RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan

RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (Full Version)

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witpqs -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/22/2011 1:12:39 AM)
I think using Boron for fission (not fusion) was Bussard's project. He gave a talk about it at Google a year or two before his death trying to get them to fund it. It is still being funded by the USN. I'm sure you can find the video of the presentation at YouTube.

freeboy -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/22/2011 1:28:14 AM)
if you want accuracy in the news and are looking to the networks, where and what have you been watching for the last 50 years? These guys, and galls, who have there pre-news ides of reality have a spin.. I remember in the 80s reading garbage news in Boston that actually had so little content and so much opinion that it wa shard to believe the "intellegencia" did not gag on the spoon they where feeding. But I stray from the topic of Japan and the reporting.... Terrible awefull and tragic, with spots of hope ... scattered throughout.... I personally found the fear mongering regarding " meltdown" to be desturbing ... WTF? Bad? of course.. actual real damage? ( via the nuke plant) minnimal to date.... we will see what tomorrow brings

herwin -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/22/2011 10:34:57 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: JWE quote: ORIGINAL: Canoerebel JWE, to a non-power generation/non-nuclear layman like me, you're talking Greek, though it sounds awfully enticing. In fact, it almost sounds like perpetual motion or alchemy. Oh, if only possible! So, why isn't it being pursued vigorously now and what are its prospects for the future? Yeah, well, it's semi-Greek to me too. I'm an optical physicist. I like reading about the optical and magnetic containment possibilities, but the rest is more like serious P-Chem. Only personal contact I have had with the fusion industry is doing patent and corporate work for some people at UCI who developed a very interesting Boro-alkyl ring compound as a fuel (sorta like a Phenol). Learned a lot about fusion and fusion fuels, but only as a tyro. These guys did this with $3.4 M in funding. Why isn't it being pursued? I'm just as perplexed as you and everyone in the field. Prospects? If you talk to these people, it's like talking to the original apostles. Technically, on paper, sure, works great. But there's some engineering burps that have to get solved. If somebody did a Manhatten Project push on it, we would likely have fusion in our lifetimes (if not in five to seven years). But oh, well. Windmills, yeah, that's the ticket, windmills. Venture capital is like that. I make quite a bit each year investing in biotech. I have the background but almost everybody else doesn't--Merrill-Lynch doesn't even run a desk in the area. So people working in that area have to come to guys like me for capital funding. Most of the uncertainty is high-side--you might make much more than you expected, and you won't lose that much even if the company goes belly-up.

nashvillen -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/22/2011 2:22:52 PM)
For anyone interested in radiation effects, I found this to be interesting: http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/

John Lansford -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/22/2011 6:51:26 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: nashvillen For anyone interested in radiation effects, I found this to be interesting: http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/ That's a useful chart, but the XKCD writer admits he probably made some mistakes with it. I've always been interested in nuclear power generation. I joined the USN back in the 70's with an eye towards operating nuclear plants, then went to college with the same intent. TMI happened right about that time, so I changed to civil engineering when it was plain the US nuclear industry was going to come to a screeching halt. I kept up with the technology and terminology though, never knowing here in 2011 I would be helping explain what was going on to my more ignorant friends and acquaintances. It looks like the Japanese dodged a huge bullet here. I doubt any of their disaster training simulations called for the following: -Earthquake that devastates the surrounding area, and cuts the offsite power to the reactors (control rods go in, backup generators on!) -Now we'll have a tsunami take out the generators at Reactors 1 and 3 (ok, batteries online, call for emergency generators pronto!) and makes the 2nd and 3rd shift personnel hard to get here, oh and it destroys most of your emergency vehicles too -Ooops, those backup generators use the wrong power phase for our purposes, they won't work (ISTM that at this point the plan book ran out of instructions). Wow, those cores are getting hot. (Vent hydrogen out, pump water in!) -Hydrogen explosion in containment building for Reactor #1! (screw it, seawater flooding of the vessel NOW!) -BIG Hydrogen explosion in containment building for Reactor #3! (same thing, seawater in the vessel!) -Hey, Reactor #2 is overheating now; where are the operators watching it? They're dealing with Reactor #1? Look at the water level; the core's exposed! OMG!!!! -Partial meltdown in Reactors 1, 3 AND 2! Another hydrogen explosion, this time at Reactor #2, torus rupture! (seawater flood again!) -Anyone check the spent fuel ponds? Getting a lot of ground radiation from somewhere. What's that? A fire in Reactor 4's containment building? How did that hydrogen explosion happen there? The reactor's shut down! -Oh s**t, now Reactor 3's spent fuel pond is getting hot. We need armored vehicles just to get near these buildings! I mean, come on, anyone who came up with a disaster scenario training exercise like this would be beaten to death by the plant management. I do wonder, though, why they had to go get radiation resistant vehicles from the SDF, and high capacity pumping trucks from Tokyo FD, when someone should have had them available in TEPCO somewhere. At least it looks like they've got power back to all the reactors, and are now checking the pumps and switches before turning anything on. Once they get the main pumps going again the threat of more damage or explosions should go way, way down.

nashvillen -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/22/2011 7:04:33 PM)
John, Yes, indeed, it is admittedly not a authoritative document, but it does put some perspective on exposures to radioactive materials. In the fire service, in our basic haz-mat training, we were taught "time and distance". The further you are away from something radioactive the more time you can loiter, doing what is necessary to bring the scene under control. The most I have been exposed to radio active materials is when I had to take some radioacive I-131 for ablating the rest of my thyroid bed after a thyroidectimy for thyroid cancer. The does I had was 196 millicuries. I don't know where that fits in the XKCD chart, but I believe the twice yearly, CTs or PET scans I get give me more radiation exposure. I should be glowing, soon. Look to TN to see if you see the glow in the night! ;)

JWE -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/22/2011 9:33:46 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: witpqs I think using Boron for fission (not fusion) was Bussard's project. He gave a talk about it at Google a year or two before his death trying to get them to fund it. It is still being funded by the USN. I'm sure you can find the video of the presentation at YouTube. It was, indeed, for fusion. 3d generation aneutronic fuel. p-B^11 --> 4He^3 + ~9MeV. Was for Bussards inertial confinement fusor, the Polywell. I like the concept a lot (obviously [:D]). Canoerebels question is like pretty seriously relevant, especially in light of some of John Lansfords comments; just what is the future of the nuclear industry, given Fukushima? We've had TMI, Chernobyl, now Fukushima. All of them were different enough to each point to corresponding enhanced configurations of more and better structures, systems, protections, proceedures; not even to mention better education. For most people, the very word nuclear has negative connotations and nuclear power generation is viewed through a dark and murky prism as almost an 'evil magic'. It's not quite that bad, but in the long term it's got some major hurdles to span. Short term, it's relatively safe, but Fukushima will now likely require even more and better structures, systems, protections, proceedures (i.e., costs). Using the Chicago Model, it's still the way cheapest energy source (integrated over everything including differential national radiation cancer costs vs coal caused black lung and hydrocarbon respiratory deaths). The one cost Chicago don't count is spent fuel and residue containment, storage and disposal. That's a biiigg woof !!! I'm not too comfy with the future of fission-based nuclear power generation. I truly think the future of the industry must be tied to success of one or more of the various fusion projects currently showing promise.

John Lansford -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/22/2011 10:00:16 PM)
It certainly looks like fusion is becoming the carrot sitting at the end of a 30 year long stick, though. The media has not helped at all in keeping the hysteria down about the Fukushima plant. Had the backup diesel generators been protected from the tsunami, or emergency backups been available quickly, the last 10 days of media reports breathlessly talking about 'meltdowns' would have never taken place. The design of the reactors has worked to contain the nuclear material, just as it was designed to do in the event of a situation. The spent fuel storage ponds, design flaws and all, would have stayed cooled and submerged as well. The failure here was a loss in power, not a failure of design of the reactors themselves.

witpqs -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/22/2011 10:38:03 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: JWE quote: ORIGINAL: witpqs I think using Boron for fission (not fusion) was Bussard's project. He gave a talk about it at Google a year or two before his death trying to get them to fund it. It is still being funded by the USN. I'm sure you can find the video of the presentation at YouTube. It was, indeed, for fusion. 3d generation aneutronic fuel. p-B^11 --> 4He^3 + ~9MeV. Was for Bussards inertial confinement fusor, the Polywell. I like the concept a lot (obviously [:D]). Canoerebels question is like pretty seriously relevant, especially in light of some of John Lansfords comments; just what is the future of the nuclear industry, given Fukushima? We've had TMI, Chernobyl, now Fukushima. All of them were different enough to each point to corresponding enhanced configurations of more and better structures, systems, protections, proceedures; not even to mention better education. For most people, the very word nuclear has negative connotations and nuclear power generation is viewed through a dark and murky prism as almost an 'evil magic'. It's not quite that bad, but in the long term it's got some major hurdles to span. Short term, it's relatively safe, but Fukushima will now likely require even more and better structures, systems, protections, proceedures (i.e., costs). Using the Chicago Model, it's still the way cheapest energy source (integrated over everything including differential national radiation cancer costs vs coal caused black lung and hydrocarbon respiratory deaths). The one cost Chicago don't count is spent fuel and residue containment, storage and disposal. That's a biiigg woof !!! I'm not too comfy with the future of fission-based nuclear power generation. I truly think the future of the industry must be tied to success of one or more of the various fusion projects currently showing promise. Of course it was fusion - that was the whole point! Brain fart on this end. The thing about disposal and cleanup that they don't count adequately is the politics. There is no reason to outlaw reprocessing, but JC did it with an Executive Order. There is no defensible reason to declare every place in the country as unsuitable for a disposal site, but politics has gone there. Lastly, due to politics the legal costs involved in starting up a plant are a whopping big percentage of the cost and add to the whole deal. BTW, coal plants put more radiation into the air than nuc plants. No three-headed dogs around coal plants!

John Lansford -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/23/2011 1:49:28 AM)
Boron is a neutron absorber; TEPCO mixed it with the seawater they pumped into the damaged reactors as a last resort, and the racks in the storage ponds contain boron to prevent any spontaneous nuclear reaction from getting started among the spent rods (or the fuel rods pulled out of Reactor #4 for that matter).

witpqs -> RE: OT: Massive 8.9 quake in northern Japan (3/23/2011 2:55:45 AM)
Here is Bussard's talk at Google on November 9, 2006. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhL5VO2NStU

vonTirpitz -> RE: Operation Tomodachi (3/23/2011 3:06:12 AM)
Some good articles on the US military response to support relief efforts. quote: The piers were completely empty in Yokosuka today, marking the first time in memory that not a single U.S. Navy ship was in port http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/world/asia/23reagan.html http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=63144 http://www.dvidshub.net/news/67326/operation-tomodachi-mobility-airmen-supporting-effort-multiple-fronts http://www.japanbases.com/news/view/entryid/1108/operation-tomodachi-update-empty-piers-march-22.aspx

herwin -> RE: Operation Tomodachi (3/23/2011 10:09:05 AM)
Interesting comment by Monbiot in the Guardian.

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