On Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:50:28 AM UTC-4, jamesgangnc wrote:
There are actually reactor designs now that can be passively cooled
after scrammed. No power need ed to the cooling system.

I'll bet that even they have cooling water reservoirs that need to be refilled. And have these designs ever been tested for real? On the drawing board, GE's BWRs are just great, too, once you handwave the fact that they need electricity for at least a week following a scram. Turns out that a favourite phrase of Usenet nuke-boosters, "walk-away safe," has pretty much been bull**** for all of these years, so my view of unproven claims of passive safety is pretty dim at the moment. Passive cooling is pretty obviously the right goal, but the fact that it wasn't everyone's first choice makes me wonder what other blindingly obvious "oh, gosh, who could've predicted!?" clangers are waiting in the wings.

All of this is not really related to my original point, though, which was just that we shouldn't rule out a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and then take the remaining successful cases as evidence that nuclear power is effectively perfected any more than we should concentrate on a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and abandon the whole concept.

We have plenty of low population density areas in the central
US that are also geologically stable.

Running high-capacity power transmission lines all the way from there to California sounds a little goofy, but they arguably already take more amazing measures to get water.

This is unfortunately not an option for the Japanese.

--Eric Smith

On Mar 17, 11:16*am, "Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal"
wrote:
On Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:50:28 AM UTC-4, jamesgangnc wrote:
There are actually reactor designs now that can be passively cooled
after scrammed. *No power need ed to the cooling system.

I'll bet that even they have cooling water reservoirs that need to be refilled. *And have these designs ever been tested for real? *On the drawing board, GE's BWRs are just great, too, once you handwave the fact that they need electricity for at least a week following a scram. *Turns out that a favourite phrase of Usenet nuke-boosters, "walk-away safe," has pretty much been bull**** for all of these years, so my view of unproven claims of passive safety is pretty dim at the moment. *Passive cooling is pretty obviously the right goal, but the fact that it wasn't everyone's first choice makes me wonder what other blindingly obvious "oh, gosh, who could've predicted!?" clangers are waiting in the wings.

All of this is not really related to my original point, though, which was just that we shouldn't rule out a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and then take the remaining successful cases as evidence that nuclear power is effectively perfected any more than we should concentrate on a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and abandon the whole concept.

We have plenty of low population density areas in the central
US that are also geologically stable.

Running high-capacity power transmission lines all the way from there to California sounds a little goofy, but they arguably already take more amazing measures to get water.

This is unfortunately not an option for the Japanese.

--Eric Smith

I don't know how much testing has been done but I understand the
designs rely on gravity and temperature differential to create a water
flow. I don't hink it's impossible to design working reaectors than
can passively cool down when scrammed. And that's a reasonable goal.
ANd i don't disagree with you on going to either end of that
spectrum. We should learn form our mistakes and improve. Not simply
abandon the program.

Yes, it can't be any harder to get electricity from the other side of
the california state line than it is to get water. One would think it
would be easier.

Japan's west coast is a fair distance from the pacifc plate faults but
I do not know the region well enough to say fo rcertain of it is
geologically stable enough. Certainly the transmission distances for
them forrm their west coast would not be a challenge.

On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:28:53 -0700 (PDT), jamesgangnc
wrote:

On Mar 17, 11:16Â*am, "Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal"
wrote:
On Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:50:28 AM UTC-4, jamesgangnc wrote:
There are actually reactor designs now that can be passively cooled
after scrammed. Â*No power need ed to the cooling system.

I'll bet that even they have cooling water reservoirs that need to be refilled. Â*And have these designs ever been tested for real? Â*On the drawing board, GE's BWRs are just great, too, once you handwave the fact that they need electricity for at least a week following a scram. Â*Turns out that a favourite phrase of Usenet
nuke-boosters, "walk-away safe," has pretty much been bull**** for all of these years, so my view of unproven claims of passive safety is pretty dim at the moment. Â*Passive cooling is pretty obviously the right goal, but the fact that it wasn't everyone's first choice makes me wonder what other blindingly obvious "oh, gosh, who
could've predicted!?" clangers are waiting in the wings.

All of this is not really related to my original point, though, which was just that we shouldn't rule out a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and then take the remaining successful cases as evidence that nuclear power is effectively perfected any more than we should concentrate on a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and
abandon the whole concept.

We have plenty of low population density areas in the central
US that are also geologically stable.

Running high-capacity power transmission lines all the way from there to California sounds a little goofy, but they arguably already take more amazing measures to get water.

This is unfortunately not an option for the Japanese.

--Eric Smith

I don't know how much testing has been done but I understand the
designs rely on gravity and temperature differential to create a water
flow. I don't hink it's impossible to design working reaectors than
can passively cool down when scrammed. And that's a reasonable goal.

snip

Even a "passive" system can fail.
Sure, it might be better option and further reduce the possibility of
meltdown. I'm all for it.
You do all you can, and have to stop at the point expense makes it
impractical.
But you can't escape Murphy's Law.
I'll repeat my view, that most extra expense should go to containment
and not putting too many fission eggs in one basket.
As always, the big problem is leadership to get the job done.
I just heard that there's more fissionable material in that Japanese
nuke plant than there was in Chernobyl.
Don't know if that's true, but since there are 6 reactors there and
their spent rod cooling pools, I don't doubt it.

--Vic

On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 10:18:08 -0700 (PDT), "Eric S. Smith: Left-Field
Marshal" wrote:

On Thursday, March 17, 2011 12:02:43 PM UTC-4, Vic Smith wrote:
I'll repeat my view, that most extra expense should go to containment

[snip]

Similarly, instead of shopping for a 100% leak-proof, indestructible water heater, you buy a tray to put under the one that you can afford.

--Eric Smith

Not sure what you're saying.
If you're saying there's a nuclear reactor with 100% prevention of
meltdown or release of radioactivity to the environment, you're wrong.
No matter how much money you invest.
Same with spent rod cooling pools.
If the "tray" you mention is containment of radioactivity after a
mishap, you're right.

--Vic

On Mar 17, 3:28*pm, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Mar 17, 11:16*am, "Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal"





wrote:
On Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:50:28 AM UTC-4, jamesgangnc wrote:
There are actually reactor designs now that can be passively cooled
after scrammed. *No power need ed to the cooling system.

I'll bet that even they have cooling water reservoirs that need to be refilled. *And have these designs ever been tested for real? *On the drawing board, GE's BWRs are just great, too, once you handwave the fact that they need electricity for at least a week following a scram. *Turns out that a favourite phrase of Usenet nuke-boosters, "walk-away safe," has pretty much been bull**** for all of these years, so my view of unproven claims of passive safety is pretty dim at the moment. *Passive cooling is pretty obviously the right goal, but the fact that it wasn't everyone's first choice makes me wonder what other blindingly obvious "oh, gosh, who could've predicted!?" clangers are waiting in the wings.

All of this is not really related to my original point, though, which was just that we shouldn't rule out a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and then take the remaining successful cases as evidence that nuclear power is effectively perfected any more than we should concentrate on a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and abandon the whole concept.

We have plenty of low population density areas in the central
US that are also geologically stable.

Running high-capacity power transmission lines all the way from there to California sounds a little goofy, but they arguably already take more amazing measures to get water.

This is unfortunately not an option for the Japanese.

--Eric Smith

I don't know how much testing has been done but I understand the
designs rely on gravity and temperature differential to create a water
flow. *I don't hink it's impossible to design working reaectors than
can passively cool down when scrammed. *And that's a reasonable goal.
ANd i don't disagree with you on going to either end of that
spectrum. *We should learn form our mistakes and improve. *Not simply
abandon the program.

Yes, it can't be any harder to get electricity from the other side of
the california state line than it is to get water. One would think it
would be easier.

Japan's west coast is a fair distance from the pacifc plate faults but
I do not know the region well enough to say fo rcertain of it is
geologically stable enough. *Certainly the transmission distances for
them forrm their west coast would not be a challenge.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When steam boilers were invented there were many accidents and deaths.
(More relatively than nuclear power). The very same debates were had.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_explosion

On Mar 18, 10:08*am, The Daring Dufas
wrote:
On 3/18/2011 3:13 AM, harry wrote:





On Mar 17, 3:28 pm, *wrote:
On Mar 17, 11:16 am, "Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal"

*wrote:
On Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:50:28 AM UTC-4, jamesgangnc wrote:
There are actually reactor designs now that can be passively cooled
after scrammed. *No power need ed to the cooling system.

I'll bet that even they have cooling water reservoirs that need to be refilled. *And have these designs ever been tested for real? *On the drawing board, GE's BWRs are just great, too, once you handwave the fact that they need electricity for at least a week following a scram. *Turns out that a favourite phrase of Usenet nuke-boosters, "walk-away safe," has pretty much been bull**** for all of these years, so my view of unproven claims of passive safety is pretty dim at the moment. *Passive cooling is pretty obviously the right goal, but the fact that it wasn't everyone's first choice makes me wonder what other blindingly obvious "oh, gosh, who could've predicted!?" clangers are waiting in the wings.

All of this is not really related to my original point, though, which was just that we shouldn't rule out a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and then take the remaining successful cases as evidence that nuclear power is effectively perfected any more than we should concentrate on a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and abandon the whole concept.

We have plenty of low population density areas in the central
US that are also geologically stable.

Running high-capacity power transmission lines all the way from there to California sounds a little goofy, but they arguably already take more amazing measures to get water.

This is unfortunately not an option for the Japanese.

--Eric Smith

I don't know how much testing has been done but I understand the
designs rely on gravity and temperature differential to create a water
flow. *I don't hink it's impossible to design working reaectors than
can passively cool down when scrammed. *And that's a reasonable goal..
ANd i don't disagree with you on going to either end of that
spectrum. *We should learn form our mistakes and improve. *Not simply
abandon the program.

Yes, it can't be any harder to get electricity from the other side of
the california state line than it is to get water. One would think it
would be easier.

Japan's west coast is a fair distance from the pacifc plate faults but
I do not know the region well enough to say fo rcertain of it is
geologically stable enough. *Certainly the transmission distances for
them forrm their west coast would not be a challenge.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When steam boilers were invented there were many accidents and deaths.
(More relatively *than nuclear power). The very same debates were had..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_explosion

Funny thing about power plants, coal fired plants spew radioactivity
into the environment and the area around a coal fired plant is 100
times as radioactive as the area around a nuclear power plant of the
same capacity.

TDD- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When our local gas works was shut down (made gas from coal) the ground
was contaminated with arsenic.

On 3/18/2011 1:40 PM, harry wrote:
On Mar 18, 10:08 am, The Daring
wrote:
On 3/18/2011 3:13 AM, harry wrote:





On Mar 17, 3:28 pm, wrote:
On Mar 17, 11:16 am, "Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal"

wrote:
On Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:50:28 AM UTC-4, jamesgangnc wrote:
There are actually reactor designs now that can be passively cooled
after scrammed. No power need ed to the cooling system.

I'll bet that even they have cooling water reservoirs that need to be refilled. And have these designs ever been tested for real? On the drawing board, GE's BWRs are just great, too, once you handwave the fact that they need electricity for at least a week following a scram. Turns out that a favourite phrase of Usenet nuke-boosters, "walk-away safe," has pretty much been bull**** for all of these years, so my view of unproven claims of passive safety is pretty dim at the moment. Passive cooling is pretty obviously the right goal, but the fact that it wasn't everyone's first choice makes me wonder what other blindingly obvious "oh, gosh, who could've predicted!?" clangers are waiting in the wings.

All of this is not really related to my original point, though, which was just that we shouldn't rule out a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and then take the remaining successful cases as evidence that nuclear power is effectively perfected any more than we should concentrate on a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and abandon the whole concept.

We have plenty of low population density areas in the central
US that are also geologically stable.

Running high-capacity power transmission lines all the way from there to California sounds a little goofy, but they arguably already take more amazing measures to get water.

This is unfortunately not an option for the Japanese.

--Eric Smith

I don't know how much testing has been done but I understand the
designs rely on gravity and temperature differential to create a water
flow. I don't hink it's impossible to design working reaectors than
can passively cool down when scrammed. And that's a reasonable goal.
ANd i don't disagree with you on going to either end of that
spectrum. We should learn form our mistakes and improve. Not simply
abandon the program.

Yes, it can't be any harder to get electricity from the other side of
the california state line than it is to get water. One would think it
would be easier.

Japan's west coast is a fair distance from the pacifc plate faults but
I do not know the region well enough to say fo rcertain of it is
geologically stable enough. Certainly the transmission distances for
them forrm their west coast would not be a challenge.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When steam boilers were invented there were many accidents and deaths.
(More relatively than nuclear power). The very same debates were had.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_explosion

Funny thing about power plants, coal fired plants spew radioactivity
into the environment and the area around a coal fired plant is 100
times as radioactive as the area around a nuclear power plant of the
same capacity.

TDD- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When our local gas works was shut down (made gas from coal) the ground
was contaminated with arsenic.

People just didn't know any better when the Industrial Revolution
started on up until probably the 1970's when environmentalism
really took off. A few miles Northeast of my home, a lead recycling
company shut down and the site wound up being an EPA Superfund site.
People around the area thought they were doing good and the right
thing by taking their old batteries to a recycler rather than tossing
the toxic lead acid battery into the household waste stream. The EPA
got the company records and went after every person who brought any
lead to the recycler and demanded that the people pay for the cleanup
of the site. That's why I never give out real information when I take
anything to a recycler and only if they pay cash. I can imagine what
would happen if some two legged metal termite stole some metal items
from a hospital or doctors office and the stuff turned out to be very
radioactive from a radiotherapy machine or contamination with cesium
137. A gaggle of cowboys from Homeland Security would be kicking in
doors and pointing machine guns at anyone they could locate because
they had brought scrap metal to the recycler. I'm allergic to gun
barrels too close to my face. :-)

TDD

On Mar 19, 12:19*am, The Daring Dufas
wrote:
On 3/18/2011 1:40 PM, harry wrote:





On Mar 18, 10:08 am, The Daring
wrote:
On 3/18/2011 3:13 AM, harry wrote:

On Mar 17, 3:28 pm, * *wrote:
On Mar 17, 11:16 am, "Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal"

* *wrote:
On Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:50:28 AM UTC-4, jamesgangnc wrote:
There are actually reactor designs now that can be passively cooled
after scrammed. *No power need ed to the cooling system.

I'll bet that even they have cooling water reservoirs that need to be refilled. *And have these designs ever been tested for real? *On the drawing board, GE's BWRs are just great, too, once you handwave the fact that they need electricity for at least a week following a scram. *Turns out that a favourite phrase of Usenet nuke-boosters, "walk-away safe," has pretty much been bull**** for all of these years, so my view of unproven claims of passive safety is pretty dim at the moment. *Passive cooling is pretty obviously the right goal, but the fact that it wasn't everyone's first choice makes me wonder what other blindingly obvious "oh, gosh, who could've predicted!?" clangers are waiting in the wings.

All of this is not really related to my original point, though, which was just that we shouldn't rule out a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and then take the remaining successful cases as evidence that nuclear power is effectively perfected any more than we should concentrate on a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and abandon the whole concept.

We have plenty of low population density areas in the central
US that are also geologically stable.

Running high-capacity power transmission lines all the way from there to California sounds a little goofy, but they arguably already take more amazing measures to get water.

This is unfortunately not an option for the Japanese.

--Eric Smith

I don't know how much testing has been done but I understand the
designs rely on gravity and temperature differential to create a water
flow. *I don't hink it's impossible to design working reaectors than
can passively cool down when scrammed. *And that's a reasonable goal.
ANd i don't disagree with you on going to either end of that
spectrum. *We should learn form our mistakes and improve. *Not simply
abandon the program.

Yes, it can't be any harder to get electricity from the other side of
the california state line than it is to get water. One would think it
would be easier.

Japan's west coast is a fair distance from the pacifc plate faults but
I do not know the region well enough to say fo rcertain of it is
geologically stable enough. *Certainly the transmission distances for
them forrm their west coast would not be a challenge.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When steam boilers were invented there were many accidents and deaths..
(More relatively *than nuclear power). The very same debates were had.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_explosion

Funny thing about power plants, coal fired plants spew radioactivity
into the environment and the area around a coal fired plant is 100
times as radioactive as the area around a nuclear power plant of the
same capacity.

TDD- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When our local gas works was shut down (made gas from coal) the ground
was contaminated with arsenic.

People just didn't know any better when the Industrial Revolution
started on up until probably the 1970's when environmentalism
really took off. A few miles Northeast of my home, a lead recycling
company shut down and the site wound up being an EPA Superfund site.
People around the area thought they were doing good and the right
thing by taking their old batteries to a recycler rather than tossing
the toxic lead acid battery into the household waste stream. The EPA
got the company records and went after every person who brought any
lead to the recycler and demanded that the people pay for the cleanup
of the site. That's why I never give out real information when I take
anything to a recycler and only if they pay cash. I can imagine what
would happen if some two legged metal termite stole some metal items
from a hospital or doctors office and the stuff turned out to be very
radioactive from a radiotherapy machine or contamination with cesium
137. A gaggle of cowboys from Homeland Security would be kicking in
doors and pointing machine guns at anyone they could locate because
they had brought scrap metal to the recycler. I'm allergic to gun
barrels too close to my face. :-)

TDD- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

That has happened over here. Some hospital device that contained
cobalt 60 ended up in a scrapyard and was cut open. I don't recall
the details, it was a while back.
There was a big issue too with radio-active smoke detectors and also
with luminous telephone dials.
We have a massive "idustry"too withtheft of copper and lead. It's so
bad with the lead that special tracers are put on the metal so it can
be IDed..

On 3/19/2011 3:45 AM, harry wrote:
On Mar 19, 12:19 am, The Daring
wrote:
On 3/18/2011 1:40 PM, harry wrote:





On Mar 18, 10:08 am, The Daring
wrote:
On 3/18/2011 3:13 AM, harry wrote:

On Mar 17, 3:28 pm, wrote:
On Mar 17, 11:16 am, "Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal"

wrote:
On Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:50:28 AM UTC-4, jamesgangnc wrote:
There are actually reactor designs now that can be passively cooled
after scrammed. No power need ed to the cooling system.

I'll bet that even they have cooling water reservoirs that need to be refilled. And have these designs ever been tested for real? On the drawing board, GE's BWRs are just great, too, once you handwave the fact that they need electricity for at least a week following a scram. Turns out that a favourite phrase of Usenet nuke-boosters, "walk-away safe," has pretty much been bull**** for all of these years, so my view of unproven claims of passive safety is pretty dim at the moment. Passive cooling is pretty obviously the right goal, but the fact that it wasn't everyone's first choice makes me wonder what other blindingly obvious "oh, gosh, who could've predicted!?" clangers are waiting in the wings.

All of this is not really related to my original point, though, which was just that we shouldn't rule out a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and then take the remaining successful cases as evidence that nuclear power is effectively perfected any more than we should concentrate on a bunch of past nuclear misadventures and abandon the whole concept.

We have plenty of low population density areas in the central
US that are also geologically stable.

Running high-capacity power transmission lines all the way from there to California sounds a little goofy, but they arguably already take more amazing measures to get water.

This is unfortunately not an option for the Japanese.

--Eric Smith

I don't know how much testing has been done but I understand the
designs rely on gravity and temperature differential to create a water
flow. I don't hink it's impossible to design working reaectors than
can passively cool down when scrammed. And that's a reasonable goal.
ANd i don't disagree with you on going to either end of that
spectrum. We should learn form our mistakes and improve. Not simply
abandon the program.

Yes, it can't be any harder to get electricity from the other side of
the california state line than it is to get water. One would think it
would be easier.

Japan's west coast is a fair distance from the pacifc plate faults but
I do not know the region well enough to say fo rcertain of it is
geologically stable enough. Certainly the transmission distances for
them forrm their west coast would not be a challenge.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When steam boilers were invented there were many accidents and deaths.
(More relatively than nuclear power). The very same debates were had.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_explosion

Funny thing about power plants, coal fired plants spew radioactivity
into the environment and the area around a coal fired plant is 100
times as radioactive as the area around a nuclear power plant of the
same capacity.

TDD- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When our local gas works was shut down (made gas from coal) the ground
was contaminated with arsenic.

People just didn't know any better when the Industrial Revolution
started on up until probably the 1970's when environmentalism
really took off. A few miles Northeast of my home, a lead recycling
company shut down and the site wound up being an EPA Superfund site.
People around the area thought they were doing good and the right
thing by taking their old batteries to a recycler rather than tossing
the toxic lead acid battery into the household waste stream. The EPA
got the company records and went after every person who brought any
lead to the recycler and demanded that the people pay for the cleanup
of the site. That's why I never give out real information when I take
anything to a recycler and only if they pay cash. I can imagine what
would happen if some two legged metal termite stole some metal items
from a hospital or doctors office and the stuff turned out to be very
radioactive from a radiotherapy machine or contamination with cesium
137. A gaggle of cowboys from Homeland Security would be kicking in
doors and pointing machine guns at anyone they could locate because
they had brought scrap metal to the recycler. I'm allergic to gun
barrels too close to my face. :-)

TDD- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

That has happened over here. Some hospital device that contained
cobalt 60 ended up in a scrapyard and was cut open. I don't recall
the details, it was a while back.
There was a big issue too with radio-active smoke detectors and also
with luminous telephone dials.
We have a massive "idustry"too withtheft of copper and lead. It's so
bad with the lead that special tracers are put on the metal so it can
be IDed..

There was an old radiotherapy machine from a California hospital that
turned up in Mexico, I think it contained Cesium 137 and it was being
dismantled in some village by a fellow for the scrap value and kids
were running around playing with the glow in the dark stuff that came
out of the machine. I think some moron administrator at the hospital
instructed some moron maintenance man to dispose of the old machine so
he did and none of the proper and required procedures were followed to
legally dispose of the old machine. It resulted in some Mexicans who
can never sneak over the border unseen at night. There will also be an
increase in the number of Mexican performers in freak shows. :-)

TDD