>> The other Americans I've worked with have all been similarly dense.
>> Perhaps this is a reflection not of America, but of upper management. :-P
>
> That would be the laziness and "partisanship" showing. One of the Faux
> elite, who imagine they need know nothing, understand nothing, and do
> nothing, except make sure other people know, and do things. The logic
> is, "Why should I have to know that, as long as someone else does, and
> it works?"

As an intelligent person, I find this attitude obnoxious.

This _should_ be the point where I say "ah well, their loss..." Except 
that... well... it isn't, is it?

Post a reply to this message

On 14/04/2011 17:53, Darren New wrote:

> I think there's little (honest) argument that the climate is changing, a
> little more argument over whether it's caused sufficiently by humans
> that reduction of human pollution will noticeably help (hard to measure
> definitively), and finally the most controversial is simply *what* needs
> to get done to actually fix the problem without causing undue suffering.

This is the thing. I've heard a lot of environmental activists say "we 
should stop doing X" or "we should stop doing Y". I haven't heard much 
about "we should do Z instead".

Burning fossil fuels is obviously stupid for a number of reasons. And 
the alternative is...? What exactly?

Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest 
mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever. (Or at least, for 
several centuries.) And there's nothing you can do to fix it.

Wind power is great. But... do you really want the whole country to go 
black every time the wind stops blowing? Similarly, solar power. You 
realise that the sun is below the horizon for hours at a time, right? 
And some days, it's just not very sunny. For either of these things to 
work, you seriously need high-efficiency power storage, so you can 
collect power when it's there, and store it for when it's not.

Waves are more constant. I remember my mum just the other day raving 
about how "wind farms are a horrible blot on the landscape. And it's so 
STUPID! What happens when the wind stops blowing? Much better to use 
waves, which are there all the time. Why don't they do that?" Um, 
because to do that you have to defile a beautiful beach somewhere? 
Because the area of the country exceeds its perimeter? Because of the 
ecological issues of using up a comparatively rare habitat for power 
production?

And that's the other thing. Harnessing the wind, the waves or the sun 
uses up large areas of land and/or sea. This stuff doesn't grow on trees.

People have tried to make cars that run on electricity rather than 
fossil fuels. But that just means that you burn the fuel at the power 
plant rather than in the car. And batteries don't yet have the capacity 
to store energy as effectively as petrol. Some people are looking at 
using the fuel to run an engine [at its optimal efficiency point] which 
drives an electric generator. This might quite possibly make cars very 
much more efficient, but still work "the same way". (I.e., you put 
normal fuel into it, and it goes.) That makes the problem better, but 
it's not fixed yet.

My best guess? Use existing organisms to trap the sun's energy. (Let's 
face it, they've been perfecting that for a little while now.) And then 
use some kind of technology to harness the energy that the plants have 
trapped. But that's going to take a little while to figure out.

Recently there was some wave of news articles about how normal lighting 
systems had been "banned" and everybody is supposed to use the newer 
energy-efficient bulbs. You know, the ones that contain highly toxic 
chemicals, take 20 minutes to actually light up, and aren't even very 
bright when they do. Yes, they're more efficient, but this really looks 
to me like people passing a law before the technology is ready.

My personal theory is that mankind will actually do nothing, and come to 
an abrupt end. Either we will poison ourselves to death, or there will 
be a global thermonuclear war as people fight over the last few drops of 
precious oil. Either way, everybody dies.

The only comfort is that I probably won't be alive to see it...

Post a reply to this message

Le 15/04/2011 11:21, Invisible a écrit :
> This is the thing. I've heard a lot of environmental activists say "we
> should stop doing X" or "we should stop doing Y". I haven't heard much
> about "we should do Z instead".
> 
> Burning fossil fuels is obviously stupid for a number of reasons. And
> the alternative is...? What exactly?
> 
> Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest
> mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever. (Or at least, for
> several centuries.) And there's nothing you can do to fix it.
> 
> Wind power is great. But... do you really want the whole country to go
> black every time the wind stops blowing? Similarly, solar power. You
> realise that the sun is below the horizon for hours at a time, right?
> And some days, it's just not very sunny. For either of these things to
> work, you seriously need high-efficiency power storage, so you can
> collect power when it's there, and store it for when it's not.

All these should raise a question: why would you need a perfect and
continuous source of energy ?
Because you were raised in such environment where performance is
expected and requested all the time... time to change that way of thinking!

It's like email: they are not an INSTANT delivery system.

Back to middle-age, working from dawn to dusk but never past dusk.
Working enough to survive the year, yet the year after is still unknown,
not expecting interest-rate to provide wealth. Working about every day,
in theory, but having great collective break to prepare and celebrate
many holidays. one penny a day, 240 pences a year, such were the
unqualified wages. It also means that there was about 60 days of work
per season, not 90! (ratio of day off was not 1/7, rather 1/3. So you
think that todays week-end is a progress... well 2/7 < 1/3 !).

Also, local production should be sufficient to sustain all. You might
spent ten years without going further than 10 km from your home.


-- 
Software is like dirt - it costs time and money to change it and move it
around.

Just because you can't see it, it doesn't weigh anything,
and you can't drill a hole in it and stick a rivet into it doesn't mean
it's free.

Post a reply to this message

On 15/04/2011 12:24, Le_Forgeron wrote:

> All these should raise a question: why would you need a perfect and
> continuous source of energy ?
> Because you were raised in such environment where performance is
> expected and requested all the time... time to change that way of thinking!

A world without continuous energy is a world without computers - i.e., a 
world without *me*. ;-)

Besides, the sun *is* a perfect source of energy. It's not quite 
continuous across the whole planet, but every other lifeform manages to 
cope with that.

> Back to middle-age, working from dawn to dusk but never past dusk.

Nobody is going back there.

> Also, local production should be sufficient to sustain all. You might
> spent ten years without going further than 10 km from your home.

I agree that living in one place and commuting to another place to do 
your day's work is a pretty stupid idea. As is importing toothbrushes 
from China rather than making them in the UK.

On the other hand, for any given town or city, only a finite amount of 
land is available. Can you really manufacture absolutely everything 
needed within that space? Probably not. You ought to be able to manage 
quite a bit of it, though.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest
> mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever. (Or at least, for
> several centuries.) And there's nothing you can do to fix it.

That's not really true. Chernobyl was caused by a very long chain of mistakes,
all committed with a reactor design which was already itself a long chain of
mistakes. It should be noted that most other countries have never built a
reactor that could fail as catastrophically as this, even through wilful
sabotage.

TMI was also long chain of mistakes, which resulted in only the reactor being
ruined, and they did fix it.

I suppose you could say that Fukushima was really only one very big mistake,
i.e. how big a tsunami was ever likely to be. However, they show every sign of
being able to fix it eventually.

I long ago ceased to get any information on the nuclear industry from the
mainstream media. None of them understand it, and they all profit from making it
look bad.

Post a reply to this message

On 15/04/2011 13:26, Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest
>> mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever. (Or at least, for
>> several centuries.) And there's nothing you can do to fix it.
>
> That's not really true. Chernobyl was caused by a very long chain of mistakes,
> all committed with a reactor design which was already itself a long chain of
> mistakes. It should be noted that most other countries have never built a
> reactor that could fail as catastrophically as this, even through wilful
> sabotage.
>
> TMI was also long chain of mistakes, which resulted in only the reactor being
> ruined, and they did fix it.
>
> I suppose you could say that Fukushima was really only one very big mistake,
> i.e. how big a tsunami was ever likely to be. However, they show every sign of
> being able to fix it eventually.

That's kind of my point. You only need to be slightly wrong about one 
tiny thing, and it's game over.

Fires can be put out, even oil spills can be mopped up [eventually]. But 
radiation is forever. [Or rather, "for such a huge time period that it 
might as well be forever".]

> I long ago ceased to get any information on the nuclear industry from the
> mainstream media. None of them understand it, and they all profit from making it
> look bad.

I tend to take anything they say with a large pinch of salt.

Take, for example, the London airport "disaster". I forget the exact 
details, but a plane had to crash land due to some kind of mechanical 
failure. "So, how could such a serious safety failure have happened?" 
they ask. Um, excuse me? The plane CRASH LANDED, and not only did every 
single man, women and child on board walk off completely unharmed, THEY 
DIDN'T EVEN REALISE IT WAS A CRASH LANDING! That's not a safety failure. 
That's an epic SUCCESS! WTF, people?!

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > I suppose you could say that Fukushima was really only one very big mistake,
> > i.e. how big a tsunami was ever likely to be. However, they show every sign of
> > being able to fix it eventually.
>
> That's kind of my point. You only need to be slightly wrong about one
> tiny thing, and it's game over.

But they weren't slightly wrong about one tiny thing. They were completely wrong
about a very important thing. And yet, serious as the problems have been, they
will never be as bad as chernobyl, and it seems that it may ultimately be very
difficult to measure any health effects.

> Fires can be put out, even oil spills can be mopped up [eventually]. But
> radiation is forever. [Or rather, "for such a huge time period that it
> might as well be forever".]

The I-131 release, which is the most serious short-term health hazard as I
understand it, will be all but undetectable in a few months. Some of the fission
products retained in the spent fuel in the cores are pretty nasty, but this is
dealt with safely. Release of this type of high-level waste is unlikely in the
extreme.

The BP drilling accident last year was far, far more serious than any nuclear
accident.

> Take, for example, the London airport "disaster". I forget the exact
> details, but a plane had to crash land due to some kind of mechanical
> failure. "So, how could such a serious safety failure have happened?"
> they ask. Um, excuse me? The plane CRASH LANDED, and not only did every
> single man, women and child on board walk off completely unharmed, THEY
> DIDN'T EVEN REALISE IT WAS A CRASH LANDING! That's not a safety failure.
> That's an epic SUCCESS! WTF, people?!

Quite :)

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 2:21, Invisible wrote:
> Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest
> mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever.

It's possible (in theory) to build a plant where such isn't the case. It's 
just that afaik nobody is doing that, because nobody has already done it.

The problem with nuclear is it looked like you could make it safe, so people 
built plants, and then the plants were either built shoddily, wore out, 
weren't managed according to design, etc, and had a problem. Now even tho we 
have much better designs, nobody is willing to try out something that may 
have unexpected problems, having already been burned once.

 > Harnessing the [...] sun [...]. This stuff doesn't grow on trees.

Well, technically...

> People have tried to make cars that run on electricity rather than fossil
> fuels. But that just means that you burn the fuel at the power plant rather
> than in the car.

The advantage is it's far more efficient to generate the power centrally and 
distribute it than it is to generate it locally. You'll get 1/10th the cost 
of running an electric car as running a petroleum car. (I.e., filling up the 
tank on a pure electric car costs about the same as a gallon of gas.)

> when they do. Yes, they're more efficient, but this really looks to me like
> people passing a law before the technology is ready.

I think the idea is more to drive up the demand in order to get people to 
invest in the research for making them better.

> My personal theory is that mankind will actually do nothing, and come to an
> abrupt end. Either we will poison ourselves to death, or there will be a
> global thermonuclear war as people fight over the last few drops of precious
> oil. Either way, everybody dies.
>
> The only comfort is that I probably won't be alive to see it...


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 4:24, Le_Forgeron wrote:
> Back to middle-age, working from dawn to dusk but never past dusk.

Well, sure. Let's kill off 2/3rds of the population. That'll work too.

> Also, local production should be sufficient to sustain all. You might
> spent ten years without going further than 10 km from your home.

Yep. That sure works as long as you don't mind killing almost everyone in 
NYC, LA, Tokyo, Beijing, etc.

That's the problem. The middle ages doesn't support a population of six 
billion. Neither does hunter-gatherer.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 5:57, Invisible wrote:
> That's kind of my point. You only need to be slightly wrong about one tiny
> thing, and it's game over.

Not really. Look up thorium salt reactors. They don't go critical, the 
wastes are not very radioactive, you can't blow them up, etc etc. They're 
much safer.

> Fires can be put out, even oil spills can be mopped up [eventually]. But
> radiation is forever. [Or rather, "for such a huge time period that it might
> as well be forever".]

Depending on the radiation, oil spills probably last longer than lots of 
kinds of radiation problems.

> I tend to take anything they say with a large pinch of salt.

The other thing to realize about the nuclear industry is that the 
regulations are far stricter than anywhere else. For example, you can't 
build a nuclear reactor out of granite (the same stuff you might have in 
your kitchen) because the granite is too radioactive. I think bananas emit 
more radiation than nuclear reactors are allowed to leak.

Sort of like complaining about the exhaust from a Prius when you are driving 
through downtown LA and the air coming out of the exhaust is cleaner than 
the air going in.

> That's not a safety failure. That's an epic SUCCESS! WTF, people?!

Only because God did it! ;-)


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 15/04/2011 16:35, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/15/2011 5:57, Invisible wrote:
>> That's kind of my point. You only need to be slightly wrong about one
>> tiny thing, and it's game over.
>
> Not really. Look up thorium salt reactors. They don't go critical, the
> wastes are not very radioactive, you can't blow them up, etc etc.
> They're much safer.

As I understand it, normal nuclear reactors are incapable of a *nuclear* 
explosion. That doesn't mean that the cooling system can't overload and 
explode. Or freak weather conditions level the building. Or somebody 
flies a passenger jet into it. Or...

>> Fires can be put out, even oil spills can be mopped up [eventually]. But
>> radiation is forever. [Or rather, "for such a huge time period that it
>> might
>> as well be forever".]
>
> Depending on the radiation, oil spills probably last longer than lots of
> kinds of radiation problems.

Uranium-235 has a halflife is 700 million years. That's /halflife/, not 
the time it takes to degrade completely, just the time for *half* of it 
to go away. 700 million years is longer than that oil has been in the 
ground. ;-)

Post a reply to this message

On 15/04/2011 16:28, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/15/2011 2:21, Invisible wrote:
>> Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest
>> mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever.
>
> It's possible (in theory) to build a plant where such isn't the case.
> It's just that afaik nobody is doing that, because nobody has already
> done it.

I'd be rather surprised if you can build a system powered by radiation 
such that it doesn't use much radiation.

>> Harnessing the [...] sun [...]. This stuff doesn't grow on trees.
>
> Well, technically...

I said /land area/ doesn't grow on trees! :-P

>> People have tried to make cars that run on electricity rather than fossil
>> fuels. But that just means that you burn the fuel at the power plant
>> rather than in the car.
>
> The advantage is it's far more efficient to generate the power centrally
> and distribute it than it is to generate it locally.

Is it?

I mean, I'm sure a generator that runs at optimal speed 24/7 can be way 
more efficient than the clapped out old engine in your car. But doesn't 
the inherent inefficiency of distributing the power more than negate the 
advantage?

>> when they do. Yes, they're more efficient, but this really looks to me
>> like people passing a law before the technology is ready.
>
> I think the idea is more to drive up the demand in order to get people
> to invest in the research for making them better.

In that case, just ban *all* forms of lighting! That should create a 
market demand alright...

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 8:49, Invisible wrote:
> That doesn't mean that the cooling system can't overload and explode.

Right. But if you knock down a thorium salt reactor, it just gets cold. It's 
basically a big stack of pool-ball sized balls that heat up if you get a 
bunch of them close enough. So if something goes wrong and knocks down the 
wall, it cools off and you send in people in lead-lined bulldozers to scoop 
the stuff up.

 > Or somebody flies a passenger jet into it. Or...

They're designed to resist that one.

> Uranium-235 has a halflife is 700 million years.

U-235 isn't that dangerous, tho, unless you pile up enough to interact.

What it also means is that if you spill 100 pounds of U-235 somewhere, it's 
going to take 700 million years for even 50 pounds of it to have emitted 
radiation. That's a very low level of radiation.

The actual chemical properties are probably more dangerous than the 
radioactive properties if you spread it out widely enough.

 > That's /halflife/, not the
> time it takes to degrade completely, just the time for *half* of it to go
> away. 700 million years is longer than that oil has been in the ground. ;-)

Which tells you that it isn't *that* dangerous or there wouldn't be any life 
in the ground.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:21:37 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Wind power is great. But... do you really want the whole country to go
> black every time the wind stops blowing? Similarly, solar power. You
> realise that the sun is below the horizon for hours at a time, right?
> And some days, it's just not very sunny. For either of these things to
> work, you seriously need high-efficiency power storage, so you can
> collect power when it's there, and store it for when it's not.

And most solar collection and all wind powered systems I've seen actually 
include that storage subsystem.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 8:52, Invisible wrote:
> On 15/04/2011 16:28, Darren New wrote:
>> On 4/15/2011 2:21, Invisible wrote:
>>> Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest
>>> mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever.
>>
>> It's possible (in theory) to build a plant where such isn't the case.
>> It's just that afaik nobody is doing that, because nobody has already
>> done it.
>
> I'd be rather surprised if you can build a system powered by radiation such
> that it doesn't use much radiation.

I didn't say that. I said a mistake doesn't leak dangerous radioactivity.

If I said "it's possible to build a car that can hit a wall at 100MPH 
without the passenger getting hurt", would you say "I'd be rather surprised 
you can build a car that won't run into walls."

> I said /land area/ doesn't grow on trees! :-P

I know. It was just amusing.

>>> People have tried to make cars that run on electricity rather than fossil
>>> fuels. But that just means that you burn the fuel at the power plant
>>> rather than in the car.
>>
>> The advantage is it's far more efficient to generate the power centrally
>> and distribute it than it is to generate it locally.
>
> Is it?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electric-cars-cost-per-charge

How come I do your googling for you? :-)

> In that case, just ban *all* forms of lighting! That should create a market
> demand alright...

Well, banned for everyone but essential legislative services, of course.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:31:48 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>> I think it's more controversial what to do about it.  And at least
>>> there's something that remotely *sounds* controversial about it, if
>>> you actually read the original source stuff.
>>
>> Certainly for those who believe science stands still - and that our
>> understanding hasn't changed (or should I say 'evolved'? ;) ) since
>> Darwin wrote about it.
> 
> Apparently Darwin didn't even *invent* the idea of evolution. He just
> made it popular by presenting a well-researched and compelling case for
> it, in a single large, self-contained document.

Of course he didn't invent it.  Things that happen in nature aren't 
invented, they're discovered. ;)

Similarly, Newton didn't invent gravity.  Aristotle didn't invent 
displacement.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:34:13 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>> The other Americans I've worked with have all been similarly dense.
>>> Perhaps this is a reflection not of America, but of upper management.
>>> :-P
>>
>> That would be the laziness and "partisanship" showing. One of the Faux
>> elite, who imagine they need know nothing, understand nothing, and do
>> nothing, except make sure other people know, and do things. The logic
>> is, "Why should I have to know that, as long as someone else does, and
>> it works?"
> 
> As an intelligent person, I find this attitude obnoxious.
> 
> This _should_ be the point where I say "ah well, their loss..." Except
> that... well... it isn't, is it?

Where it becomes problematic is when they say "I don't need to know how 
this works, as long as someone else does and it works" and then argue 
with the science of how it works with no understanding of it.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>> That doesn't mean that the cooling system can't overload and explode.
>
> Right. But if you knock down a thorium salt reactor, it just gets cold.
> It's basically a big stack of pool-ball sized balls that heat up if you
> get a bunch of them close enough. So if something goes wrong and knocks
> down the wall, it cools off and you send in people in lead-lined
> bulldozers to scoop the stuff up.

If it's so simple and easy, why isn't everyone doing it?

>> Uranium-235 has a halflife is 700 million years.
>
> U-235 isn't that dangerous, tho, unless you pile up enough to interact.
>
> What it also means is that if you spill 100 pounds of U-235 somewhere,
> it's going to take 700 million years for even 50 pounds of it to have
> emitted radiation. That's a very low level of radiation.

How do you work that one out?

> The actual chemical properties are probably more dangerous than the
> radioactive properties if you spread it out widely enough.

Well, yeah, that's probably true enough.

>> That's /halflife/, not the
>> time it takes to degrade completely, just the time for *half* of it to go
>> away. 700 million years is longer than that oil has been in the
>> ground. ;-)
>
> Which tells you that it isn't *that* dangerous or there wouldn't be any
> life in the ground.

It's also an extremely rare element. Not like a reactor core, which is 
make out of pure Uranium...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> I'd be rather surprised if you can build a system powered by radiation
>> such that it doesn't use much radiation.
>
> I didn't say that. I said a mistake doesn't leak dangerous radioactivity.

So it's full of radiation, but if you smash it up, it somehow doesn't 
release any radiation? How would *that* work?

> If I said "it's possible to build a car that can hit a wall at 100MPH
> without the passenger getting hurt", would you say "I'd be rather
> surprised you can build a car that won't run into walls."

I *would* be surprised if you can make a car that can withstand a 100MPH 
crash. :-P

>>> The advantage is it's far more efficient to generate the power centrally
>>> and distribute it than it is to generate it locally.
>>
>> Is it?
>
> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electric-cars-cost-per-charge
>
> How come I do your googling for you? :-)

And now we have to sit down and figure out who funded them to publish 
that, where they got their data from, what methods they actually used, 
etc. It's not as simple as "it's true, because this random website says so".

>> In that case, just ban *all* forms of lighting! That should create a
>> market
>> demand alright...
>
> Well, banned for everyone but essential legislative services, of course.

LOL. Yeah...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On 15/04/2011 05:01 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:21:37 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>
>> Wind power is great. But... do you really want the whole country to go
>> black every time the wind stops blowing? Similarly, solar power. You
>> realise that the sun is below the horizon for hours at a time, right?
>> And some days, it's just not very sunny. For either of these things to
>> work, you seriously need high-efficiency power storage, so you can
>> collect power when it's there, and store it for when it's not.
>
> And most solar collection and all wind powered systems I've seen actually
> include that storage subsystem.

Last time I heard, storing electricity efficiently is an unsolved problem.

(Apparently current battery solutions aren't very efficient.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On 15/04/2011 05:06 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:

> Where it becomes problematic is when they say "I don't need to know how
> this works, as long as someone else does and it works" and then argue
> with the science of how it works with no understanding of it.

FULL CIRCLE!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/04/15 12:00, Darren New a écrit :
> On 4/15/2011 8:49, Invisible wrote:

>  > Or somebody flies a passenger jet into it. Or...
>
> They're designed to resist that one.
Or a jet fighter going at full after burner speed with maximum ammo.

>
>> Uranium-235 has a halflife is 700 million years.
>
> U-235 isn't that dangerous, tho, unless you pile up enough to interact.
>
> What it also means is that if you spill 100 pounds of U-235 somewhere,
> it's going to take 700 million years for even 50 pounds of it to have
> emitted radiation. That's a very low level of radiation.
>
> The actual chemical properties are probably more dangerous than the
> radioactive properties if you spread it out widely enough.

True!
Uranium is a heavy metal, and is toxic the same way as lead or arsenide, 
but somewhat more reactive.
Plutonium is lso much more dangerous based on it's extreeme chemical 
toxicity than it's radiation, and it's much more radioactive than uranium.

>
>  > That's /halflife/, not the
>> time it takes to degrade completely, just the time for *half* of it to go
>> away. 700 million years is longer than that oil has been in the
>> ground. ;-)
>
> Which tells you that it isn't *that* dangerous or there wouldn't be any
> life in the ground.
>

And during all that time, the rate of emission steadily goes down.

The most dangerous radioactive materials are those with short half-life.
Then, if that material emmits almost all of it's radiation as alpha 
particles, you may dismiss it (twice ionised helium). It's stopped by 
any sheet of paper. They can only cause damage if they are inside your body.

Then, there is the beta particles (electrons). Not to penetrating. A 
plank of wood, almost any thickness of any metal, or about 1m of air 
will stop it.

The real problem are gamma rays and neutron emissions. Gamma rays need 
thick lead shielding to stop.
Neutrons can make other materials become radioactive. They can also 
travel prety far. But water, and several other materials, does stop them 
effeciently.


Alain

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/04/15 13:00, Orchid XP v8 a écrit :
>>> That doesn't mean that the cooling system can't overload and explode.
>>
>> Right. But if you knock down a thorium salt reactor, it just gets cold.
>> It's basically a big stack of pool-ball sized balls that heat up if you
>> get a bunch of them close enough. So if something goes wrong and knocks
>> down the wall, it cools off and you send in people in lead-lined
>> bulldozers to scoop the stuff up.
>
> If it's so simple and easy, why isn't everyone doing it?
>
>>> Uranium-235 has a halflife is 700 million years.
>>
>> U-235 isn't that dangerous, tho, unless you pile up enough to interact.
>>
>> What it also means is that if you spill 100 pounds of U-235 somewhere,
>> it's going to take 700 million years for even 50 pounds of it to have
>> emitted radiation. That's a very low level of radiation.
>
> How do you work that one out?

Halflife is defined as "the time it takes for half of the original 
amount to degrade". So, it takes 700 millions years for half of your 
uranium's atoms to deckay, and thus, emit radiation. After 1400 millions 
years, 75% of the original amount will have deckayed.
It apply to radioactive materials. It also apply to medication in your 
body, and many other things.

>
>> The actual chemical properties are probably more dangerous than the
>> radioactive properties if you spread it out widely enough.
>
> Well, yeah, that's probably true enough.
>
>>> That's /halflife/, not the
>>> time it takes to degrade completely, just the time for *half* of it
>>> to go
>>> away. 700 million years is longer than that oil has been in the
>>> ground. ;-)
>>
>> Which tells you that it isn't *that* dangerous or there wouldn't be any
>> life in the ground.
>
> It's also an extremely rare element. Not like a reactor core, which is
> make out of pure Uranium...
>

A reactor core is NEVER "pure uranium".
The uranium is contained in "fuel canisters" incerted into fuel 
channels, then there is the moderator medium, then the cooling system, 
then the controll rods channels.



Alain

Post a reply to this message

>>>> Uranium-235 has a halflife is 700 million years.
>>>
>>> U-235 isn't that dangerous, tho, unless you pile up enough to interact.
>>>
>>> What it also means is that if you spill 100 pounds of U-235 somewhere,
>>> it's going to take 700 million years for even 50 pounds of it to have
>>> emitted radiation. That's a very low level of radiation.
>>
>> How do you work that one out?
>
> Halflife is defined as "the time it takes for half of the original
> amount to degrade". So, it takes 700 millions years for half of your
> uranium's atoms to deckay, and thus, emit radiation. After 1400 millions
> years, 75% of the original amount will have deckayed.
> It apply to radioactive materials. It also apply to medication in your
> body, and many other things.

Are you saying there's some sort of relationship between the halflife of 
a substance and how much radiation it emits?

>>> Which tells you that it isn't *that* dangerous or there wouldn't be any
>>> life in the ground.
>>
>> It's also an extremely rare element. Not like a reactor core, which is
>> make out of pure Uranium...
>>
>
> A reactor core is NEVER "pure uranium".

It's far nearer to being pure than anything in nature.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:48:14 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>>> Which tells you that it isn't *that* dangerous or there wouldn't be
>>>> any life in the ground.
>>>
>>> It's also an extremely rare element. Not like a reactor core, which is
>>> make out of pure Uranium...
>>>
>>>
>> A reactor core is NEVER "pure uranium".
> 
> It's far nearer to being pure than anything in nature.

Would you like me to have a bona-fide nuclear physicist refute this?  I 
have a very close friend who has a doctorate in nuclear physics (and two 
others who hold advanced degrees, one doctorate and one masters), and 
after he stopped laughing, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to give you 
all the nitty-gritty details about what is wrong about that statement. ;)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/04/15 13:48, Orchid XP v8 a écrit :

>> Halflife is defined as "the time it takes for half of the original
>> amount to degrade". So, it takes 700 millions years for half of your
>> uranium's atoms to deckay, and thus, emit radiation. After 1400 millions
>> years, 75% of the original amount will have deckayed.
>> It apply to radioactive materials. It also apply to medication in your
>> body, and many other things.
>
> Are you saying there's some sort of relationship between the halflife of
> a substance and how much radiation it emits?
>

Not some sort of relation. Direct relation.
The rate of emission is directly proportional to the amount and invertly 
proportional to the halflife.

A substance that have a halflife of 1 year is 700 millions times more 
radioactive than uranium. Some radioactive materials have halflife of 
much less than a second, like about 1e-10s. This makes them 
extraordinary radioactive, but you can never accumulate more than a few 
femtograms of them at any given time...


Alain

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:04:24 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electric-cars-cost-
per-charge
>>
>> How come I do your googling for you?
> 
> And now we have to sit down and figure out who funded them to publish
> that, where they got their data from, what methods they actually used,
> etc. It's not as simple as "it's true, because this random website says
> so".

Scientific American is a reputable journal, not "some random website".

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:05:09 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> On 15/04/2011 05:01 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:21:37 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> Wind power is great. But... do you really want the whole country to go
>>> black every time the wind stops blowing? Similarly, solar power. You
>>> realise that the sun is below the horizon for hours at a time, right?
>>> And some days, it's just not very sunny. For either of these things to
>>> work, you seriously need high-efficiency power storage, so you can
>>> collect power when it's there, and store it for when it's not.
>>
>> And most solar collection and all wind powered systems I've seen
>> actually include that storage subsystem.
> 
> Last time I heard, storing electricity efficiently is an unsolved
> problem.
> 
> (Apparently current battery solutions aren't very efficient.)

And yet they're in common usage and working fairly well.  How about that?

Just because it's not 100% efficient doesn't mean you can't do it.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:06:45 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> On 15/04/2011 05:06 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> Where it becomes problematic is when they say "I don't need to know how
>> this works, as long as someone else does and it works" and then argue
>> with the science of how it works with no understanding of it.
> 
> FULL CIRCLE!

Indeed, but those who use that kind of logic don't even realise they're 
doing it.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 10:00, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> If it's so simple and easy, why isn't everyone doing it?

Hey, 3GHz 4-core processors only cost like $200. Why didn't we have those 
back in the original PC?

>> That's a very low level of radiation.
>
> How do you work that one out?

Put it this way. You have a chemical that will react and release enough 
energy to boil 10 gallons of water. If you spend 20 minutes reacting it to 
boil ten gallons of water, is that safer or more dangerous than releasing it 
all in three milliseconds?  Would you rather be standing next to an 
automobile that's idling or an automobile where the gas tank is exploding? 
It's the same amount of total energy.

The longer the half life, the less radiation is being emitted per pound of 
material. That just falls out of the definition of half life.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 10:48, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Are you saying there's some sort of relationship between the halflife of a
> substance and how much radiation it emits?

Well, yeah. By definition, if the half life is a month, it emits half of all 
the radiation it'll ever emit in the first month. If the half life is a 
year, it takes a year to emit the same amount of radiation, so it's 1/12th 
as radioactive.

Indeed, that's exactly why you pile up a bunch of naturally-occurring 
uranium in a reactor. The atoms set each other off much faster than you'd 
get from normal unstimulated half-life decay.  Otherwise there wouldn't be 
any uranium left.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 10:04, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> So it's full of radiation, but if you smash it up, it somehow doesn't
> release any radiation? How would *that* work?

Why do I have to google for you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor#Safety_features

> I *would* be surprised if you can make a car that can withstand a 100MPH
> crash. :-P

Yet again, reading comprehension is low. ;-) I didn't say anything about the 
*car* surviving the crash.

> And now we have to sit down and figure out who funded them to publish that,
> where they got their data from, what methods they actually used, etc. It's
> not as simple as "it's true, because this random website says so".

It's pretty commonly understood, and really not at all difficult to prove, 
considering you can go out and buy one of those cars and plug it in to see. 
It's hard to have controversial statements about things like "how much does 
gasoline cost?" or "how much electricity does this commercially-available 
consumer product use?"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 10:05, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> (Apparently current battery solutions aren't very efficient.)

Big power plants don't store power in batteries.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 14-4-2011 0:09, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 4/13/2011 7:26 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>>> I literally can't decide whether this is serious or not.
>>>
>>> I'm just gobsmacked.
>>
>> Ditto.
>>
>>> Be afraid be very, very afraid that there are people in the educated
>>> world that can ask those types of questions and those that will answer
>>> them.
>>
>> I honestly can't decide whether this is deadpan spoof or perfectly
>> serious.
>>
>> (Isn't there a law of the Internet about this effect?)
> Its called a Poe: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of
> humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that
> SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."
>
> A corollary to this is one, I am not sure its been named, which states
> that no such parody you can make will ever be unique, since there is
> bound to already be some Fundamentalist, some place, making the same
> exact same argument/statement on an existing website.

Oh no, that means that someone really believes that because the society 
as a whole seems to have almost exactly the right amount of bakers, 
plumbers and housewives that must imply that the society is designed by 
a supreme being. And that the proof of that is that society is 
irreducible complex because if you remove one group, the bakers or the 
policeman, or the bus drivers, or...  the whole thing stops working, 
hence it cannot have been evolved.


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 4:24 AM, Le_Forgeron wrote:
> Le 15/04/2011 11:21, Invisible a écrit :
>> This is the thing. I've heard a lot of environmental activists say "we
>> should stop doing X" or "we should stop doing Y". I haven't heard much
>> about "we should do Z instead".
>>
>> Burning fossil fuels is obviously stupid for a number of reasons. And
>> the alternative is...? What exactly?
>>
>> Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest
>> mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever. (Or at least, for
>> several centuries.) And there's nothing you can do to fix it.
>>
>> Wind power is great. But... do you really want the whole country to go
>> black every time the wind stops blowing? Similarly, solar power. You
>> realise that the sun is below the horizon for hours at a time, right?
>> And some days, it's just not very sunny. For either of these things to
>> work, you seriously need high-efficiency power storage, so you can
>> collect power when it's there, and store it for when it's not.
>
> All these should raise a question: why would you need a perfect and
> continuous source of energy ?
> Because you were raised in such environment where performance is
> expected and requested all the time... time to change that way of thinking!
>
> It's like email: they are not an INSTANT delivery system.
>
> Back to middle-age, working from dawn to dusk but never past dusk.
> Working enough to survive the year, yet the year after is still unknown,
> not expecting interest-rate to provide wealth. Working about every day,
> in theory, but having great collective break to prepare and celebrate
> many holidays. one penny a day, 240 pences a year, such were the
> unqualified wages. It also means that there was about 60 days of work
> per season, not 90! (ratio of day off was not 1/7, rather 1/3. So you
> think that todays week-end is a progress... well 2/7<  1/3 !).
>
> Also, local production should be sufficient to sustain all. You might
> spent ten years without going further than 10 km from your home.
>
>
None of which worked worth shit, or as you imply. lol

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On 4/15/2011 5:26 AM, Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest
>> mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever. (Or at least, for
>> several centuries.) And there's nothing you can do to fix it.
>
> That's not really true. Chernobyl was caused by a very long chain of mistakes,
> all committed with a reactor design which was already itself a long chain of
> mistakes. It should be noted that most other countries have never built a
> reactor that could fail as catastrophically as this, even through wilful
> sabotage.
>
> TMI was also long chain of mistakes, which resulted in only the reactor being
> ruined, and they did fix it.
>
> I suppose you could say that Fukushima was really only one very big mistake,
> i.e. how big a tsunami was ever likely to be. However, they show every sign of
> being able to fix it eventually.
>
No, the "big" mistakes where:

1. Having no way to cool it, or certainty that the power systems would 
still work, to do so, if enough failures happened. And, no, battery 
backup doesn't work, if it lasts less than 24 hours.

2. Placing the old, spent, fuel in something that was ever *less* 
effectively cooled.

And, I would add 3. Presuming that a *big* reactor, which produces 
massive amounts of power, but where it would be nearly impossible to 
either make it less hazardous, or run battery backup long enough, or 
otherwise create a system that *could* compensate for major problems, 
remains bloody stupid.

In simpler terms, a small reactor wouldn't need to use as many, as hot, 
as poor emergency systems, etc., to do the same job, for a single city. 
Its having 4-5 reactors of that size, operating the power for dozens of 
cities, nearly all operating by narrow margins, which is the problem. 
And, even when they did improve things, it was to improve how waste 
energy/heat got recycled, to reduce the inefficiency of the system 
(something that could reduce our need in the US for plants by half, or 
more, if we did it, but we won't, because it costs to much to redo 
thousands of *old* plants, that where never built to do that, never mind 
those operating on 80 different sorts of fuel/energy sources.

The US systems are inefficient, and "smart power" won't change that, 
without altering the things "running" off the power, and the plants 
themselves. And, both of those cost more than just making smarter 
switches, and some smarter meters. But, more to the point, the theory is 
always, "Find a way to make lots, then send it some place else." This is 
damn stupid. It means more danger at the source, larger fuel use at the 
source, bigger disasters *when* they happen, fewer, and less effective, 
means to handle them, when they happen, and then you *waste* half of it 
in the first 3 miles, while running it 500 miles to the town that needs it.

Imagine if the Fukushima reactors had each been even 50% the size, with 
say 25% of the fuel rods, and better access. Cooling could have been fed 
in easier, a means to get into/fix things would have been simpler, etc. 
And, that isn't even speaking to options that might have existed, to 
simply kill the reactions *given the right design*, or lower it to the 
point where even with nothing working, it wasn't as big a risk.

We need "local" power. Shipping it on from external points, and hoping 
it all works, and is safe, was a great idea when you didn't care if you 
lost most of it, and all you needed to run was a few thousand light 
bulbs. Now.. its a waste of resources, and anything that can supply it 
is dangerous, and not just do to size, but do to the level of constant 
operation needed to just keep things working, including the plants 
themselves.

So, that would be my answer. Stop wasting resources on distant power 
systems, and build more local, smaller, less dangerous ones. Ones you 
don't care if you faze out, if other improvements crop up, like better 
solar. Otherwise... There are ways to reduce the need for distant/local 
sources, even with what is available, that, if not perfect, still 
reduces, for the short term, how much crap is used instead. But, those 
things are not going to be driven by corporations, they won't be driven 
by people in the pocket of them, and they won't be driven by buyers, 
unless the buyers get their heads out of their asses and stop doing 
things like whining about how they don't like 1st/2nd gen fluorescent 
bulbs, so they *must* have their old ones, and similar short sighted idiocy.

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 8:49 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 15/04/2011 16:35, Darren New wrote:
>> On 4/15/2011 5:57, Invisible wrote:
>>> That's kind of my point. You only need to be slightly wrong about one
>>> tiny thing, and it's game over.
>>
>> Not really. Look up thorium salt reactors. They don't go critical, the
>> wastes are not very radioactive, you can't blow them up, etc etc.
>> They're much safer.
>
> As I understand it, normal nuclear reactors are incapable of a *nuclear*
> explosion. That doesn't mean that the cooling system can't overload and
> explode. Or freak weather conditions level the building. Or somebody
> flies a passenger jet into it. Or...
>
The problem isn't nuclear explosions, its hydrogen generated by the 
system, which get hot enough to ignite. Mind.. I am seriously unclear 
why they couldn't make like a permeable something that could grab up the 
hydrogen, react it again, and just generate water from the excess, as 
part of the cooling, but.. I am sure it just silly to imagine a way to 
get rid of the damn stuff in a useful way, instead of just letting it 
get generated in insane amounts, when the fuel housings start to corrode...

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 8:52 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 15/04/2011 16:28, Darren New wrote:
>> On 4/15/2011 2:21, Invisible wrote:
>>> Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest
>>> mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever.
>>
>> It's possible (in theory) to build a plant where such isn't the case.
>> It's just that afaik nobody is doing that, because nobody has already
>> done it.
>
> I'd be rather surprised if you can build a system powered by radiation
> such that it doesn't use much radiation.
>
There is a battery for small devices in the works that "does" that. The 
problem, in most cases, is that its not the radiation that is used, its 
the heat. That is why the reactors are made the way they are. They have 
to heat water, and the water runs turbines. Find a material that can 
readily transfer electrons, and restore itself, at a decent rate, such 
that you only need something "hot" enough to generate the current you 
need, and you would be way better off.

The closest to a "safe" reactor I think anyone is amounts to two pieces 
of radioactive material in opposite ends of a tube, where you have to 
"heat" one of them, to initiate the reaction, and the reaction them 
generates enough heat during decay to run a small scale turbine. The 
output being higher than needed to maintain the reaction. So.. Cut the 
power, and the reaction slows, and you no longer get "any" output (or 
nothing higher than it would produce without the input energy). But, I 
haven't read anything on that design for some time. And, at that time, 
they had only managed to detect radiation of the type generated during 
such a reaction, so I have no idea if they got the design to actually 
work at all or not (it was very preliminary).

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 10:05 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> On 15/04/2011 05:01 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:21:37 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> Wind power is great. But... do you really want the whole country to go
>>> black every time the wind stops blowing? Similarly, solar power. You
>>> realise that the sun is below the horizon for hours at a time, right?
>>> And some days, it's just not very sunny. For either of these things to
>>> work, you seriously need high-efficiency power storage, so you can
>>> collect power when it's there, and store it for when it's not.
>>
>> And most solar collection and all wind powered systems I've seen actually
>> include that storage subsystem.
>
> Last time I heard, storing electricity efficiently is an unsolved problem.
>
> (Apparently current battery solutions aren't very efficient.)
>
Yeah, that is the biggest hang up. One company though is looking to use 
the panels to split water, then store the hydrogen in a regular fuel 
cell. This can't, obviously, be too helpful for thing that need to be 
"on" all the time, but.. in principle, for anything that needs to only 
operate as needed, this would reduce costs quite a bit, since all you 
need it to make sure it has water to work with.

Still, the major break throughs are going to have to be in battery tech, 
and in making those solar cells both cheaper, and more powerful. The 
former being, maybe, easier than the later. There are people working 
with organic dye cells, which you can make damn cheap (but don't work as 
well as normal ones yet), and others that think they may have ways to 
make the silicon they are made on *way* cheaper.

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 19:57, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The problem isn't nuclear explosions, its hydrogen generated by the system,

Are you talking about the alpha radiation or something?  I can't imagine 
where hydrogen would come from unless they're cracking water or something.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/15/2011 20:05, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> There is a battery for small devices in the works that "does" that. The
> problem, in most cases, is that its not the radiation that is used, its the
> heat. That is why the reactors are made the way they are.

You can do it for small stuff with thermocouples. That's what's running 
things like the voyager space ships. Stick a lump of uranium next to two 
different types of metal pressed together, and bingo instant current. But it 
only generates a couple of watts that way.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 15/04/2011 07:24 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/15/2011 10:00, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> If it's so simple and easy, why isn't everyone doing it?
>
> Hey, 3GHz 4-core processors only cost like $200. Why didn't we have
> those back in the original PC?

I've often wondered about this. Why did people design a 33MHz CPU, and 
then a 66MHz one, and then 100MHz, and so forth? Why didn't they just go 
straight to 4GHz?

> The longer the half life, the less radiation is being emitted per pound
> of material. That just falls out of the definition of half life.

So the radiation is actually *caused by* the substance decaying?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> I *would* be surprised if you can make a car that can withstand a 100MPH
>> crash. :-P
>
> Yet again, reading comprehension is low. ;-) I didn't say anything about
> the *car* surviving the crash.

Designing it so the car doesn't survive the crash but the people inside 
do would be even more miraculous...

> It's pretty commonly understood, and really not at all difficult to
> prove, considering you can go out and buy one of those cars and plug it
> in to see. It's hard to have controversial statements about things like
> "how much does gasoline cost?" or "how much electricity does this
> commercially-available consumer product use?"

It's news to me that anybody is producing electric cars yet. I'm aware 
that they've been producing proof-of-concept designs for decades. But I 
didn't think any of this stuff had reached the shops yet.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Le 16/04/2011 12:09, Orchid XP v8 nous fit lire :
> So the radiation is actually *caused by* the substance decaying?

Indeed.
When the atom splits (a bit of paradox for the greek atom), it results
in two or more atoms and radiation (alpha, beta or/and gamma).
(as well as heat)

radiation alpha, beta & gamma are in fact: photon, electron or positron
and helium nucleus (in opposite order, gamma is a photon, alpha is helium)

There is also neutron radiation.

Radiation can be spontaneous (hence the half-life) or generated by a
collision with another atom/particule/radiation.

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:04:11 -0400, Warp wrote:

> >> A solution to global warming? No.  A solution to running out of oil?
> >> Quite possibly.  A solution to having a power generation technology
> >> that a poor uneducated population can use without fear of actually
> >> killing people on the other side of the world when they screw up? Sure.
> > 
> >   Burning coal is only a temporary solution, and a bad one.

> I'd have to agree with Darren here, it may be a bad solution, but unless 
> there is another solution, the alternative is "well, it sucks to be you 
> since you won't have power - deal with it."

  The problem is that if poor countries started increasing their burning
of fossil fuels significantly, *the entire world* would suffer from it,
not just them.

  So if it sucks, then it sucks.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> And the alternative is...? What exactly?

  You don't need to throw out current power generation technologies and
come up with something new in order to significantly reduce pollution.
Not all developed countries pollute even nearly as much as eg. the US,
Greece or China (not even if you scale it per capita).

  Finland is a pretty developed country, with a pretty advanced industry
and high living standards, yet Finland is on the lower end of the pollution
scale. (The same is true for many other European countries, especially the
northern ones.) The trick is to produce and use energy more smartly.

  For example, in China the most common way to heating homes is to burn
coal on each building. (For example this is extremely common in Beijin,
and not surprisingly Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in the
world.) In many other countries homes are heated using electricity, which
is extremely wasteful.

  Not so in Finland. The heating of homes in cities is centralized (iow.
so-called district heating). It basically works by having central heating
plants which heat water, which is then transported via tubes to homes.
(The water is then run through radiators.)

  There are efficient, low-polluting ways to heat the water (such as using
geotermal heating), but even if more polluting methods are used, reducing
the pollution (by using filters etc.) is easier, more efficient and cheaper
when this is centralized, reducing the total amount of pollution.

  Automobiles can be made less polluting via legislation (for example by
demanding the installation of catalytic converters, and overall defining
a maximum allowed amount of pollution for each car, such as is the the
case in Finland).

  Improving public transportation to reduce the need for private cars is
another efficient way to reduce pollution.

  If every country in the world used the same ecologic techniques as the
best ones, the amount of pollution in the world would be significantly
lowered.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 4/14/2011 11:55, Warp wrote:
> >    I don't understand how it can be legal to expel someone for the sole
> > reason of wearing a t-shirt that says you're an atheist.

> The authorities treated it the same as someone wearing a shirt that said 
> "nigger" on it or something. Basically, it was insulting and harassing the 
> people who aren't atheists. They treated it the same way as they would have 
> treated someone religious preaching at you during class.

  Seems that the authorities there have a rather poor understanding of
their own constitution. (Perhaps it's a case of tl;dr.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 4/16/2011 5:44, Warp wrote:
>    The problem is that if poor countries started increasing their burning
> of fossil fuels significantly, *the entire world* would suffer from it,
> not just them.

This is true. What's the alternative?

The argument I've heard usually goes along the lines of "get them rich 
enough that pollution, rather than starvation, is what they're worried about."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/16/2011 3:11, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Designing it so the car doesn't survive the crash but the people inside do
> would be even more miraculous...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEBQ399k3aU

He broke a le:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJfQ-5pYjJQ&NR=1

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/16/2011 3:11, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It's news to me that anybody is producing electric cars yet.

LMGTFY.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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