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DJ_avocado
SardinoBambino



Registered: 11/19/09
Posts: 743
Loc: Hawai'i, USA
Last seen: 10 months, 24 days
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Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?!
#11951833 - 02/02/10 11:42 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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So I hear over NPR, that Obama is pushing for NUclear power as an alternative energy. This scares me on so many different levels.
1) How the hell do we dispose of nuclear waste? Actually....maybe the all the $ NASA used for research might come in handy when we simply launch it all into a black hole or the sun. Ideas?
2) who is going to work at a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT? Gauran-fuckin-tee they're not being built in the hills..
3) The thought occured to me that energy could be marketed...or sold country to country. Even though we have no way to ship it or store it. It's making me sense another Cold war type nuclear power race, a race for power once again. Possible?
4) We can't burn coal forever...What alternative power source would be best? By best, I mean safest in the long run. I don't know why the fuck we MIGHT be doing nuclear power. WE ALREADY KNOW RADIATION KILLS! It's shit like this that makes me think there's something wrong with the way I think, like my brain is just way too simple.
IDK.
WTF OBAMA?!?!
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EdgeChaos
Still a stranger


Registered: 08/04/06
Posts: 2,071
Last seen: 6 years, 9 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
#11951862 - 02/02/10 11:49 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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At anyone who thinks nuclear power is bad.
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DJ_avocado
SardinoBambino



Registered: 11/19/09
Posts: 743
Loc: Hawai'i, USA
Last seen: 10 months, 24 days
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
#11951917 - 02/03/10 12:02 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Whoa, Whoa, WHoa...elaborate. Are you FOR nuclear power?
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EdgeChaos
Still a stranger


Registered: 08/04/06
Posts: 2,071
Last seen: 6 years, 9 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
#11952033 - 02/03/10 12:32 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Of course I am.
If you examine the amount of deaths associated with running different types of electric plants, nuclear plants kill far less people.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html
That will get you started. Make sure you check the last paragraph. It has a nice breakdown of deaths related to types of energy plants.
The only two meltdowns in history were directly related to unsafe practices and one of them no one got hurt.
edit: For clarity.
Edited by EdgeChaos (02/03/10 07:12 PM)
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jimbotron
Patty-Cake Enthusiast



Registered: 02/24/09
Posts: 2,324
Last seen: 10 years, 5 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
#11952244 - 02/03/10 01:24 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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I understand there are better and safer reactor designs nowadays, but for some reason everyone has chosen the old-fashioned kind as their hill to die on, liberals shouting "Chernobyl!" and conservatives shouting "Pussies!"
-------------------- BEST TEAM IN THE UNIVERSE
 
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
#11952543 - 02/03/10 03:29 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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> If you examine the amount of deaths associated with running different types of electric plants, nuclear plants take the lead by far.
Uh... sarcasm?
> The only two meltdowns in history were directly related to unsafe practices and one of them no one got hurt.
Sarcasm again, or do you need to go back to remedial history?
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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JT


Registered: 02/28/07
Posts: 7,027
Loc: athens
Last seen: 4 years, 10 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
#11952671 - 02/03/10 05:02 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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i'll take the nuclear reactor. you can have the trash burning plant in your neighborhood
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pothead_bob
Resident Pothead


Registered: 04/12/08
Posts: 1,811
Loc: Your computer screen
Last seen: 4 years, 1 month
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
#11953607 - 02/03/10 10:57 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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1) The utility either stores the waste on site or we bury it in Yuka mountain. Either that, or we could go the route of reprocessing, which reduces the high-level radiation lasting from tens of thousands of years to about a hundred.
2) Many people. They're completely safe.
3) No. Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are different. Do you think a nuclear power plant can explode like a nuclear weapon?
4) We MIGHT be doing it because it's cost effective, doesn't emit any greenhouse gasses, and has one of the best track records of safety (hydro-electric killed many, many, many more people than nuclear power). Radiation kills if you're exposed to it. You aren't exposed to it when the reactor core and submerged behind several feet of concrete. It currently accounts for 20% of the power generated in the US. Bullshit renewables (like wind and solar) account for less than a fraction of a percent. To make any serious dent in the power grid with such forms of energy, you would need to cover the entire seaboard with windmills and entire deserts with solar panels. What do you think that would do to the environment?
-------------------- No knowledge can be certain, if it is not based upon mathematics or upon some other knowledge which is itself based upon the mathematical sciences. -Leonardo da Vinci (1425-1519) Speak well of your enemies. After all, you made them.
Edited by pothead_bob (02/03/10 11:00 AM)
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dill705
Amazed



Registered: 12/10/07
Posts: 3,779
Loc: The Cat's Cradle
Last seen: 6 years, 7 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
#11953676 - 02/03/10 11:12 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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-------------------- My advice is to find those things that give pleasure and do them often without too much attachment and relax and wait for the show to end. -Icelander- I like free markets and all. Truly I do, at least in general, but there needs to be some kind of oversight in recognition of sustainability. Life works the same way, on a bunch of sustainable systems. Why not honor what made us what we are and take some lessons? Nature FTW! ~dill705~
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Smackshadow
It's Time for Wild Speculation


Registered: 09/27/05
Posts: 575
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: dill705]
#11953887 - 02/03/10 12:00 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Nuclear power isn't all that scary. Back in the 60-70s they were safe, and now they are even more so. Only real problem is storing the waist, but most countries reprocess it which significantly reduces it. It also does not significantly pollute. I read somewhere that coal contains trace amounts of uranium, but because it is burned in large quantities they actually generate more radio active waist in their smoke than nuclear plants generate and contain in storage.
-------------------- The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. ~H. L. Mencken~
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EdgeChaos
Still a stranger


Registered: 08/04/06
Posts: 2,071
Last seen: 6 years, 9 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
#11954048 - 02/03/10 12:29 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: > If you examine the amount of deaths associated with running different types of electric plants, nuclear plants take the lead by far.
Uh... sarcasm?
> The only two meltdowns in history were directly related to unsafe practices and one of them no one got hurt.
Sarcasm again, or do you need to go back to remedial history?

The two significant accidents in the 50-year history of civil nuclear power generation are:
* Three Mile Island (USA 1979) where the reactor was severely damaged but radiation was contained and there were no adverse health or environmental consequences * Chernobyl (Ukraine 1986) where the destruction of the reactor by steam explosion and fire killed 31 people and had significant health and environmental consequences. The death toll has since increased to about 56.
Seriously...Uh... Read the link.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html
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AltecLansing
Trafalgar Square Pigeon Fiasco



Registered: 07/11/08
Posts: 950
Loc: Michigan
Last seen: 10 years, 10 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
#11954058 - 02/03/10 12:30 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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I'm down, and it's about time.
-------------------- I don't use jelly.
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Ego Questio
Ghost in the Machine




Registered: 10/25/09
Posts: 1,141
Loc: UK
Last seen: 5 years, 11 days
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: AltecLansing]
#11954447 - 02/03/10 01:47 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Ah, roll on nuclear fusion... 

-------------------- Over one's mind and over one's body the individual is sovereign. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1806 - 1873) My UPDATED UK supplies thread My first trip report-Amsterdam wanderings Stonesun's sclerotia infodump Proudly discovered Highly Sensitive Person ~2009 To all you good gents, I say
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
#11954474 - 02/03/10 01:52 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ego Questio said: Ah, roll on nuclear fusion... 


Fusion is the only hope for mankind. Anything else is temporary. Anything else and everything else.
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dill705
Amazed



Registered: 12/10/07
Posts: 3,779
Loc: The Cat's Cradle
Last seen: 6 years, 7 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
#11954493 - 02/03/10 01:55 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/41540Quote:
Researchers in the US have simulated a magnetic field structure normally produced by the core of a planet, and they say that their design could lead to an efficient way of harnessing nuclear fusion for power generation. The experiment, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), could also provide an opportunity for space physicists to model the dynamics of planetary magnetic fields and their interaction with charged particles from space.
Nuclear fusion is the powerhouse of stars resulting in the release of vast amounts of energy and the formation of heavier elements – the building blocks of the world we see around us. Some physicists believe that fusion could be harnessed as a source of energy here on Earth by combining deuterium and tritium at high temperatures to form helium-4 plus a neutron. The abundance of its raw materials, the absence of direct carbon dioxide emissions, and the minimal amount of harmful waste are among fusion's major selling points.
One of the most promising ways of reaching the appropriate temperature and pressure is to use magnetic fields to "confine" plasma – clouds of ionized gas. In the majority of these experiments, plasmas are confined inside large doughnut-shaped vessels called tokamaks. Physicists have so far failed, however, to get more energy out of a tokamak than the energy used to heat and confine the plasma.
Planetary inspiration In this latest research, Michael Mauel of Columbia University, New York, and his colleagues explore an alternative design inspired by observations of planetary magnetic fields. They suspend a half-ton magnet using powerful electromagnetic fields, and use this to manipulate plasma at 10 million K trapped inside a steel ring structure in an experiment called the Levitated Dipole Experiment, or LDX. The results confirm the researcher's prediction that random turbulence inside the magnetic chamber increases the density of plasma – a crucial step towards fusion.
"This experiment was inspired by space research that has occurred over the past 50 years," says Mauel. "Satellites have explored the magnetospheres of planets such as Earth's or Jupiter's and these space observations showed a dipole magnetic field could confine hot ionized matter at high pressure."
Mauel says that the LDX has distinct benefits over tokamak experiments because the dipole magnetic field is not "twisted or helical" and the plasma is able to circulate from the edge to the hot core without producing a drain on the plasma's energy. He says that confining fusion with dipole fields would be particularly suitable for so-called "second-generation" fusion fuel, which avoids the need to breed radioactive tritium from lithium, which is the fuel of choice for tokamaks.
Manuel believes that these results could also aid space science. "These results will be of interest to space physicists who study the dynamics of ionized bases confined to outer space by the dipole magnetic field of planets."
To develop their work, the researchers intend to create hotter plasmas to increase the rate of fusion. They also wish to improve the precision of temperature measurement in their experiment.
This research is published in Nature Physics.
About the author James Dacey is a reporter for physicsworld.com
Fusion FTW
-------------------- My advice is to find those things that give pleasure and do them often without too much attachment and relax and wait for the show to end. -Icelander- I like free markets and all. Truly I do, at least in general, but there needs to be some kind of oversight in recognition of sustainability. Life works the same way, on a bunch of sustainable systems. Why not honor what made us what we are and take some lessons? Nature FTW! ~dill705~
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Ego Questio
Ghost in the Machine




Registered: 10/25/09
Posts: 1,141
Loc: UK
Last seen: 5 years, 11 days
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
#11954517 - 02/03/10 01:58 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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I've always wondered why the US hasn't pulled fusion out of the bag by now. For 70 years, the states have been the richest and one of the most scientifically advanced countries on the planet. With all the trillions the US government has dished out on bum schemes, did no-one really think "I know, we'll develop this clean, safe, efficient, highly reliable and advanced power generation source that'll save the planet on pretty much every level it needs saving and then sell this shit to every country on the map and rule the world?!
Apparently not. 
Then again, you could consider the way the US government (more than mine, anyway) has been influenced by big business dollars and interests, who only want to safeguard the brand and the product, you could say it's no wonder....  
Still, viva the French for working on the first operational model!
-------------------- Over one's mind and over one's body the individual is sovereign. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1806 - 1873) My UPDATED UK supplies thread My first trip report-Amsterdam wanderings Stonesun's sclerotia infodump Proudly discovered Highly Sensitive Person ~2009 To all you good gents, I say
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xdzt

Registered: 02/05/08
Posts: 427
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
#11954547 - 02/03/10 02:02 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ego Questio said: I've always wondered why the US hasn't pulled fusion out of the bag by now. For 70 years, the states have been the richest and one of the most scientifically advanced countries on the planet. With all the trillions the US government has dished out on bum schemes, did no-one really think "I know, we'll develop this clean, safe, efficient, highly reliable and advanced power generation source that'll save the planet on pretty much every level it needs saving and then sell this shit to every country on the map and rule the world?!
Apparently not. 
Then again, you could consider the way the US government (more than mine, anyway) has been influenced by big business dollars and interests, who only want to safeguard the brand and the product, you could say it's no wonder....  
Still, viva the French for working on the first operational model! 
The US would love to "pull fusion out of the bag", anyone would. If -- and I stress if -- practical fusion power is achievable, it's going to be a long, difficult, and expensive road to get there.
But in the meantime, fission is awesome.
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
#11954558 - 02/03/10 02:04 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Well, part of the problem is that it turns out to be a lot fucking harder than anybody thought in the sixties. But there is progress: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8485669.stm
Quote:
The fear has been that the plasma, a roiling soup of charged particles, would interrupt the target's ability to absorb the lasers' energy and funnel it uniformly into the fuel, compressing it and causing ignition.
Siegfried Glenzer, the Nif plasma scientist, led a team to test that theory, smashing records along the way.
"We hit it with 669 kilojoules - 20 times more than any previous laser facility," Nif's Siegfried Glenzer told BBC News.
That isn't that much total energy; it's about enough to boil a one-litre kettle twice over.
However, the beams delivered their energy in pulses lasting a little more than 10 billionths of a second.
By way of comparison, if that power could be maintained, it would boil the contents of more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools in a second.
Movement. Forward.
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dill705
Amazed



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Posts: 3,779
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: xdzt]
#11954560 - 02/03/10 02:04 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Yup
-------------------- My advice is to find those things that give pleasure and do them often without too much attachment and relax and wait for the show to end. -Icelander- I like free markets and all. Truly I do, at least in general, but there needs to be some kind of oversight in recognition of sustainability. Life works the same way, on a bunch of sustainable systems. Why not honor what made us what we are and take some lessons? Nature FTW! ~dill705~
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: xdzt]
#11954582 - 02/03/10 02:06 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
xdzt said: The US would love to "pull fusion out of the bag", anyone would. If -- and I stress if -- practical fusion power is achievable, it's going to be a long, difficult, and expensive road to get there.
But in the meantime, fission is awesome. 
In the meantime it will have to do, along with everything else. But fusion is virtually limitless.
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