OT? When Computer Controls Fail

Short half-life isotopes are not a problem, they decays in hours, months or a few years. Long half-life isotopes are not problematic, since the radiation released each year is small.

The problem is the mid-life isotopes, such as 137Cs with a half-life just above 30 years.

BTW, in late June this year exactly half of the 137Cs released by Chernobyl has decayed.

After 300 or 3000 years 137Cs has decayed significantly, so an underground storage site should be quite good.

For spent fuel, the total activity is down about four orders of magnitude at 3000 years.

I think not. There are lots of good ways to sequester or reuse old fuel rods, but politics prevents it.

It's not hard to bury that stuff, or dump it into an ocean subduction zone. Nuke waste disposal isn't a real problem.

The ocean thing leaves the possibility that somebody might fish it out, though. Probably cheaper than an enrichment plant.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

A 20-ton cube of concrete and steel, buried in mud in 12,000 feet of water, is going to be difficult for amateurs to recover. The operation would be pretty obvious, too.

I don't think that nuclear waste disposal is a serious problem. That WIPP thing would work fine. Besides, we have a huge amount of nasty stuff left over from the bomb programs. A waste solution has to be worked out eventually.

I think you may have misread the snopes article. It indicates that there was no corresponding increase in birth rate 9 months after the power outage. Psychologically, most people are nervous, anxious, and worried during an extended power outage. Speaking for myself, I prefer to be far more relaxed when having sex than worrying about what will happen next. Besides, there are plenty of other activities, such as devouring everything in the fridge before it spoils. Last time it happened, it was ice cream at midnight.

The definition of "best" is also a moving target. What is best for some, is not necessarily best for everyone. At this time, we could probably tolerate and survive a world population increase to perhaps

However, you're right for the time being. Civilization, education, and an optimistic view of the future are bringing down the birth rate. If threatened with extinction, it's the natural tendency for an organism to immediately reproduce itself. You can demonstrate that with many plants, where the best way to produce flowers for reproduction, it to almost kill the plant. When people feel secure and optimistic, there's less urgency to produce.

China was a bit more aggressive with the one-child policy, which seems to have almost worked. Population is still climbing, but slower. I'm not sure if affluence is going to fix that: Large families are out: India seems to be a bigger problem: More:

I could, but there's a problem. The amount that customers are willing to pay for repairs, versus buying a new machine, is decreasing steadily. In the distant past, when computahs cost $3,000 each, I had little difficulty spending all day on one machine and charging $400 and up for repairs. Today, a typical low end laptop costs about $500 new, for which I have difficulties getting customers to pay much more than $150 for repairs (including parts) and upgrades. $150 represents

It costs about $10,000/lb to send something up to the space shuttle in LEO (low earth orbit). That's not going to work.

Maybe a space elevator at an alleged $100/lb:

Ok. How does that compare to the fact that nobody wants waste near them so other alternatives must be found. Please provide a comparison.

How many people live near Yucca mountain? We may want to "burn" the fuel again in the future, so throwing it away may not be such a good idea.

We need education so people won't be so unreasonably afraid of nuclear. Here's a question; Besides terrestrial sources, how many cosmic rays (mostly muons) are passing through your body every second? And how many if you lived in Denver?

George H.

I think there was a birth spike after the big NE blackout in the 70's. But there is certainly a strong negative correlation between electrification and birth rate.

Psychologically, most people are nervous, anxious, and

After the '89 quake here, our whole block had a shared ice cream orgy.

China has an upcoming demographic crisis from the 1-child policy. The worst engineers are social engineers.

Most warranty "repair" is now replacement with a new unit, scrapping the failed one.

And some fraction of space launches crash before they make orbit.

A hole in the ground is a lot easier.

Well, the choice is a pile of radioactive waste in your backyard, or an expensive waste removal system. As a side benefit, one can also use the space elevator to get rid of conventional garbage. On the return pass, we do some mining on the moon and bring back helium 3 to fuel some fusion reactors. Eventually, we'll have dumped all the radioactive fission products into otter space, and switched to a cleaner fusion based system. Problem solved.

In principle it's not hard to bury active waste, but we've had fifty years when it hasn't been done. Some solutions do seem to be politically impossible.

Claiming that nuclear waste disposal isn't a real problem when nobody has managed to do it right after fifty years is either very stupid or very disingenuous. With John Larkin, "ill-informed" is about as diplomatic as it can get.

Name a few.

That is an excellent response, George. It makes sense on several levels. Thanks.

Even better!

Yes, exactly! Run it for longer, in anticipation of rising loads: load shifts slightly earlier, and becomes flatter. Run it later, after peak: load shifts slightly later, still becomes flatter.

Tim

What the hell? I mentioned "neighborhoods". Did you miss that part? What freaking neighborhood is 100,000 large?!

I was talking about neighborhoods (tens of houses), where the load variations are the largest, and the most likely to brown out first.

Larger areas obviously have to be controlled by the next level up, or by a central authority. Which I talked about.

Brown out and ALL the homes go cold.

Brown out and ALL the homes go cold...

Tim

SO you *are* into moral equivalence. No surprise.

Is that like the joke about civil engineers?

Tim