/sci/ - Science & Math

>>4881996
Reprocessing nuclear fuel. The amount of useable fuel in a spent fuel element can be reused via chemical processes, which thus increases the amount of fuel that can be produced.

>>4881988
uh, you sorta can't make generators to convert the thermal energy into electrical energy without rare earths just saying this is like basic electrical engineering, also the problems with dealing with the molten salts are .. quite hard, and very hard to repair the turbines or even work on them, because it turns out molten salts burn people!

>>4881954
Reactors should never melt down. If a reactor melts down someone has fucked up. If you design a reactor, at most it shuts down in a condition where it cannot be brought back to critical conditions. You do not operate a plant without these safety features,

>>4880425
>implying automation is safe.
A automated plant is hyper dangerous because without a constant watch stander, the plant could be in an unsafe condition, and with no human observer, no one would be the wiser. Human observation is the only thing separating a plant from damage.

I'm just angry at all these HAY NUKES ARE MAGICAL guys in /sci/ and on the internet. Nuclear power is idea, but it isn't free, and it involves hard work, good plant design, and well drawn out and written protcal. The reason why my employer's plants have had no release of fission... products is because we actually pay full and utter attention to nuclear energy.

>>4877807
>critical core damage
>fuel elements melted
>not a major disaster.
what the fuck are you even talking about?

If you reactor design isn't activly safe, and meant to handle the worst case design, its fucking terrible. (Master race PWR here, we are safe and don't rely on operators as the MASTER SAFETY SWITCH)

>>4853719
doesn't that have to do with the fact that English university includes equal to a year in Graduate school, so comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges?

>>4850316
Isn't that a weird paradox about a lot of genetic disorders that don't get selected out because they happen post reproduction ages, so therefore from the gene model of evolution they don't exist, and in fact may end up dominating since they can't be selected out? I think Dawkins, as much as his religious writings are controversial made a good point about that.

>>4850280
uh, they WERE/are. herdering breeds made to have natural tenancies to herd animals, small dogs meant to hunt things like rats, Malamutes to pull large loads in the arctic regions.

>>4849932
because we have no idea what the ideal genes are, have no idea how genetics even work, and it is fundamentally based on flawed theories (We have multiple Eugenics programs already, dog breeds are sort no, objectively terrible, modern farm products are so horribly inbreed they are tasteless (Tomatoes), or all clones.

>>4839803
i work on the safest reactors on Earth right now, I love them to death, but solar energy from the sun is unlimited, cheap, doesn't produce fission products and could bring our entire civilization to a golden age where energy is so cheap we can make materials from the water and light minerals in the crust, and eventually the stars. It would force us to develop space technology, which would provide a defense against civilization ending asteroids, and provide a way to ensure Humanity would never die out, as we would spread among the stars. Besides, we have Uranium to last a few hundred to thousand years, I'm thinking long term.

>>4839805
>take minerals
>expect people to tech advance
uh, we sort of Are the alien invaders bro, so yeah we can't just say BOOTSTRAPS. we must aid and provide an example or the Chinese will beat us oh wait
>UK
>failed empire
I'm not paying attention to a former tiger and the cause of half the damn problems that America inherited!

>>4839801
spoiler alert, fundemental research allows us to make better ways to make food and water, which allows us to fix starvation. Without artificial fertilizer, Earth as we know it would not exist!

>>4839788
Orbital solar technology is much cleaner and easier than collecting the ammount of antimatter to produce useful energy my friend! With the near unlimited solar energy of the Sun, we could THEN produce antimatter for interstellar spacecraft or just laser driven craft to the nearby stars, but that's wayyy super science fiction style shit.

>>4839716
Our probe technology has actually landed on asteroid matter. We have acquired anti asteroid technology and are researching it.

>>4839762
Actually, the problem with Africa for example has never been food per say. In terms of aid, the fleet my boat was escorting dropped off enough aid to stop starvation for months. It sat in a fucking warhouse for weeks. Food is right now wasted thanks to political action, third world nations lacking the will and regions of famine full of instabilities, making it impossible to reach without a full military defense or invasion. Go learn some geopolitics kid.

>>4839742

>>4839147
General science is quite important, from a materials science point alone, the magnetic technology is quite facanting, and I would love to get my hands on the techniques they used to keep their streams stable, but I work with much smaller average energies!

>>4839742
Hey, the cost of ensuring a global stable path for trade enables the production of these, because the rare metals and minerals tend to come from.. less stable nations, full of pirates and raiders. (Joke about France's military paying for the LHC goes here, since the Uranium to power the LHC comes from a small series of mines. )

>>4815168
Hey, when I look at a daschund and a Great Dane, I wonder how the hell can they be the same species

Would have worked better, the differences between humans compared to dogs are so much more minor

>>4794721
I would work so much less.
>patrol Gulf of Mexico
>boat spots drug submarines
>signal to helicopters and Coast Guard
>bored wasting time underwater instead of training.

Fucking shit

>>4756368
>liquid wastes
>untested design
>LFTR never actually used thorium, only pre-prepared Uranium
Thoriumbros, are you even trying, while the master PWR race is here?

>>4698054
SDI is at best.. a decent last defense, at worst it paradoxically increases the possibility for nuclear war, because it encourages a hard first strike to overwhelm defenses, and SDI has to work the first time nearly 100% or else losses build up really quickly.

>>4698021
Uh, this may be HURR CHICAGO CRONYISM, but Illonis offered a former supermax prison, the workers and citizens of the town were all "YEAH JOBS, KEEP TERRORISTS HOYAH" but then congress said "yeah we can't have Gitmo people in the states."

>>4697309
NASA's land based missions alone (advanced aeronautical research, climate research) justifies their cost. Protip, without NASA's Earth based mission alone we loose huge insight into hurricane mechanics, which control evacuation paths, building codes, and saves thousands of lives and billions in property. Their space mission, just for the orbiting satellites alone has done more for geology and climatology than any other main research group in the last 50 years!

NASA isn't just space and orbital stuff, their Earth based mission is huge, and one of the largest public material science laboratories that isn't under military control!

>>4666324
no. the heat exchanger surrounds the motor, transfering cooling water via tubes to a radiator vent, which then transfers heat into the vaccum. How small are we talking about, anyway because I can see this being done with components from say a standard PC setup, but if its smaller than say 20 or so CM.. we might have an issue.

>>4666314
Have you taken any heat transfer or any sort of system dynamics courses, because while this is a a pain (heat transfer via radiation is horribly beneficent), it can be done.

>>4666187
>not water cooling the motor
Just have the water run through a heat exchange, which removes excess heat through radiation heat transfer, and have it powered by batteries, That should provide enough heat transfer out, yet allow for continuous slow speed operation.

>>4651590
>CANDU
>only works because Canada has special super rare heavy water

Other than the heavy water, its not a bad way of getting around the moderation issues.

Also Scientist, the document that was linked to mentioned the huge issue with the graphite moderator leading to positive reactivity, and requiring massive redesigns to compensate, while LWR does NOT require this.

(and conservative nature on nuclear issues is why my bosses have had no accidents, while TMI, Chernobyl, the Fushikima incident, hell the Army's own SL-1 had ..issues. You don't play bleeding edge with the most powerful energy source on the planet. Sorry if I seem conservative, but flawless performance and perfection demand it. (And the only way to appease the greens is 100% flawless operation. No accidents, ever. It can be done.)


Also I don't even think you realize how much money this would cost, which could be used to improve and upgrade older plants (rather than rebuilding new ones), money is a HUGE issue in this terrible economy, so your design is competing against safer and proven ones.

>>4649355
We have 60+ years of proven naval reactors, rather than a limited ammount of information on a single prototype. Light water reactors are safe, require no new engineering, and work. You are competing with safe and proven, vs "well, it worked for 5 years" when the lifespan of a nuclear plant is going to be at least 30 years, and 50 is a more realistic data point.