Wind turbines kill bats

[280plus]

I hear if you put G98 in a dark room he still glows a bit. 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

we do our nukes bass akwards
each one a different design different procedures and parts. even if you give em a mulligan for the one they built with backwards blue prints(and that they didn't catch till it was a major faux paux) it would be wiser to try to standardize them some. that way . so that the left handed coolant pump in all of em was the same in the same place and could be more readily swapped out should the need arise.  then there is staffing. after 3 mile island there was difficulty staffing there. 7 of the girls from the haircuttery next door went up and hired on. not the brain trust and apparently they weren't drug testing.
at the lake anna facility a decade ago the nrc paid a visit. there is a series of pumps that need to be turned on in the event of a OMG moment. the procedure is that they are energized one at a time at intervals so that the start up voltage surge doesn't overload things. they do drills where they flip the switches with the power off . when the inspectors showed up they found some mensa member had ganged all the pump switches/breakers together with paper clips so yhey could all be thrown at once during those pesky drills that were so annoying. had they done that in a real emergency the results woulda been "less than optimal".it might seem a lil harsh but i would break it off in someone over that  30 days in the house of many doors ,might get their attention

[French G.]

I am ardently pro nuke even though I know that bad things happen when it gets loose. I will say one anti-nuke thing, what F'ing genius put TMI at the head of what is probably the most ecologically important and most populated estuary in North America?

That has fail written all over it and yet nobody died off the accident there.

They put in North Anna near where I grew up and a terrible thing happened. A little creek surrounded by thousands of acres of low value timber increased in real estate value by at least 1000% and swarms of boaters descend there every weekend to stimulate the local economy. Terrible I say.

[Iapetus]

What faulty construction/design?  I always thought it was due to human error, and for the most part wiki seems to support this.

Well, if you count approving and building the plant in the first place as 'human error'.   

To wit, the reactor had what's called a 'positive void coefficient'.  This is a very bad thing.  What it means is that when a bubble forms, IE water transforming to steam, the reaction in that area goes UP.  Because the reaction goes up, the heat goes up, and you get MORE bubbles.  This can lead to a runaway reaction.

Plants in the USA are required to have a negative void coefficient - bubbles reduce the reaction, creating a self-regulating situation.

The second would be the lack of a secondary containment structure - no dome to contain the radioactive materials after the breach of the primary vessel.

Either of which would have most likely prevented the release of radioactive materials into the environment.

IIRC, there was yet another stupid design feature in the Chernobyl reactor.

In a well-designed reactor, the cooling fluid enters at the bottom of the reactor, and leaves at the top.  That way, if the pumps fail, convection will keep it flowing.  In the Chernobyl design, the coolant entered at the top, so convection would work against it.

[280plus]

Stupid Russians. And they thought they were so smart because they used a pencil instead of spending $3,000,000 to design a pen that will write in space. Harumph! 

[LAK]

ManedWolf,

Our industry safety record, and in the general sense corporate attitude towards such things is no better nor worse than the Brits. Having lived and worked there for a collective 14 years, plus 9 on continental europe next door, and 27 years here at home in the U.S. I can say that is a general fact. You are going to have a very hard time convincing many people who have spent much time in euroland and the U.S. that somehow our industry is more reliable in this regard.

RichYoung

Explain how vitrified, sealed waste 35000 feet down is a "disaster waiting to happen".  You DO know that radioactivity is a naturally occuring phenomenon, right?  You DO know a coal-fored power plant emits MORE radiation than a nuke plant, right?  Nuclear waste, while toxic, is small in volume and easily contained, unlike coal plant waste, which we breath.

,
Volcanic eruptions in the deep blue sea are no rarity. Virtified and cased lumps of nuclear waste could become uncased and unvirtified material at any time; that's a very high stakes game of roulette.

Yes, I do know the rest. You are still on GK101 - except you missed an important part.

[Firethorn]

Stupid Russians. And they thought they were so smart because they used a pencil instead of spending $3,000,000 to design a pen that will write in space. Harumph! 

In case you're not kidding, and if you are, for the innocents out there, the Fischer space pen was designed entirely privately by Fischer using his own funds.  After creating the pen, a number were sold to both the US and Russian space agencies.

As for the pencil - remember the characteristics of a pencil when writing.  Pencil graphite, especially in zero g/high O2 environments is flammable, conductive, and releases itself as a powder when writing with it.

And they are good pens.  I love mine.

Volcanic eruptions in the deep blue sea are no rarity. Virtified and cased lumps of nuclear waste could become uncased and unvirtified material at any time; that's a very high stakes game of roulette.

Thing is, you do realize that even unvirtrified material won't make a measurable difference up against the radioactive materials already dissolved in seawater?  That can come spewing out of the volcano itself?

Really, ask yourself:  What's the failure mode?

[280plus]

yes I was kidding but that doesn't mean I had the facts straight. 

[LAK]

Thing is, you do realize that even unvirtrified material won't make a measurable difference up against the radioactive materials already dissolved in seawater?  That can come spewing out of the volcano itself?

That depends on the radioactive level of the waste being dissolved.

[Firethorn]

That depends on the radioactive level of the waste being dissolved.

It also depends on quantity.  Like I said, there's already enough radioactive material in seawater, in the millions of tons, and most heavy metals aren't all that dissolvable. 

Plus, seawater from a trench has an awful long way to go to get into ecosystems we normally deal with.  Given the wierdness that is deepest sea life, I wouldn't be surprised if they found the radioactive materials to be a good food source.

[LAK]

Firethorn,

I think you missed my point.

If by chance your nuke waste dump becomes an area of catastrophic seismic activity it might well be uncased, unvitrified and might possibly come welling up from the deep.

Background radiation, radiation in seawater, heavy metals really have nothing to do with this aside from direct comparisons with verifiable figures from reliable, preferably independent (of the nuclear industry) sources. If the waste radiation levels happen to be anywhere between higher and alot higher than what we are led to believe it is a disaster waiting to happen.

[Manedwolf]

If by chance your nuke waste dump becomes an area of catastrophic seismic activity it might well be uncased, unvitrified and might possibly come welling up from the deep.

...Up?

Depleted uranium is going to float UP? I think you need to consult a science textbook under "mass" and "density".

Hint: There's a reason why we use it for penetrators.

[richyoung]

...not to mention the whole thing is an ad-hoc argument anyway.  We know of geological formations that have been stable for longer than there have been humans - its a non-issue.

[Firethorn]

Depleted uranium is going to float UP? I think you need to consult a science textbook under "mass" and "density".

...not to mention the whole thing is an ad-hoc argument anyway.  We know of geological formations that have been stable for longer than there have been humans - its a non-issue.

Very good points.  My point is that even if we dump it down there unencased, unvitrified, totally unshielded, there's enough water down there that even if the waste becomes scattered and eventually disbursed, the combination of limited dissolve rate, the sheer amount of water, means that our waste won't appreciably increase the radioactivity of the water compared to the already dissolved radioactive materials in the ocean from natural sources.

Still, I'd prefer to keep it around until we start recycling the stuff.  Most of it's still usable as fuel.  Heck, we're developing a potential system that'll cause it to become less radioactive very fast - with the bonus that it does it fast enough that it can not only power the process, it can also produce electricity as a power plant.  Bonus.

[Manedwolf]

I am not sure why people think there's no radioactive material in the natural environment. I can get a few detector crackles out of local granite if the beta window on the counter is open.

[French G.]

Build more GAU-8s and A-10s and find someone in the world that desperately needs a DU donation?

[Firethorn]

I am not sure why people think there's no radioactive material in the natural environment. I can get a few detector crackles out of local granite if the beta window on the counter is open.

And  there's enough Uranium and Radium and such in ocean water that we could build desalination/purification plants and collect enough material for it to be energy positive using breeder reactors.

There's millions/billions of tons of the stuff dissolved in our oceans.

[Tallpine]

I am not sure why people think there's no radioactive material in the natural environment.

In Colorado and some other places, radiation comes right out of the ground - and into the crawl space of your home.  The you have to have special mitigation to avoid long term exposure 

[RocketMan]

I am not sure why people think there's no radioactive material in the natural environment.

In Colorado and some other places, radiation comes right out of the ground - and into the crawl space of your home.  The you have to have special mitigation to avoid long term exposure 

And that's why I glow in the dark.

[Manedwolf]

I am not sure why people think there's no radioactive material in the natural environment.

In Colorado and some other places, radiation comes right out of the ground - and into the crawl space of your home.  The you have to have special mitigation to avoid long term exposure 

Here too. Radon gas from the granite, which is uranium bearing.

[LAK]

RichYoung

...not to mention the whole thing is an ad-hoc argument anyway.  We know of geological formations that have been stable for longer than there have been humans - its a non-issue.

Like where? What you are suggesting is that somehow we know where any and all seismic activity has or will - and will not - occur. Astounding.  And simply not true.

[280plus]

Astounding.  And simply not true.

Yea, what if the LHC opens up a black hole and we all get sucked into it? Then what? geez... 

 

[Manedwolf]

RichYoung

...not to mention the whole thing is an ad-hoc argument anyway.  We know of geological formations that have been stable for longer than there have been humans - its a non-issue.

Like where? What you are suggesting is that somehow we know where any and all seismic activity has or will - and will not - occur. Astounding.  And simply not true.

And if Yellowstone explodes it will destroy the entire United States.

[richyoung]

RichYoung

...not to mention the whole thing is an ad-hoc argument anyway.  We know of geological formations that have been stable for longer than there have been humans - its a non-issue.

Like where? What you are suggesting is that somehow we know where any and all seismic activity has or will - and will not - occur. Astounding.  And simply not true.

I know you are smart enough to realize that "has been stable" does NOT mean that "any and all seismic activity" never has, and never will, occur.  Everywhere has "seismic activity" - I had a 3.2 earthquake with an epicenter about 4 miles from the building where I was working- it didn't even knock the power out - (which goes out all the time, for no damn reason at all...).  When the discussion is safe storage of vitrified nuclear waste, (let me repeat this...) WHEN THE DISCUSSION IS ABOUT THE SAFE STORAGE OF NUCLEAR WASTE[/i], only very abrupt, extreme, and powerful events need concern us.  Those kind of events leave scars on the very earth - so YES, we can examine a particular area's geology and safely determine that, in this vicinity, there is no evidence of a Krakatoa type cataclism here for X million years.  Very much the same criteria is used to locate secure data storage facilities.  As for "will occur", I know of no one that can see the future, but just like mutual funds, "past performance is no guarantee of future growth" - but its all you have to go on....

[roo_ster]

Butbutbut I want 100% certainty that nothing bad will ever happen from any future action I might take, or I am going home to hide under my bed.

Past perf and probabilities be damned.

   <=== Risk cop has no tolerance