yeah, and meanwhile the "pro-science" crowd are throwing billions into
>> scams like Solyndra and the Chevy Volt, so what are these, lies from
>> heaven?

>> These are crazy times, roll with it.

> Solyndra was an investment that failed.

And never was going to fly.

> The Volt is in the process of succeeding, apparently.

Nope, just taking a bit longer to make it obvious that it's a dud too.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Monday, October 8, 2012 4:17:17 PM UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
>
> basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
>
> Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
>
> Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.
>
>
>
> This is so very Crazy Years stuff, and I am motivated to at least TRY
>
> to fight it; so I have for the first time created one of those online
>
> petitions to "Save Paul Broun from the Lies of Science!" and get him off
>
> a committee he is obviously completely unqualified to serve on.
>
>
>
> http://signon.org/sign/save-paul-broun-from

A point of view:

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/the-congressional-prayer-_b_1948252.html>

- basically, that it's a conspiracy - Todd Akin is in there too.

[Kay Shapero]

In article <k4uqps$g3s$1...@dont-email.me>, sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com
says...

> This is so very Crazy Years stuff, and I am motivated to at least TRY
> to fight it; so I have for the first time created one of those online
> petitions to "Save Paul Broun from the Lies of Science!" and get him off
> a committee he is obviously completely unqualified to serve on.
>
> http://signon.org/sign/save-paul-broun-from

Amen bro! Now if we could get this sort of idiot voted out of office
altogether.
--
Kay Shapero
Address munged, try my first name at kayshapero dot net.

[david.sh...@ymail.com]

On Oct 9, 1:13 am, Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote:

...Paul Broun...

>
> Amen bro!  Now if we could get this sort of idiot voted out of office
> altogether.

Having won his last election by more than 2:1, he is likely
to be there a while.

[JRStern]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2012 12:37:44 +1100, "Rod Speed"
<rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote
>> JRStern wrote
>>> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote
>
>>>> Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
>>>> basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
>>>> Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
>>>> Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.
>
>>> Yeah, and meanwhile the "pro-science" crowd are throwing billions into
>>> scams like Solyndra and the Chevy Volt, so what are these, lies from
>>> heaven?
>
>>> These are crazy times, roll with it.
>
>> Solyndra was an investment that failed.
>
>And never was going to fly.

It was never cost-competitive with other solar technologies.

Solar in general would work economically only if and when oil prices
went to about $250/barrel - or were forced there by "green" government
taxes.

(They might be marginally economical even today in high desert
regions, I like the big solar farm reflector-based systems - which are
being done but are all going bankrupt before completion. They don't
work economically. I'd build a few anyway, just as R&D, but you have
to keep the price down and be honest about what you're doing)

Space-based solar is the long, long, long term answer, ref Dyson
spheres. But not today, and probably not for 100 years, and not until
and unless we get much cheaper ground to orbit technologies, and just
private enterprise rockets won't do it.

>> The Volt is in the process of succeeding, apparently.
>
>Nope, just taking a bit longer to make it obvious that it's a dud too.

They've shut down production, it's that big a success.

Which is a pity - it's quite creative in a number of ways, and that
obnoxious little Prius has sold so many vehicles, just because it's
cute. The actual systemic efficiency is dubious at best. Volt -
should be better! Even limited range all-electric vehicles "should"
be more popular, and they SHOULD have better systemic efficiency than
hybrids, ... but they don't.

I'm mildly surprised and more than mildly sympathetic, but to say the
Volt is a success is entirely non-factual.

>> But of course, their failure, and the sinister nature thereof, are
>> articles of faith on the Republican side.

Inability to do math, and an ignorance of even junior high school
science, are apparently the qualifications for Democratic
registration.

--

This Broun is apparently a first-class idiot, I'm not defending him at
all, btw. Signs of intelligent life in Washington DC on either side,
are vanishingly rare, that's all I'm saying.

J.

[Richard R. Hershberger]

This, I gather, came as a bit of a shock to the head of GM, who is a
typical big business Republican. But since Obama came out in favor of
the US having an auto industry, the right has to be against it. And
they always were against cars with good gas mileage. So the
combination is irresistible.

[Richard R. Hershberger]

On Oct 8, 2:45 pm, Will in New Haven <bill.re...@taylorandfrancis.com>
wrote:

This is what I posted in afca on the same topic:

The thing is, while people often speak of physicians as being
scientists, they really are much more akin to being engineers. There
is some crossover, but in general engineers apply the stuff the
scientists have learned. It is nice if they actually understand the
science behind what they do, but if it comes right down to it they
just have to be able to use the handbooks (or whatever the modern
equivalent is) and the equations. A civil engineer, for example,
could deny all of 20th century physics without it much affecting his
professional life. For that matter, he could deny classical physics
as well, in the sense of believing there was some other underlying
principles between those numbers and equations he plugged in when
designing a bridge. In the medical equivalent, it is nice if the
doctor understands antibiotics, but if he actually believes disease is
caused by tiny demons, but he correctly diagnoses the demon-caused
disease and prescribes the correct anti-demon potion, the practical
effect is not that great. He wouldn't be competent as a medical
researcher, but that is where physicians spill over into being actual
scientists, and is a different discussion.

Not, mind you, that I would let this guy treat me...

Richard R. Hershberger

[Cryptoengineer]

On Oct 8, 11:17 am, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"

There's another one at change.org, with over 61,000 votes so far

https://www.change.org/petitions/house-science-committee-remove-rep-paul-broun

pt

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

If I'd known about THAT one I wouldn't have bothered with my chibi one.

[Lynn McGuire]

Honda is bringing out a plug in hybrid Accord in Jan
2013. The base price is 26K. The four cylinder
engine has 190 hp so will have some get up and go.

Lynn

[JRStern]

On Tue, 09 Oct 2012 13:36:55 -0500, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com>
wrote:

>Honda is bringing out a plug in hybrid Accord in Jan
>2013. The base price is 26K. The four cylinder
>engine has 190 hp so will have some get up and go.

That would be the standard model gas engine.

The gas engine is smaller on the hybrid, 134hp according to this:

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/honda-accord-plug-in-hybrid-prototype-drive-review

I don't see the base price, but it's likely to be higher, I'm guessing
over $30k, but that may include full EXL level trim, too.

I just closed a deal on the gas model, actually.

Honda has offered Civic hybrids, Insight hybrid, and had an earlier
Accord hybrid, none of which have done well in the market.

J.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <f6l8785oppfa3cbpr...@4ax.com>,

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote:

> They've shut down production, it's that big a success.
>
> Which is a pity - it's quite creative in a number of ways, and that
> obnoxious little Prius has sold so many vehicles, just because it's
> cute. The actual systemic efficiency is dubious at best. Volt -
> should be better! Even limited range all-electric vehicles "should"
> be more popular, and they SHOULD have better systemic efficiency than
> hybrids, ... but they don't.
>
> I'm mildly surprised and more than mildly sympathetic, but to say the
> Volt is a success is entirely non-factual.

Basically electric cars substitute coal for gasoline, not a win.

We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<99c7ad44-fcf4-44f7...@m4g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,

He might be the most competent doc in the area. For the average
condition it really is paint by number.

[JRStern]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2012 11:00:46 -0400, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>
wrote:

>Basically electric cars substitute coal for gasoline, not a win.
>
>We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.

The full cycles of the two systems are somewhat complex, but the worst
of it is a hybrid vehicle that carries two systems to do the job of
one. Weighs more, costs more, almost impossible to break even. The
absurd high mileage numbers they assign to hybrids are pure BS.

J.

[Greg Goss]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:

>Basically electric cars substitute coal for gasoline, not a win.
>
>We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.

Though maybe not thirty years ago. There were some really dumb design
decisions in that reactor used at Fukushima.

If you care about carbon, then you should be supporting nukes.
--
I used to own a mind like a steel trap.
Perhaps if I'd specified a brass one, it
wouldn't have rusted like this.

[Lynn McGuire]

The article I read said that the accord hybrid
would be present in all four trim levels and
that the base model would be $26K.
http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2012/09/2014-honda-accord-hybrid-first-look.html
Ah, it is 196 hp with both the gas motor and
the electric motor together.

The previous accord hybrid was a V6 motor and
a expensive hot rod. Honda is going cheap
this time, think the camry hybrid.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/auto-news/honda-accord-hybrids-sales-run-out-of-gas-488122/

Lynn

[James Silverton]

On 10/10/2012 1:40 PM, Greg Goss wrote:
> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> Basically electric cars substitute coal for gasoline, not a win.
>>
>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.
>
> Though maybe not thirty years ago. There were some really dumb design
> decisions in that reactor used at Fukushima.
>
> If you care about carbon, then you should be supporting nukes.
>

No, just jump 20 years to atomic fusion :-)

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not" in Reply To.

[Robert Bannister]

There are other ways of generating electricity. Almost every single
nuclear power station in Europe has something wrong with it. I don't
know what the situation is in the USA, but then I doubt anyone would
admit it.

--
Robert Bannister

[art...@yahoo.com]

On Oct 8, 11:17 am, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"

<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>         Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
> basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
> Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
> Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.

Apparently he has a problem with embryology as well. Perhaps he should
get "reprogrammed" just like those stem cells which were the basis for
this years Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine.

[JRStern]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 09:00:50 +0800, Robert Bannister
<rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:

>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.
>>
>
>There are other ways of generating electricity. Almost every single
>nuclear power station in Europe has something wrong with it. I don't
>know what the situation is in the USA, but then I doubt anyone would
>admit it.

No operating nuke plants are fail safe, afaik. All require external
power and water to cool to harmless. Consequence of the uranium
cycles used. Even the ones just recently approved to start
construction are like this.

Supposedly safer pebble-bed reactors are possible even with uranium,
and then there is a different thorium-cycle. With these, turn off
everything and they cool harmlessly, no meltdown. Plus thorium is
plentiful and cheap, the "problem" is the thorium cycle does not
produce anything useful for nuclear explosives, in fact it can consume
most other nuclear wastes.

All this is Wikipedia-quality science on my part, but it sounds good
as far as I can tell.

J.

[Brenda Clough]

He is running -unopposed- in his district. Apparently now the citizenry
are banding together, justly dismayed at being represented by a loon.
However, they have probably left it too late. Even a concerted write-in
campaign is unlikely to succeed.

Brenda


--
My latest novel SPEAK TO OUR DESIRES is available exclusively from Book
View Cafe.
http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Brenda-Clough/Novels/Speak-to-Our-Desires-Chapter-01

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 10/10/12 9:00 PM, Robert Bannister wrote:
> On 10/10/12 11:00 PM, Walter Bushell wrote:
>> In article <f6l8785oppfa3cbpr...@4ax.com>,
>> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> They've shut down production, it's that big a success.
>>>
>>> Which is a pity - it's quite creative in a number of ways, and that
>>> obnoxious little Prius has sold so many vehicles, just because it's
>>> cute. The actual systemic efficiency is dubious at best. Volt -
>>> should be better! Even limited range all-electric vehicles "should"
>>> be more popular, and they SHOULD have better systemic efficiency than
>>> hybrids, ... but they don't.
>>>
>>> I'm mildly surprised and more than mildly sympathetic, but to say the
>>> Volt is a success is entirely non-factual.
>>
>> Basically electric cars substitute coal for gasoline, not a win.
>>
>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.
>>
>
> There are other ways of generating electricity.

None as safe, clean, and as concentrated, which are the three features
you need most in your energy sources for major high-tech powers.

> Almost every single
> nuclear power station in Europe has something wrong with it. I don't
> know what the situation is in the USA, but then I doubt anyone would
> admit it.

Almost every single power plant OF ANY DESCRIPTION has something wrong
with it.

The problem with the anti-nuke brigade is that they want to hold
nuclear power to a standard of safety that no other major manufacturing
or utility industry could possibly meet -- even though the OTHER methods
of generating power, and other similar industries. HAVE killed hundreds,
even thousands of people, while -- excluding the unique clusterf**k of
Chernobyl -- commercial nuclear power hasn't ever killed ANYONE (from
radiation anyway; I'm sure they've had people fall from cooling towers
or something). Ever see people asking coal-fired plants to figure out
how to store their (just as deadly as nuke plant in its own way) wastes
for ten thousand years? Anyone ask major storage facilities for gasoline
or other dangerous chemicals how well prepared they are to survive a
deliberate assault with terrorists armed with rockets and kamikaze
planes without any leakage or fire? Of course not. Any of these major
chemical industry plants designed to withstand a Richter 9 earthquake
followed by a 30-meter tsunami? No. Yet these are the standards people
want nuclear plants to meet, even though no other even vaguely related
installations are subjected to restrictions of that nature.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 09 Oct 2012 13:18:15 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E.
Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
<news:k51m8n$jc8$2...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:

> On 10/9/12 1:13 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:

[...]

>> There's another one at change.org, with over 61,000 votes
>> so far

>> https://www.change.org/petitions/house-science-committee-remove-rep-paul-broun

> If I'd known about THAT one I wouldn't have bothered with
> my chibi one.

The more, the better. I was quite happy to sign yours
despite having signed the Change.org petition a while back.

Brian

[Cryptoengineer]

On Oct 11, 6:03 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Oct 2012 13:18:15 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E.

> Spoor)" <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in

> <news:k51m8n$jc8$2...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> > On 10/9/12 1:13 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> There's another one at change.org, with over 61,000 votes
> >> so far

> >>https://www.change.org/petitions/house-science-committee-remove-rep-p...

> > If I'd known about THAT one I wouldn't have bothered with
> > my chibi one.
>
> The more, the better.  I was quite happy to sign yours
> despite having signed the Change.org petition a while back.

I considered doing this. However, it seems to me like voting twice.
I'd rather that the number of people who want Broun out be
supportable, and not subject to complaints of duplicates.

pt

[Brett Dunbar]

In message <g8ac78hmicmpk2vku...@4ax.com>, JRStern
<JRS...@foobar.invalid> writes

> Plus thorium is plentiful and cheap, the "problem" is the thorium
>cycle does not produce anything useful for nuclear explosives, in fact
>it can consume most other nuclear wastes.

Actually the problem is more that there are existing designs for Uranium
reactors, Uranium is cheap and common enough that Thorium has no real
advantage there. Uranium got the funding in the first place due to being
militarily useful and we have no existing designs for a Thorium reactor
there just hasn't been much reason for investing in developing a useable
Thorium reactor.. While we think we know the basic physics we still have
significant engineering obstacles to overcome. It is a problem of
similar kind if lesser degree to that faced by fusion.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Livejournal http://brett-dunbar.livejournal.com/
Brett Dunbar

[JRStern]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:03:30 +0100, Brett Dunbar
<br...@dimetrodon.me.uk> wrote:

>In message <g8ac78hmicmpk2vku...@4ax.com>, JRStern
><JRS...@foobar.invalid> writes
>> Plus thorium is plentiful and cheap, the "problem" is the thorium
>>cycle does not produce anything useful for nuclear explosives, in fact
>>it can consume most other nuclear wastes.
>
>Actually the problem is more that there are existing designs for Uranium
>reactors, Uranium is cheap and common enough that Thorium has no real
>advantage there. Uranium got the funding in the first place due to being
>militarily useful and we have no existing designs for a Thorium reactor
>there just hasn't been much reason for investing in developing a useable
>Thorium reactor.. While we think we know the basic physics we still have
>significant engineering obstacles to overcome. It is a problem of
>similar kind if lesser degree to that faced by fusion.

Fusion has proved far more difficult than imagined.

From what I've read, the thorium challenge isn't any greater than
already solved for uranium designs, and offers a lot of extra safety
features, and if the cheapness of thorium isn't needed at least it's
not more expensive, and seems to have thousands of years more
available supply.

Enough so that by that time either we can economically harvest solar
power, or maybe even get that stupid fusion working.

J.

[Brett Dunbar]

In message <v93e789hl6pt8283j...@4ax.com>, JRStern
<JRS...@foobar.invalid> writes

The engineering challenge is non-trivial although likely to be much
easier than fusion. Then again we thought fusion would be a lot easier
than it has turned out to be. Developing Uranium reactors wasn't easy
either, and as we already have them it hasn't really been worth
investing in Thorium. The supply of Uranium isn't a significant
constraint. The ore is plentiful, not as common as Thorium but is still
pretty common to the point that the fuel cost isn't a problem. Uranium
can also be extracted from seawater at about ten times the cost of
mining it, the quantity available that way is essentially unlimited.

[Quadibloc]

On Oct 10, 7:00 pm, Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
> On 10/10/12 11:00 PM, Walter Bushell wrote:

> > We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.
>
> There are other ways of generating electricity.

Yes, there are.

1) Burning fossil fuels. Produces carbon, contributes to global
warming, what we're trying to get away from.

2) Hydroelectricity. Great and cheap. Unfortunately, not every
location is close enough to a suitable site.

3) Solar. Unfortunately, daylight is normally not present on a 24-hour
basis at most locations.

4) Wind. Unfortunately, the wind does not always blow.

So if you want to get rid of (1), you have (2) as the obvious choice -
so obvious that it's already been taken whenever it could be.

While (3) and (4) can be used to *reduce* fossil fuel consumption,
however, they cannot _eliminate_ it; for that, you need nuclear.

On the assumption, of course, that:

a) we are not going to change our lifestyles to accommodate to
electricity not being available reliably 24/7,

b) we are not going to invest trillions of dollars in a continent-
spanning electricity grid of greater capacity so that we can always
get electricity from somewhere where there is wind, and

c) we are not going to tolerate the availability of electricity being
constricted in those areas without access to hydroelectricity.

I think those three assumptions are so reasonable - and hoping that
one of them won't be true in time to save the planet is reckless -
that nuclear really is an option we must include.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Oct 8, 3:17 pm, Moriarty <blue...@ivillage.com> wrote:
> On Oct 9, 2:17 am, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"

>
> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >         Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
> > basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
> > Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
> > Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.
>

> >         This is so very Crazy Years stuff, and I am motivated to at least TRY
> > to fight it; so I have for the first time created one of those online
> > petitions to "Save Paul Broun from the Lies of Science!" and get him off
> > a committee he is obviously completely unqualified to serve on.
>

> I think this is of interest to nobn-USAians too.  If only so we can
> point and laugh.
>
> Feel free to laugh at our kooks in return.

Actually, it is of interest to the whole world for far more practical
reasons.

If anything goes wrong with the U.S., there are no other free
countries with the capacity to defend the existence of liberty in the
world.

The combined nuclear arsenals of France and Britain, even throwing in
the possible alleged capability of Israel, are hardly going to give
Russia and China pause.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Oct 10, 8:29 pm, Brenda Clough <BrendaWri...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> He is running -unopposed- in his district.  Apparently now the citizenry
> are banding together, justly dismayed at being represented by a loon.
> However, they have probably left it too late.  Even a concerted write-in
> campaign is unlikely to succeed.

Since he is _Representative_ Paul Broun, and not _Senator_ Paul Broun,
they've only lost two years. Not six. So there is a bright side to
look at.

Now, as to whether the lower turnout in off-year elections is a plus
or a minus, though, I can't say.

John Savard

[Walter Bushell]

In article <adlq8b...@mid.individual.net>,

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> >Basically electric cars substitute coal for gasoline, not a win.
> >
> >We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.
>
> Though maybe not thirty years ago. There were some really dumb design
> decisions in that reactor used at Fukushima.
>
> If you care about carbon, then you should be supporting nukes.

If you are green you should be supporting nukes. As Kermit says, "It's
not easy being green."

[Walter Bushell]

In article <k54ptn$270$1...@dont-email.me>,

James Silverton <jim.si...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On 10/10/2012 1:40 PM, Greg Goss wrote:
> > Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Basically electric cars substitute coal for gasoline, not a win.
> >>
> >> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.
> >
> > Though maybe not thirty years ago. There were some really dumb design
> > decisions in that reactor used at Fukushima.
> >
> > If you care about carbon, then you should be supporting nukes.
> >
> No, just jump 20 years to atomic fusion :-)

LFTRs will take us a thousand years, by that time we should have
fusion, maybe.

[Cryptoengineer]

On Oct 11, 2:24 pm, JRStern <JRSt...@foobar.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:03:30 +0100, Brett Dunbar
>
> <br...@dimetrodon.me.uk> wrote:

> >In message <g8ac78hmicmpk2vku21necqdc0haqic...@4ax.com>, JRStern
> ><JRSt...@foobar.invalid> writes

> >> Plus thorium is plentiful and cheap, the "problem" is the thorium
> >>cycle does not produce anything useful for nuclear explosives, in fact
> >>it can consume most other nuclear wastes.
>
> >Actually the problem is more that there are existing designs for Uranium
> >reactors, Uranium is cheap and common enough that Thorium has no real
> >advantage there. Uranium got the funding in the first place due to being
> >militarily useful and we have no existing designs for a Thorium reactor
> >there just hasn't been much reason for investing in developing a useable
> >Thorium reactor.. While we think we know the basic physics we still have
> >significant engineering obstacles to overcome. It is a problem of
> >similar kind if lesser degree to that faced by fusion.
>
> Fusion has proved far more difficult than imagined.
>
> From what I've read, the thorium challenge isn't any greater than
> already solved for uranium designs, and offers a lot of extra safety
> features, and if the cheapness of thorium isn't needed at least it's
> not more expensive, and seems to have thousands of years more
> available supply.
>
> Enough so that by that time either we can economically harvest solar
> power, or maybe even get that stupid fusion working.
>
> J.

Check Wikipedia; there are plenty of present and past thorium
reactors; some produced hundreds of megawatts (though most used Th+U
mixes)

pt

[Walter Bushell]

In article <6mJaR4By...@dimetrodon.me.uk>,

Brett Dunbar <br...@dimetrodon.me.uk> wrote:

> In message <g8ac78hmicmpk2vku...@4ax.com>, JRStern
> <JRS...@foobar.invalid> writes
> > Plus thorium is plentiful and cheap, the "problem" is the thorium
> >cycle does not produce anything useful for nuclear explosives, in fact
> >it can consume most other nuclear wastes.
>
> Actually the problem is more that there are existing designs for Uranium
> reactors, Uranium is cheap and common enough that Thorium has no real
> advantage there. Uranium got the funding in the first place due to being
> militarily useful and we have no existing designs for a Thorium reactor
> there just hasn't been much reason for investing in developing a useable
> Thorium reactor.. While we think we know the basic physics we still have
> significant engineering obstacles to overcome. It is a problem of
> similar kind if lesser degree to that faced by fusion.

Much lesser degree. We already have reached with LFTRs producing more
power than we put in and even producing useful amounts of power. The
remaining problems are basically industrial chemistry.

It remains unclear whether any practical approach to producing fusion
power on Earth is possible. Every time the fusion guys think they got
it solved, another obstacle appears and it is not even clear that the
waste problem will be less with fusion. You have superconducting
magnets close to the reaction and fusion release far more neutrons per
erg than fission.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <u3APFuDX...@dimetrodon.me.uk>,

But LFTRs have the advantage that they can be fail safe, no meltdowns,
they just calmly stop working.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <k55c1c$3a8$1...@dont-email.me>,

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

> Ever see people asking coal-fired plants to figure out
> how to store their (just as deadly as nuke plant in its own way) wastes
> for ten thousand years?

Mercury from burning coal has polluted the oceans and mercury has an
infinite half life. So coal is more deadly.

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<d859493b-fc03-4122...@r10g2000pbd.googlegroups.com>,

Losing the top 20 cites would give either or both countries pause. Of
course, Russia and China could lean heavily, but they are more likely
to ask for economic concessions. OTOH, playing balance of power should
be possible.

[JRStern]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:34:22 -0400, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>
wrote:

>It remains unclear whether any practical approach to producing fusion
>power on Earth is possible. Every time the fusion guys think they got
>it solved, another obstacle appears and it is not even clear that the
>waste problem will be less with fusion. You have superconducting
>magnets close to the reaction and fusion release far more neutrons per
>erg than fission.

Agree on both points.

Would be almost as irritating, as if there is no way to exceed light
speed in the real universe.

Going to need fusion (at least) to do any serious traveling in space
anyway, warp or no warp. Or some really good magic.

J.

[JRStern]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:27:52 -0400, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>
wrote:

I think it was Bruce Banner said that.

J.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:fc2bd2af-dbaa-4321...@e18g2000yqo.googlegroups.
com:

And Indis is building another, with eyes towards a commerical
program. Active research announced within the last year.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in
news:proto-8CE9F4....@news.panix.com:

If we're lucky, maybe in a thousand years, practical fusion will only
be 19 years away.

[Kip Williams]

JRStern wrote, On 10/11/12 6:07 PM:

For him, it's harder to be not-green.


Kip W
rasfw

[Mark Zenier]

In article <g8ac78hmicmpk2vku...@4ax.com>,

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote:
>On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 09:00:50 +0800, Robert Bannister
><rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>
>>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.
>>>
>>
>>There are other ways of generating electricity. Almost every single
>>nuclear power station in Europe has something wrong with it. I don't
>>know what the situation is in the USA, but then I doubt anyone would
>>admit it.
>
>No operating nuke plants are fail safe, afaik. All require external
>power and water to cool to harmless. Consequence of the uranium
>cycles used. Even the ones just recently approved to start
>construction are like this.
>
>Supposedly safer pebble-bed reactors are possible even with uranium,
>and then there is a different thorium-cycle. With these, turn off
>everything and they cool harmlessly, no meltdown. Plus thorium is
>plentiful and cheap, the "problem" is the thorium cycle does not
>produce anything useful for nuclear explosives,

...

Unfortunatly, this is not true. Thorium 232 + Neutron becomes U233.
In the Thorium reactors I've heard about, this is an necessary and
ongoing process, as the U233 is the real fuel. The advantage for
these molten fuel reactor designs?/proposals? is that the U233 gets
fissioned as soon as possible. (There're still those magic boxes
in the process flow chart that filter out the fission products from
the molten fuel that seem to need a bit of explanation, too. What
happens to that crap?)

But U233 blows up just fine. According to Richard Rhodes books on the
making of the atomic bomb, solid Thorium can be transmuted to U233 in
the same method as the manufacture of Plutonium-239, and some devices
were made. And tested. I remember a note in the list of bomb tests in
_The Effects of Atomic Weapons_ (the US goverment book from the early
1960s) that, in at least one test, the device used U233.

U233 is also one of those radiologically problematic isotopes, with
a half life of around 150,000 years. About 1/6th as active as Pu239.
But it's still in that category of "too hot to be safe, but it's not
going to go away soon".


Mark Zenier mze...@eskimo.com
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 10/11/12 3:12 PM, Mark Zenier wrote:

> U233 is also one of those radiologically problematic isotopes, with
> a half life of around 150,000 years. About 1/6th as active as Pu239.
> But it's still in that category of "too hot to be safe, but it's not
> going to go away soon".

But it'll go away a lot sooner than mercury, arsenic, and so on which
come from coal.

[Rod Speed]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> JRStern wrote
>>>> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote

>>>>> Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete

>>>>> denial of basic scientific truths, saying that things such as
>>>>> evolution

>>>>> and the Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also
>>>>> serving
>>>>> on the Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.

>>>> Yeah, and meanwhile the "pro-science" crowd are throwing billions into
>>>> scams like Solyndra and the Chevy Volt, so what are these, lies from
>>>> heaven?

>>>> These are crazy times, roll with it.

>>> Solyndra was an investment that failed.

>> And never was going to fly.

> It was never cost-competitive with other solar technologies.

> Solar in general would work economically only
> if and when oil prices went to about $250/barrel

Its got nothing to do with the price of oil, it's the price
of coal and nukes that matter with its economics.

> - or were forced there by "green" government taxes.

Again, not with the price of OIL.

> (They might be marginally economical even today in high desert regions,

Nope, nukes leave them for dead.

Solar electricity generation is only viable when a long way
from the mains grid and even then only for the lower power
devices like remote communications repeaters etc.

> I like the big solar farm reflector-based systems

I don't, nukes leave them for dead.

> - which are being done but are all going bankrupt
> before completion. They don't work economically.

And never will either.

> I'd build a few anyway, just as R&D,

Pointless if they aren't going to be economically viable.

> but you have to keep the price down and
> be honest about what you're doing)

> Space-based solar is the long, long, long term answer, ref Dyson spheres.

Nope, nukes back here leave them for dead.

> But not today, and probably not for 100 years, and not until
> and unless we get much cheaper ground to orbit technologies,
> and just private enterprise rockets won't do it.

And nukes will leave them for dead.

>>> The Volt is in the process of succeeding, apparently.

>> Nope, just taking a bit longer to make it obvious that it's a dud too.

> They've shut down production, it's that big a success.

> Which is a pity - it's quite creative in a number of ways,

But completely uneconomic.

> and that obnoxious little Prius has sold so many vehicles,
> just because it's cute. The actual systemic efficiency is
> dubious at best. Volt - should be better!

But completely uneconomic.

> Even limited range all-electric vehicles "should"
> be more popular, and they SHOULD have better
> systemic efficiency than hybrids, ... but they don't.

> I'm mildly surprised and more than mildly sympathetic,
> but to say the Volt is a success is entirely non-factual.

Yep, its just another technowank.

[Rod Speed]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote
> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote

>> They've shut down production, it's that big a success.

>> Which is a pity - it's quite creative in a number of ways, and that

>> obnoxious little Prius has sold so many vehicles, just because it's
>> cute. The actual systemic efficiency is dubious at best. Volt -

>> should be better! Even limited range all-electric vehicles "should"

>> be more popular, and they SHOULD have better systemic efficiency than
>> hybrids, ... but they don't.

>> I'm mildly surprised and more than mildly sympathetic,
>> but to say the Volt is a success is entirely non-factual.

> Basically electric cars substitute coal for gasoline,

Not in places with a clue like France where the
absolute bulk of the electricity comes from nukes.

> not a win.

Its not a win for other reasons, particularly
the exotic metals used in the batterys.

> We need nukes <sob>

No point in sobbing about it.

> and we need them ten years ago.

The french don�t.

[Rod Speed]

Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote
> Walter Bushell wrote

>> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote

>>> They've shut down production, it's that big a success.

>>> Which is a pity - it's quite creative in a number of ways, and that
>>> obnoxious little Prius has sold so many vehicles, just because it's
>>> cute. The actual systemic efficiency is dubious at best. Volt -
>>> should be better! Even limited range all-electric vehicles "should"
>>> be more popular, and they SHOULD have better systemic efficiency
>>> than hybrids, ... but they don't.

>>> I'm mildly surprised and more than mildly sympathetic,
>>> but to say the Volt is a success is entirely non-factual.

>> Basically electric cars substitute coal for gasoline, not a win.

>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.

> There are other ways of generating electricity.

Yes, but none of them work as well, particularly when
you consider the carbon emissions and the economics.

> Almost every single nuclear power station
> in Europe has something wrong with it.

Just as true of the non nukes too.

> I don't know what the situation is in the USA,

That's obvious.

> but then I doubt anyone would admit it.

They have done anyway.

[Rod Speed]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote
> Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote

>>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.

>> There are other ways of generating electricity. Almost

>> every single nuclear power station in Europe has something

>> wrong with it. I don't know what the situation is in the USA,

>> but then I doubt anyone would admit it.

> No operating nuke plants are fail safe, afaik.

That's not right. The CANDU nukes are.

> All require external power and water to cool to harmless.

That's not right either and many of them have more
than one nuke on site so they can use the power from
the others if required and so it isnt always external power
either in the sense of external to the generating site.

> Consequence of the uranium cycles used.

Fraid not. Many of the non power nukes
like with subs etc are fail safe and they
don't have external power either.

> Even the ones just recently approved
> to start construction are like this.

That's not right either.

> Supposedly safer pebble-bed reactors are possible even
> with uranium, and then there is a different thorium-cycle.

The main advantage with thorium is that they cant
use the byproducts to produce nuke weapons.

> With these, turn off everything and
> they cool harmlessly, no meltdown.

That's true of some uranium nukes too.

> Plus thorium is plentiful and cheap, the "problem" is the
> thorium cycle does not produce anything useful for nuclear

> explosives, in fact it can consume most other nuclear wastes.

So can uranium nukes on that last.

> All this is Wikipedia-quality science on my
> part, but it sounds good as far as I can tell.

Fraid not on the fail safe.

[Rod Speed]

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote

> Robert Bannister wrote

>> Walter Bushell wrote
>>> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote

>>>> They've shut down production, it's that big a success.

>>>> Which is a pity - it's quite creative in a number of ways, and that
>>>> obnoxious little Prius has sold so many vehicles, just because it's
>>>> cute. The actual systemic efficiency is dubious at best. Volt -
>>>> should be better! Even limited range all-electric vehicles "should"
>>>> be more popular, and they SHOULD have better systemic efficiency than
>>>> hybrids, ... but they don't.

>>>> I'm mildly surprised and more than mildly sympathetic,
>>>> but to say the Volt is a success is entirely non-factual.

>>> Basically electric cars substitute coal for gasoline, not a win.

>>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.

>> There are other ways of generating electricity.

> None as safe, clean, and as concentrated, which are the three features
> you need most in your energy sources for major high-tech powers.

>> Almost every single nuclear power station in Europe has
>> something wrong with it. I don't know what the situation
>> is in the USA, but then I doubt anyone would admit it.

> Almost every single power plant OF ANY DESCRIPTION

> has something wrong with it.

> The problem with the anti-nuke brigade is that they want
> to hold nuclear power to a standard of safety that no other
> major manufacturing or utility industry could possibly meet

Sure, but that's because the consequences can be so
much more catastrophic than with any other major
manufacturing or utility industry can produce with
the only real exception being with dam collapse etc.

> -- even though the OTHER methods of generating
> power, and other similar industries. HAVE killed
> hundreds, even thousands of people,

Not normally those not involved in the operation tho.

The main exception is with the emissions
from the coal fired power system.

> while -- excluding the unique clusterf**k of Chernobyl -- commercial
> nuclear power hasn't ever killed ANYONE (from radiation anyway;

But has disrupted lives much more spectacularly than with
any other major industry or power generator ever has.

> I'm sure they've had people fall from cooling towers or something).

> Ever see people asking coal-fired plants to figure out how to store
> their (just as deadly as nuke plant in its own way) wastes for ten
> thousand years?

Because there is nothing special with their wastes and they can
be and are used for all sorts of stuff like concrete aggregate etc.

> Anyone ask major storage facilities for gasoline or other
> dangerous chemicals how well prepared they are to survive
> a deliberate assault with terrorists armed with rockets and
> kamikaze planes without any leakage or fire? Of course not.

They do now with oil refinerys etc.

> Any of these major chemical industry plants designed to withstand
> a Richter 9 earthquake followed by a 30-meter tsunami? No.

Because that doesn't have much effect on those around the plant.

> Yet these are the standards people want nuclear plants to meet,

For good reason.

> even though no other even vaguely related installations
> are subjected to restrictions of that nature.

That's not correct with dams particularly.

[Rod Speed]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote
> Moriarty <blue...@ivillage.com> wrote

>> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote

>>> Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete
>>> denial of basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution
>>> and the Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also
>>> serving on the Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.

>>> This is so very Crazy Years stuff, and I am motivated to at least TRY
>>> to fight it; so I have for the first time created one of those online
>>> petitions to "Save Paul Broun from the Lies of Science!" and get him
>>> off a committee he is obviously completely unqualified to serve on.

>> I think this is of interest to nobn-USAians too.
>> If only so we can point and laugh.

>> Feel free to laugh at our kooks in return.

> Actually, it is of interest to the whole world for far more practical
> reasons.

We'll see...

> If anything goes wrong with the U.S., there are no other free countries
> with the capacity to defend the existence of liberty in the world.

That line in VERY arguable indeed given Iraq and Afghanistan.

And a single fool like Broun isn't going to produce the situation
where the US isn't going to be able to defend the existence of
liberty in the world anyway. The systems in the great democracys
are plenty robust enough to be able to handle the occasional fool
fine. They are DESIGNED to do that.

> The combined nuclear arsenals of France and Britain,
> even throwing in the possible alleged capability of
> Israel, are hardly going to give Russia and China pause.

Russia and China aren't actually stupid enough to
be at any risk to the existence of liberty in the world.

Its very arguable indeed that they ever were too.

[Rod Speed]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote

> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote

>> Ever see people asking coal-fired plants to figure
>> out how to store their (just as deadly as nuke plant
>> in its own way) wastes for ten thousand years?

> Mercury from burning coal has polluted the oceans

Yes, but only minimally.

> and mercury has an infinite half life.

Yes.

> So coal is more deadly.

Nope, because that mercury pollution isn't DEADLY at all.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
news:k59gu8$qbk$2...@dont-email.me:

> On 10/11/12 3:12 PM, Mark Zenier wrote:
>
>> U233 is also one of those radiologically problematic isotopes,
>> with a half life of around 150,000 years. About 1/6th as
>> active as Pu239. But it's still in that category of "too hot to
>> be safe, but it's not going to go away soon".
>
> But it'll go away a lot sooner than mercury, arsenic, and
> so on which
> come from coal.
>

Bit more potential for short term damage, though, don't you think?
And by short term, we're talking thousands of years.

I think I'd rather live in a house with lead based paint than next to
a radioactive waste dump, you know?

[Rod Speed]

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote

> Mark Zenier wrote

>> U233 is also one of those radiologically problematic
>> isotopes, with a half life of around 150,000 years. About
>> 1/6th as active as Pu239. But it's still in that category of
>> "too hot to be safe, but it's not going to go away soon".

> But it'll go away a lot sooner than mercury,
> arsenic, and so on which come from coal.

Yes, but those you listed don't really matter
than much when they come from coal.

[JRStern]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:05:05 +1100, "Rod Speed"
<rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Solar in general would work economically only
>> if and when oil prices went to about $250/barrel
>
>Its got nothing to do with the price of oil, it's the price
>of coal and nukes that matter with its economics.

Well, oil can't really *get* to $250 due to coal, you could convert
coal to whatever at less than $150, except if the greens won't let you
cuz it gives off that horrible poisonous evil CO2.

And the economics of nukes are equally irrelevant if we won't build
them, plus the economics of the nukes we have built to date, aren't as
good as all that.

COULD we do a lot better with nukes? Yes. I don't know what the
equivalent price of oil would be, probably well under $100. It would
be nice if we would at least approve Yucca Mountain for the waste, or
start up a thorium cycle to burn it.

J.

[JRStern]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:12:13 GMT, mze...@eskimo.com (Mark Zenier)
wrote:

>>Supposedly safer pebble-bed reactors are possible even with uranium,
>>and then there is a different thorium-cycle. With these, turn off
>>everything and they cool harmlessly, no meltdown. Plus thorium is
>>plentiful and cheap, the "problem" is the thorium cycle does not
>>produce anything useful for nuclear explosives,
>...
>
>Unfortunatly, this is not true. Thorium 232 + Neutron becomes U233.
>In the Thorium reactors I've heard about, this is an necessary and
>ongoing process, as the U233 is the real fuel. The advantage for
>these molten fuel reactor designs?/proposals? is that the U233 gets
>fissioned as soon as possible. (There're still those magic boxes
>in the process flow chart that filter out the fission products from
>the molten fuel that seem to need a bit of explanation, too. What
>happens to that crap?)

But I thought that was the point, it is burned within some very short
time of its formation, so even if you stopped the plant and rendered
the fuel you wouldn't find enough to make it worthwhile.

J.

[JRStern]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:23:38 +1100, "Rod Speed"
<rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote
>> Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote
>
>>>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.
>
>>> There are other ways of generating electricity. Almost
>>> every single nuclear power station in Europe has something
>>> wrong with it. I don't know what the situation is in the USA,
>>> but then I doubt anyone would admit it.
>
>> No operating nuke plants are fail safe, afaik.
>
>That's not right. The CANDU nukes are.

Reviewing the Wikipedia article, they seem safer, but are not
failsafe. There have been safer designs on paper for fifty years. I
think they are not built because they require a different fuel cycle
infrastructure, and nobody wants to go first.

Now before someone bothers, it's not like even the Fukashima plants
actually blew up, even though everything possible went wrong. Most
newer designs are somewhat safer even than that. So apparently
requiring real failsafe is arguably not a critical issue. As they
say, close enough for government work.

J.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 10/12/12 1:29 PM, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
> news:k59gu8$qbk$2...@dont-email.me:
>
>> On 10/11/12 3:12 PM, Mark Zenier wrote:
>>
>>> U233 is also one of those radiologically problematic isotopes,
>>> with a half life of around 150,000 years. About 1/6th as
>>> active as Pu239. But it's still in that category of "too hot to
>>> be safe, but it's not going to go away soon".
>>
>> But it'll go away a lot sooner than mercury, arsenic, and
>> so on which
>> come from coal.
>>
> Bit more potential for short term damage, though, don't you think?
> And by short term, we're talking thousands of years.
>
> I think I'd rather live in a house with lead based paint than next to
> a radioactive waste dump, you know?
>

But the accurate comparison would be living next to either a
radioactive waste dump or a toxic waste dump, and in that case I'm
really not sure that I want to be near either one if done poorly. Love
Canal residents can tell you about all that.

Radiation's danger is still inverse-square related, so if you're not
very close to the radiation source, it's not going to hurt you unless it
escapes into the environment... and the same's true of regular toxic
waste dumps; it won't hurt you just SITTING there, it's when it gets out
into your environment that it hurts.

And the AMOUNT of toxic waste produced by things like coal plants is
just monstrous -- orders of magnitude more than nuclear plants. I seem
to recall something that indicated that the amount of nasty waste
produced by a coal plant during operation was something close to the
actual mass of the plant itself. (does a search) Well, I don't know how
much a plant masses, but according to at least a couple sources,a
typical 500-megawatt coal plant gives us over 125,000 tons of ash and
193,000 tons of sludge from the smokestack scrubber each year. That's
the equivalent in mass of about three aircraft carriers!

Nuclear plants, by comparison, generate roughly 20 tons or so of
high-level waste (the stuff you really wanna worry about) per year. So
about four orders of magnitude less waste to handle, which means less
space that you need. Take away one order of magnitude because you do,
after all, want to be physically separated from radiation by some
distance. Still it's a thousand times less.

O'course, there's the question of how deadly each thing is, and how
easily (or not) it can escape into the environment and whether there's
reason to think that one will travel easier, but just sheer bulk of
nasty chemical material will add challenges to your storage approach.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in

news:k59pnj$pc3$1...@dont-email.me:

> On 10/12/12 1:29 PM, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
>> news:k59gu8$qbk$2...@dont-email.me:
>>
>>> On 10/11/12 3:12 PM, Mark Zenier wrote:
>>>
>>>> U233 is also one of those radiologically problematic
>>>> isotopes, with a half life of around 150,000 years. About
>>>> 1/6th as active as Pu239. But it's still in that category of
>>>> "too hot to be safe, but it's not going to go away soon".
>>>
>>> But it'll go away a lot sooner than mercury, arsenic,
>>> and so on which
>>> come from coal.
>>>
>> Bit more potential for short term damage, though, don't you
>> think? And by short term, we're talking thousands of years.
>>
>> I think I'd rather live in a house with lead based paint than
>> next to a radioactive waste dump, you know?
>>
>
> But the accurate comparison would be living next to either
> a
> radioactive waste dump or a toxic waste dump, and in that case
> I'm really not sure that I want to be near either one if done
> poorly. Love Canal residents can tell you about all that.

However, if we want to go for accurate comparison, the average coal
plant doesn't actually produce a toxic waste dump. The average
nuclear plant *does* produce nuclear waste, 100% of the time.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in
news:2iog78dmdq7ndm39i...@4ax.com:

> Now before someone bothers, it's not like even the Fukashima
> plants actually blew up,

Er, actually, as I recall, there was at least one actual explosion
there. Not a nuclear explosion, no, but still.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbBk0Y6cQZQ

[Rod Speed]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote

>> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote

>>> Solar in general would work economically only
>>> if and when oil prices went to about $250/barrel

>> Its got nothing to do with the price of oil, it's the price
>> of coal and nukes that matter with its economics.

> Well, oil can't really *get* to $250 due to coal, you
> could convert coal to whatever at less than $150,

True.

> except if the greens won't let you cuz it
> gives off that horrible poisonous evil CO2.

Can't see anyone being silly enough to let the greens
have any say on that if the price does get that high.

> And the economics of nukes are equally
> irrelevant if we won't build them,

But we have built them, and its only the fools like the
krauts that are actually stupid enough to even propose
shutting down all those they have already built.

And I bet the kraut voters will pull the plug on that
fool Merkle if the price of oil ever does get that high.

> plus the economics of the nukes we have
> built to date, aren't as good as all that.

That's just plain wrong with the french system.

It will be interesting to see what that does to the french
economy over time with them being able to do electricity
MUCH more cheaply than the stupid kraut approach on that.

Corse we may actually see the whole thing fudged
and the krauts just buy cheap electricity from france.

> COULD we do a lot better with nukes? Yes. I don't know what
> the equivalent price of oil would be, probably well under $100.

Again, its not the price of oil that matters, it's the price of coal.

And that gets complicated too with some like Australia
having hundreds of years of brown coal available with
it not being any use for anything but power generation.

While the fools in charge did at one time propose phasing
the use of brown coal out, it looks like even those fools have
come to their senses on that now and that particularly govt
will have the plug pulled on it come the next election anyway.

> It would be nice if we would at least approve Yucca Mountain
> for the waste, or start up a thorium cycle to burn it.

It makes no sense to dump the used fuel anywhere, it only
makes sense to reprocess it into new fuel. It isnt done all
that much currently because the economics doesn't work
while ever the cost of new mined uranium is so cheap.

You don't need a thorium cycle to burn it either, tho there
is real value in going that route to use what isnt used in
the first use, just as more nuke fuel.

[Rod Speed]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote

> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote
>>> Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote

>>>>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.

>>>> There are other ways of generating electricity. Almost
>>>> every single nuclear power station in Europe has something
>>>> wrong with it. I don't know what the situation is in the USA,
>>>> but then I doubt anyone would admit it.

>>> No operating nuke plants are fail safe, afaik.

>> That's not right. The CANDU nukes are.

> Reviewing the Wikipedia article, they seem safer, but are not failsafe.

I should have said that they can be if you want failsafe.

> There have been safer designs on paper for fifty years. I think
> they are not built because they require a different fuel cycle
> infrastructure, and nobody wants to go first.

In fact we have quite a few failsafe designs in use, most obviously
with nukes in submarines and naval vessels and radar satellites etc.

> Now before someone bothers, it's not like even the Fukashima
> plants actually blew up, even though everything possible went
> wrong. Most newer designs are somewhat safer even than that.

Much safer than that in fact.

> So apparently requiring real failsafe is arguably not a critical issue.

It is for some other situations like submarines, ships and radar satellites.

[Rod Speed]

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote
> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote
>> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote

>>> Mark Zenier wrote

>>>> U233 is also one of those radiologically problematic isotopes,
>>>> with a half life of around 150,000 years. About 1/6th as
>>>> active as Pu239. But it's still in that category of "too hot to
>>>> be safe, but it's not going to go away soon".

>>> But it'll go away a lot sooner than mercury, arsenic, and
>>> so on which come from coal.

>> Bit more potential for short term damage, though, don't you think?
>> And by short term, we're talking thousands of years.

>> I think I'd rather live in a house with lead based paint than next to a
>> radioactive waste dump, you know?

> But the accurate comparison would be living next to either a radioactive
> waste dump or a toxic waste dump, and in that case I'm really not sure
> that I want to be near either one if done poorly. Love Canal residents can
> tell you about all that.

But its just the worst example of a waste dump.

> Radiation's danger is still inverse-square related, so if you're not very
> close to the radiation source, it's not going to hurt you unless it
> escapes into the environment... and the same's true of regular toxic waste
> dumps; it won't hurt you just SITTING there, it's when it gets out into
> your environment that it hurts.

> And the AMOUNT of toxic waste produced by things like coal plants is just
> monstrous -- orders of magnitude more than nuclear plants. I seem to
> recall something that indicated that the amount of nasty waste produced by
> a coal plant during operation was something close to the actual mass of
> the plant itself. (does a search) Well, I don't know how much a plant
> masses, but according to at least a couple sources,a typical 500-megawatt
> coal plant gives us over 125,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons of sludge
> from the smokestack scrubber each year. That's the equivalent in mass of
> about three aircraft carriers!

But its such innocuous waste that it works fine as aggregate on concrete
etc.

The real problem is what ends up in the atmosphere, not the solid and sludge
waste.

> Nuclear plants, by comparison, generate roughly 20 tons or so of
> high-level waste (the stuff you really wanna worry about) per year. So
> about four orders of magnitude less waste to handle,

But MUCH more difficult to deal with.

> which means less space that you need.

I'm not convinced that the space line is even relevant given that
there are plenty of uses for the solid waste from coal fired power
stations, even just for landfill and given that the used fuel from
nukes shouldn't just be dumped anywhere, it should be reprocessed
into more nuke fuel once the economics of that makes sense.

> Take away one order of magnitude because you do, after all, want to be
> physically separated from radiation by some distance. Still it's a
> thousand times less.

> O'course, there's the question of how deadly each thing is, and how easily
> (or not) it can escape into the environment and whether there's reason to
> think that one will travel easier, but just sheer bulk of nasty chemical
> material will add challenges to your storage approach.

Not with the solid waste from coal fired power generation.

[Howard Brazee]

On Sat, 13 Oct 2012 07:49:44 +1100, "Rod Speed"
<rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Well, oil can't really *get* to $250 due to coal, you
>> could convert coal to whatever at less than $150,
>
>True.
>
>> except if the greens won't let you cuz it
>> gives off that horrible poisonous evil CO2.
>
>Can't see anyone being silly enough to let the greens
>have any say on that if the price does get that high.

Competitors don't find it silly to let it be expensive for their
competition.

Greens won't make the coal go away. If we don't burn it today,
future generations will use it. But new technology will be
available then.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

[Howard Brazee]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 11:42:04 -0700, JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid>
wrote:

>Now before someone bothers, it's not like even the Fukashima plants
>actually blew up, even though everything possible went wrong. Most
>newer designs are somewhat safer even than that. So apparently
>requiring real failsafe is arguably not a critical issue. As they
>say, close enough for government work.

Nothing is failsafe. Some sources of energy will do less damage if
they fail. We have had very large individual disasters with
hydroelectric failures.

Not to mention slow deaths via pollution.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

"Rod Speed" <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:adre5a...@mid.individual.net:

> Can't see anyone being silly enough to let the greens
> have any say on that if the price does get that high.

Don't ever visit California. Seriously. (Aside from, of cours, we
have neough 'tards already, and don't wnat you.)

[JRStern]

On Sat, 13 Oct 2012 07:58:22 +1100, "Rod Speed"
<rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>In fact we have quite a few failsafe designs in use, most obviously
>with nukes in submarines and naval vessels and radar satellites etc.

Didn't realize the naval reactors are failsafe - but is that only
because they have unlimited waterflow in failure mode?

>> Now before someone bothers, it's not like even the Fukashima
>> plants actually blew up, even though everything possible went
>> wrong. Most newer designs are somewhat safer even than that.
>
>Much safer than that in fact.

I looked at the US (Westinghouse?) design for the newly approved
plants, and they are old-style but have bigger water reservoirs on top
of the reactor, or some such silliness. Better, but not that great.

I'm sure there are better designs around the world and certainly on
paper.

>> So apparently requiring real failsafe is arguably not a critical issue.
>
>It is for some other situations like submarines, ships and radar satellites.
>
>> As they say, close enough for government work.

J.

[JRStern]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:28:23 -0700, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
<taus...@gmail.com> wrote:

>JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in
>news:2iog78dmdq7ndm39i...@4ax.com:
>
>> Now before someone bothers, it's not like even the Fukashima
>> plants actually blew up,
>
>Er, actually, as I recall, there was at least one actual explosion
>there. Not a nuclear explosion, no, but still.

True, but we can mostly, grandly pass on such little hiccups.

Though that's one more tiny detail it would be nice to get right on
real failsafes.

J.

[Bill Snyder]

Check out "pebble-bed" reactors.

--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]

[Rod Speed]

Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote

> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote

>>> Well, oil can't really *get* to $250 due to coal, you
>>> could convert coal to whatever at less than $150,

>> True.

>>> except if the greens won't let you cuz it
>>> gives off that horrible poisonous evil CO2.

>> Can't see anyone being silly enough to let the greens
>> have any say on that if the price does get that high.

> Competitors don't find it silly to let it be expensive for their
> competition.

They don't get to set the price of oil.

> Greens won't make the coal go away. If we
> don't burn it today, future generations will use it.

Not necessarily for power generation tho if we
have enough of a clue to move to nukes for that.

MUCH better as a source of carbon when there isnt as much
low priced oil around because its so useful as a transport fuel.

> But new technology will be available then.

It remains to be seen if there is much of that with the
use of coal for power generation, particularly if we
decide that CO2 really is a problem climate wise etc
and change to nukes for power generation to fix that.

[Rod Speed]

Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote

> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote

>> Now before someone bothers, it's not like even the Fukashima plants
>> actually blew up, even though everything possible went wrong. Most
>> newer designs are somewhat safer even than that. So apparently
>> requiring real failsafe is arguably not a critical issue. As they
>> say, close enough for government work.

> Nothing is failsafe.

Plenty is in the sense that when there is a problem, it
just stops doing what its supposed to be doing and
doesn't blow up or severely degrade the surrounding
environment when it stops doing what its designed to do.

> Some sources of energy will do less damage if they fail.

Much less in fact.

> We have had very large individual disasters with hydroelectric failures.

Yes, but not much of that at all with any other form of power generation.

> Not to mention slow deaths via pollution.

Its very arguable if there is much of that at all with say coal fired power
generation.

[Rod Speed]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote

> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote

>> In fact we have quite a few failsafe designs in use, most obviously
>> with nukes in submarines and naval vessels and radar satellites etc.

> Didn't realize the naval reactors are failsafe

Yeah, essentially because you are damned close to
them in subs and can't get that far away from them
if you need to even with an aircraft carrier etc.

> - but is that only because they have unlimited waterflow in failure mode?

Nope, that isnt feasible with the subs particularly.

>>> Now before someone bothers, it's not like even the Fukashima
>>> plants actually blew up, even though everything possible went
>>> wrong. Most newer designs are somewhat safer even than that.

>> Much safer than that in fact.

> I looked at the US (Westinghouse?) design for the newly approved
> plants, and they are old-style but have bigger water reservoirs on
> top of the reactor, or some such silliness. Better, but not that great.

There are a lot better designs around than those now.

> I'm sure there are better designs around the world

Much better in fact on that.

[Kip Williams]

Howard Brazee wrote, On 10/12/12 5:17 PM:

> Greens won't make the coal go away. If we don't burn it today,
> future generations will use it. But new technology will be
> available then.

Maybe some day they'll think to put the coal-burning generators under
domes (instead of cities). At some regular interval, they'll wash the
air down with chemicals from nozzles to make the air pure enough for
government work, collect the runoff chemicals to purify elsewhere (and
reclaim anything worthwhile), and on it goes.


Kip W
rasfw

[Kip Williams]

> On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:23:38 +1100, "Rod Speed"
> <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote
>>> Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote
>>
>>>>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.
>>
>>>> There are other ways of generating electricity. Almost
>>>> every single nuclear power station in Europe has something
>>>> wrong with it. I don't know what the situation is in the USA,
>>>> but then I doubt anyone would admit it.
>>
>>> No operating nuke plants are fail safe, afaik.
>>
>> That's not right. The CANDU nukes are.

CANDU
CANDU
The safe nukes could be CANDU!


Kip W (apologies to Frank Loesser)
rasfw

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 10/12/12 7:35 PM, Kip Williams wrote:
> Howard Brazee wrote, On 10/12/12 5:17 PM:
>> Greens won't make the coal go away. If we don't burn it today,
>> future generations will use it. But new technology will be
>> available then.
>
> Maybe some day they'll think to put the coal-burning generators under
> domes (instead of cities).

Put a candle under a sealed dome. See what happens? That's why you
can't do that.

[Quadibloc]

On Oct 8, 9:17 am, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"

<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

>         Rep. Paul Broun has made public statements showing complete denial of
> basic scientific truths, saying that things such as evolution and the
> Big Bang theory are "lies from hell". Mr. Broun is also serving on the
> Committee for Science, Space, and Technology.

Ah, but Federally funded space projects are manna from heaven. So if
his seniority gets him to a useful committee, it may be difficult to
unseat him.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Oct 12, 6:00 pm, Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> Ah, but Federally funded space projects are manna from heaven. So if
> his seniority gets him to a useful committee, it may be difficult to
> unseat him.

McCann Aerospace, in Athens, Georgia, however, is merely a *supplier*
to space contractors, rather than one itself, so apparently this sort
of thing may not be a real issue.

John Savard

[JRStern]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:42:30 -0500, Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net>
wrote:

>>>> As they say, close enough for government work.
>
>Check out "pebble-bed" reactors.

I think I did say so way upthread, it was certainly one design I had
in mind, again (and I won't even check on Wikipedia) such proposals
are decades old, but other than maybe a proof of concept I don't think
they've ever been in real production. I have vague recollections of
articles dozens of years ago on why not, remaining design issues, and
the fuel cycle thing for the pebbles. Or, are they using them already
in France or somewhere?

Goddamn Google anyway you can never just mention something and let it
drift, ...

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-demise-of-the-pebble-bed-modular-reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

Yeah, close enuf.

J.

ps - and this for a side-effect of the lookup:

Shop for pebble bed reactors on Googleshopping.google.com

[Robert Bannister]

Fine indeed for governments because governments usually refuse to pay
out for illnesses that take 50 years or more to show up.

--
Robert Bannister

[Robert Bannister]

On 12/10/12 2:25 AM, JRStern wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:03:30 +0100, Brett Dunbar
> <br...@dimetrodon.me.uk> wrote:
>
>> In message <g8ac78hmicmpk2vku...@4ax.com>, JRStern
>> <JRS...@foobar.invalid> writes

>>> Plus thorium is plentiful and cheap, the "problem" is the thorium

>>> cycle does not produce anything useful for nuclear explosives, in fact
>>> it can consume most other nuclear wastes.
>>
>> Actually the problem is more that there are existing designs for Uranium
>> reactors, Uranium is cheap and common enough that Thorium has no real
>> advantage there. Uranium got the funding in the first place due to being
>> militarily useful and we have no existing designs for a Thorium reactor
>> there just hasn't been much reason for investing in developing a useable
>> Thorium reactor.. While we think we know the basic physics we still have
>> significant engineering obstacles to overcome. It is a problem of
>> similar kind if lesser degree to that faced by fusion.
>
> Fusion has proved far more difficult than imagined.
>
> From what I've read, the thorium challenge isn't any greater than
> already solved for uranium designs, and offers a lot of extra safety
> features, and if the cheapness of thorium isn't needed at least it's
> not more expensive, and seems to have thousands of years more
> available supply.
>
> Enough so that by that time either we can economically harvest solar
> power, or maybe even get that stupid fusion working.

Geothermal and wave or tidal-generated power seem better bets for the
less sunny countries.


--
Robert Bannister

[Robert Bannister]

On 11/10/12 10:48 AM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:

> The problem with the anti-nuke brigade is that they want to hold
> nuclear power to a standard of safety that no other major manufacturing
> or utility industry could possibly meet -- even though the OTHER methods
> of generating power, and other similar industries. HAVE killed hundreds,
> even thousands of people

The mines might have done, but I have never heard of anyone being killed
at a coal or oil fired generating station except by falling, being run
over, caught in a turbine, etc.

, while -- excluding the unique clusterf**k of
> Chernobyl -- commercial nuclear power hasn't ever killed ANYONE (from
> radiation anyway;

There will be plenty of deaths from the Japanese disaster. It's just
that cancer takes a long time to show up.

I'm sure they've had people fall from cooling towers
> or something). Ever see people asking coal-fired plants to figure out
> how to store their (just as deadly as nuke plant in its own way

Bulldust. Deadly no doubt, but as deadly by a long way.

) wastes
> for ten thousand years? Anyone ask major storage facilities for gasoline
> or other dangerous chemicals how well prepared they are to survive a
> deliberate assault with terrorists armed with rockets and kamikaze
> planes without any leakage or fire? Of course not.

If you're going to mix in producers of dangerous chemicals, that is a
different story. The Bhopal disaster still hasn't been properly
resolved, but that's got nothing to do with power generation.

Any of these major
> chemical industry plants designed to withstand a Richter 9 earthquake
> followed by a 30-meter tsunami? No. Yet these are the standards people
> want nuclear plants to meet, even though no other even vaguely related
> installations are subjected to restrictions of that nature.

You merely saying that chemical industry plants need tighter
restrictions, and I agree.


--
Robert Bannister

[Robert Bannister]

On 12/10/12 4:56 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Oct 10, 7:00 pm, Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:

>> On 10/10/12 11:00 PM, Walter Bushell wrote:
>
>>> We need nukes <sob> and we need them ten years ago.
>>
>> There are other ways of generating electricity.
>

> Yes, there are.
>
> 1) Burning fossil fuels. Produces carbon, contributes to global
> warming, what we're trying to get away from.
>
> 2) Hydroelectricity. Great and cheap. Unfortunately, not every
> location is close enough to a suitable site.
>
> 3) Solar. Unfortunately, daylight is normally not present on a 24-hour
> basis at most locations.
>
> 4) Wind. Unfortunately, the wind does not always blow.

5) Geothermal power

6) Wave power

7) Tidal power


--
Robert Bannister

[Rod Speed]

Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote
> JRStern wrote

That's not correct. They have done that with the nuke weapon tests.

And ours has done it for any illnesses that are the result of war
service regardless of how long after the war they show up.

The US does too and not just war service either, military service too.

[Rod Speed]

Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote

> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote

>> The problem with the anti-nuke brigade is that they want to hold
>> nuclear power to a standard of safety that no other major manufacturing
>> or utility industry could possibly meet -- even though the OTHER methods
>> of generating power, and other similar industries. HAVE killed hundreds,
>> even thousands of people

> The mines might have done,

No might have about it, particularly with underground mining.

> but I have never heard of anyone being killed
> at a coal or oil fired generating station except by
> falling, being run over, caught in a turbine, etc.

>> , while -- excluding the unique clusterf**k of
>> Chernobyl -- commercial nuclear power hasn't
>> ever killed ANYONE (from radiation anyway;

> There will be plenty of deaths from the Japanese disaster.

We'll see...

> It's just that cancer takes a long time to show up.

But the radiation levels aren't that much higher
than are seen in naturally radioactive areas and
its far from clear that those do actually produce
more cancer than is normally seen due to other
causes like smoking.

>> I'm sure they've had people fall from cooling towers or
>> something). Ever see people asking coal-fired plants to figure

>> out how to store their (just as deadly as nuke plant in its own way)

> Bulldust. Deadly no doubt, but as deadly by a long way.

[JRStern]

On Sat, 13 Oct 2012 09:15:00 +0800, Robert Bannister
<rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:

>> Enough so that by that time either we can economically harvest solar
>> power, or maybe even get that stupid fusion working.
>
>Geothermal and wave or tidal-generated power seem better bets for the
>less sunny countries.

Geothermal was good enough for Krell.

J.

[Kip Williams]

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote, On 10/12/12 7:44 PM:

> On 10/12/12 7:35 PM, Kip Williams wrote:
>> Howard Brazee wrote, On 10/12/12 5:17 PM:
>>> Greens won't make the coal go away. If we don't burn it today,
>>> future generations will use it. But new technology will be
>>> available then.
>>
>> Maybe some day they'll think to put the coal-burning generators under
>> domes (instead of cities).
>
> Put a candle under a sealed dome. See what happens? That's why you
> can't do that.

That's why I didn't suggest putting a candle under a sealed dome. Do I
need to describe every rivet and duct?


Kip W
rasfw

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Yes. Because if you don't seal the dome, you have to suck oxygen (air)
in to replace what you've used to burn the coal, and you have to vent
OUT what you've used (exhaust), and that's what the plants already do.
You can't just bring in new air without exhausting the old (unless you
plan on building up multiple atmospheres of pressure inside your dome),
and if you can clean the air you're exhausting, why waste money and
space with a dome? Just put that technology into the plant itself.
Which, I might add, they already do to a large extent.

[Brian Palmer]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> writes:

> On Tue, 9 Oct 2012 12:37:44 +1100, "Rod Speed"
> <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> Solyndra was an investment that failed.
>>
>>And never was going to fly.
>
> It was never cost-competitive with other solar technologies.

As I understand it, this was due to them inventing a solar panel that
didn't use silicon (unlike most solar panels sold today); had silicon
prices remained high, they would have likely been price-competitive,
but silicon has become quite cheap.

--
I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard.

[Kip Williams]

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote, On 10/13/12 12:07 AM:

You could be right, now that you have spelled it out.


Kip W
rasfw

[Quadibloc]

On Oct 12, 10:34 pm, Brian Palmer <bpal...@rescomp.stanford.edu>
wrote:

> As I understand it, this was due to them inventing a solar panel that
> didn't use silicon (unlike most solar panels sold today); had silicon
> prices remained high, they would have likely been price-competitive,
> but silicon has become quite cheap.

I wasn't aware that silicon was a particularly scarce element on
Earth.

Although, admittedly, separating it from the oxygen to which it is
normally bound in nature has its costs.

John Savard

[Bill Snyder]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 18:01:20 -0700, JRStern
<JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote:

>On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:42:30 -0500, Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net>
>wrote:
>
>>>>> As they say, close enough for government work.
>>
>>Check out "pebble-bed" reactors.
>
>I think I did say so way upthread, it was certainly one design I had
>in mind, again (and I won't even check on Wikipedia) such proposals
>are decades old, but other than maybe a proof of concept I don't think
>they've ever been in real production. I have vague recollections of
>articles dozens of years ago on why not, remaining design issues, and
>the fuel cycle thing for the pebbles. Or, are they using them already
>in France or somewhere?
>
>Goddamn Google anyway you can never just mention something and let it
>drift, ...
>
>http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-demise-of-the-pebble-bed-modular-reactor
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
>
>Yeah, close enuf.

I see one of those URL's has the word "demise" in it. Seems a tad
overstated, to say the least. Not up-to-the-minute, but a couple
of years more recent news:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/energy-environment/25chinanuke.html?pagewanted=all>

"SHIDAO, China — While engineers at Japan’s stricken nuclear power
plant struggle to keep its uranium fuel rods from melting down,
engineers in China are building a radically different type of
reactor that some experts say offers a safer nuclear alternative."

>ps - and this for a side-effect of the lookup:
>
>Shop for pebble bed reactors on Googleshopping.google.com

Might be interesting, especially if time travel is involved.
Anything there for "hyperdrive?"