Kulamata
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Post by Kulamata on Nov 26, 2010 22:23:40 GMT
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Kulamata
Unemployed
Mane Man
Posts: 1,362
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Post by Kulamata on Nov 27, 2010 22:04:58 GMT
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Kulamata
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Mane Man
Posts: 1,362
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Post by Kulamata on Feb 2, 2011 1:12:46 GMT
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Post by AA0 on Feb 2, 2011 12:28:21 GMT
I remember reading about these reactors years ago but nobody was willing to develop them, Canada has had little need because of extremely plentiful fuel for existing reactors, the US is too corrupt to go back to nuclear. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned previously on these forums about nuclear reactors able to use nuclear waste as a fuel and less prone to meltdowns.
However the idea of a Chinese designed reactor scares me a bit, there is so little refinement and innovation in what that country produces will a reactor design be complete and safe?
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Kulamata
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Post by Kulamata on Mar 14, 2011 7:56:51 GMT
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Post by Pharcellus on Mar 14, 2011 14:28:58 GMT
While I share the author's general optimism, there are a few areas of concern in the specific circumstances occurring in the Fukushima Daiichi plant's case:
1) We know that up to half of the fuel rods in at least reactor #1 were "uncovered" for a certain amount of time. 2) The plant officials seem to be working in "reactionary mode", responding to each new iteration after they have evidence or confirmation of it. While this may seem "safe", as you don't want to take steps which could make the problem worse until you know for sure that they are necessary, you also have to deal with the fact that you are working with time lag. Inside the reactor, a state change occurs, and since there is no direct ability to sense what is happening inside until there are some indications resulting from the state change, the time lag until the perception of the state change, then responding to it may be significantly large enough where the problem starts cascading into further (negative) state changes, which themselves will also suffer time lag. 3) Their data-gathering ability appears to be impaired to a significant degree. They seem to only perceive state changes inside the reactor quite some time after they occur, and it doesn't appear they are catching some of them until well after-the-fact. 4) The most ominous being that they may be downplaying the problems to the point of lying. While what the PhD says in that article may be true in theory, based on the plant operator and public officials relaying what is happening in an enlightened and truthful way, in practice, they could be trying to "stave off panic". In that case, all bets are off.
Lastly, I echo the sentiment of Stephanie Cooke: I'm not convinced the Japanese are in control; the more they say things are "under control", the more I sense that things are not.
To put it lightly: "You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means."
Indeed, it does sound like Vizzini running around shouting "Inconceivable!" at every opportunity.
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Post by FrithRae on Mar 14, 2011 16:35:48 GMT
aye on a scale of this disaster, color me impressed if we later on find out they are actually being HONEST about the state of their nuclear reactor problems.
Rather my money is on minimizing and downplaying the severeity of the issues (to outright lying, but I'm going on minimizing...lol).
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Kulamata
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Post by Kulamata on Mar 14, 2011 22:37:01 GMT
The original post has been moved to the MIT nuclear engineering site; to save the redirect step the new URL is: mitnse.com/. The article has been modified a fair amount since I posted. Something that has not been mentioned much is that comparisons to Chernobyl are not warranted. The Russians built their reactors without a containment vessel; it saved them quite a bit of money and time in the short run... A friend of mine who had been a nuclear trouble-shooting engineer for Westinghouse said they'd never been able to figure out how the Russians could do without a containment vessel. (When the nuclear plant industry dried up, he became a lawyer, one of the good 'uns.)
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Post by Pharcellus on Mar 15, 2011 0:43:38 GMT
One thing that I keep wondering...
They keep saying "we are injecting seawater and boric acid" into each of the 3 reactors. How much, and where is the heated water going? If it is via venting steam, that's a LOT of steam to release. If they are running in the equivalent of a firehose continuous volume of water, that would generate a LOT of steam, and likely would not keep the core covered very well.
To me, it sounds like they are pissing on a forest fire for all the effect it is (not) having.
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Kulamata
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Post by Kulamata on Mar 16, 2011 20:05:43 GMT
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Kulamata
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Post by Kulamata on Mar 22, 2011 1:21:08 GMT
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Post by AA0 on Mar 22, 2011 16:12:37 GMT
The article is stating the obvious, definitely no surprises that we are wasteful and ignorant.
I see two problems, over population and wasteful food production. There is little we can do directly about over population but as cruel as it sounds the endless aid given to these countries which are massively over populated isn't helping. The aid just keeps bailing the people out and giving them more chance to keep reproducing, they need to learn live within their means and what their environment can support. There is no way the planet will keep supporting these quantities of people and waste.
The amount of waste we put into farming is sickening, fertilizers and water are so badly managed it should be criminal. We have the ability to use ~10% of what we currently do while creating better food but we don't, I guess its easier to not change.
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Kulamata
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Posts: 1,362
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Post by Kulamata on Mar 26, 2011 22:18:15 GMT
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Kulamata
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Posts: 1,362
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Post by Kulamata on Apr 4, 2011 9:13:24 GMT
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Kulamata
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Posts: 1,362
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Post by Kulamata on Apr 15, 2011 1:52:07 GMT
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