Peak Oil

[simonpro]

Switching off lights at night is an insane idea. I'd somehow find it much harder to cycle through the city if I had to do so in pitch darkness, my 40W eqiv cycle light doesn't do much good.

From what I have read so far, a Throium reactor looks like a win-win all around.

There's still a whole host of problems with Thorium reactors, and it'll be a fairly long time before we're anywhere near ready enough to use them in fulltime power generation, right now any thorium plant operation would be running at a huge loss.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well-said! From what I have read so far, a Throium reactor looks like a win-win all around. However, you can bet that the enviro-fascists will make up a reason to fight it.

I have no problems with enviro-fascists criticizing the designs as long as it is done with reason. As soon as it crosses the limit of "Two legs bad, four legs better", the advantages of criticism are gone. Fear and faith are two equally bad ways to deal with technology.

After all, all good scientific work consists of two parts: Trying to prove a theory and trying to contradict a theory.

I can see many technical problems making a Thorium reactor a hard task, and this will of course create safety problems solving this task, which have to be identified and solved again.

 

[GregBurch]

There's still a whole host of problems with Thorium reactors, and it'll be a fairly long time before we're anywhere near ready enough to use them in fulltime power generation, right now any thorium plant operation would be running at a huge loss.

Naturally, since I've fallen in love with the idea, I'd be extremely interested in seeing a systematic exposition of these problems.

 

[simonpro]

Naturally, since I've fallen in love with the idea, I'd be extremely interested in seeing a systematic exposition of these problems.

Unfortunately I can't on the forum, as I'm sure you're aware this is an area that ITAR has an annoying relevance to.

The main problems, however, relate to managing the conversion of the thorium and dealing with the waste products. The reactors themselves are a pretty safe bet - and much less likely to cause any exciting damage to the surroundings as our current reactors.

Here's a few links to scientific papers on the subject (some a little old, unfortunately, it's hard to find them from here).
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=b4d1efde91a532896dc348092ec46956
http://www.ans.org/pubs/journals/nt/va-133-1-1-32
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1885760


(edit) Included this quote:

and they influenced decisions that may have resulted in 3-mile being contained instead of an actual disaster

Also, Art, I've just been re-reading your post...can you explain how exactly greenpeace helped prevent contamination at Three Mile Island? That one seems to have bypassed me.

 

[Linguofreak]

Err, what about hydrogen?

Basically, when it comes down to it, a variation on battery power, with the same low energy density problems.

 

[Art]

Ummm... Seeing as I got robbed in the past week, and that it could have been prevented had the street been better lit, I'll have to dispute that. Keep in mind that in WWII they had air-raid wardens patrolling the streets looking for lights that were on, which also helped with catching things like robberies.

Show me data to back up the assumption that having lights on could/would have prevented a robbery.
I offer that Most burglaries (65.8 percent) occurred at residences; most residential burglaries (62.0 percent) occurred during the daytime. (source http://crime.about.com/od/stats/a/ucr_burglary.htm) I offer that light helps burgularies and robberies to a great extent. I offer that my neighbor (since you like personal experiences of no statistical value) has been robbed three times in the last ten years. Two of those WERE night-time burgularies. In the last incident they broke into a locked tool trailer under his house (we live in stilt houses) to steal some really crappy Black and Decker Pekker Wrecker cheap-butt tools. We have a 8' wooden fence between out houses so that I can block the freaking laser light show he has going. It is dark under my house. I have never been robbed. I have a full woodshop/boatshop of tools under the house, no doors, no walls, no locks...and all of it Porter Cable, Hitachi, Delta...good stuff. Tons of hand-tools in the open bed of a little pickup under the house as well. I don't lock my truck doors even. We have no lights on at night, and we are shaded (under the house, but my bedroom window is the target of one of his freaking spotlights) from his 10,000000000 candlepower set-up.

Firelight keeps away the bears and the night-fears, not the real monsters.

Ever try to be quiet while stumbling around in someones totally dark toolshed? Which attracts more attention; a flashlight or someone standing in a streetlight? I call bull****.

Aside from that, my statement that excessive stupid firing up of the skyline is an idiot waste on the order of SUV's

Upshot: if you want surveilled security, you need a dog or a dark environment outfitted with the currently inexpensive motion detectors (wire em to lights and a warning beeper inside if you like), thermal cameras or light amplifying cameras.

 

[Art]

Also, Art, I've just been re-reading your post...can you explain how exactly greenpeace helped prevent contamination at Three Mile Island? That one seems to have bypassed me.

I often make statements that seem to support ideals that I do not actually care for myself. The idea is that I like balanced arguments and the opportunity for people to bash bad ideas.

Greenpeace had nothing directly to do with reactor design.. true. What people with political concerns (right or wrong) can often affect is the general state of paranoia. With shipboard nuclear reactors, Rickover would not have been so darn careful if it had it not been for some general paranoia on part of the public. Three-mile island was built in 1974, long after greenpeace and others of their milleu had their campaigns going. This DID influence public opinion, and Public opinion DID influence design...otherwise, we would very likely have had the same sort of designs as the Soviet Union. The US has allowed corporations to do plenty of things that are uncaring of the general population, until such time as an outcry was raised, and often even after...especially if you live OUTSIDE the US.

 

[GregBurch]

The US has allowed corporations to do plenty of things that are uncaring of the general population, until such time as an outcry was raised, and often even after...especially if you live OUTSIDE the US.

One thing that non-Americans often don't comprehend fully is the role that the legal system of private tort rights in the US plays with regard to regulation of economic activity. Much of what is either regulated by a central government elsewhere, or not at all, is dealt with in the US legal system by the assertion of private rights. Much of the misbehavior of US economic actors abroad is a function of these entities not being subject to any legal restrictions in these foreign domains. In most of the Second and Third Worlds, there is no functioning legal system that individuals can use to protect themselves, and whatever government regulation exists is corrupt to the point of being counterproductive in protecting health and safety.

Economic and social progress is really impossible without a framework of legal rights for individuals and functioning judicial systems to enforce them. For reasons that ought to be obvious by now, though, almost no progress has been made in the vast majority of the developing world toward establishing meaningful systems of legal rights for individuals. But discussing the reasons for this failure is forbidden. Until we can even TALK about why the developing world is a legal vacuum, there is no chance of addressing the problems with economic and social development.

 

[Urwumpe]

Of course, one thing which really influenced naval reactor design was the Thresher accident. Does somebody remember it? It was the main reason why the nuclear safety in US submarines got such a priority - it was lost mostly to construction errors and bad quality assurance. The US Navy did only loose one nuclear submarine since then and that can really be directly be attributed to the change in attitude.

The Russians had not only a different mind set (If the admirals don't have to be on board the submarine for the final shakedown test, you might get sloppy with your duties), they also had a difference in reactor design: Where the US put emphasis on robust designs, which are pretty ineffective compared to commercial reactor cores of their time, the Russians wanted power. Lot's of it. Operating the reactors at higher than rated power was common praxis. So was the path in their hunter/killer submarine design for a long time - small submarines, with huge reactors, with high speed and great diving depth (up to 1000m. Which is a reliable number regarding the expensive titanium hulls). On the other hand, their boomers got large diving cities - they had to carry larger missiles, more missiles, stay on patrol for longer times and be as fast or faster as anything the US can throw at them - so the submarines got two reactors installed.

Of course, all louder, closer to the technical limits and depending on good maintenance. While the US reactors had been even more robust as civilian stationary designs.

 

[GregBurch]

Unfortunately I can't on the forum, as I'm sure you're aware this is an area that ITAR has an annoying relevance to.

The main problems, however, relate to managing the conversion of the thorium and dealing with the waste products. The reactors themselves are a pretty safe bet - and much less likely to cause any exciting damage to the surroundings as our current reactors.

Here's a few links to scientific papers on the subject (some a little old, unfortunately, it's hard to find them from here).
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=b4d1efde91a532896dc348092ec46956
http://www.ans.org/pubs/journals/nt/va-133-1-1-32
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1885760

I looked at the abstracts, and don't see anything that hasn't been addressed elsewhere. I don't doubt that there are implementation issues with liquid thorium reactors. The question in my mind is why there haven't been research and development programs to identify and address those issues. Such a promising technology should have been explored in depth ages ago.

 

[Linguofreak]

As for biofuels, the trouble with most of them, beyond what Linguofreak mentioned about the low power-to-mass ratio, is that they drive up food prices: we can eat corn, but we can't eat oil or nuclear fuel. The exception to this is fuel like biodiesel made from used cooking oil, etc., but there isn't enough of that to make a dent in the world's energy needs.

With low power density I was more talking about renewable sources other than biofuels, such as wind and solar, neither of which work especially well with cars.

Ethanol does have a lousy energy density compared to gasoline, but the real promise I see in biofuels is the research going on into using genetically modified algae to synthesize petroleum products. That way you can use existing engines and infrastructure.

 

[pattersoncr]

Of course, one thing which really influenced naval reactor design was the Thresher accident. Does somebody remember it? It was the main reason why the nuclear safety in US submarines got such a priority - it was lost mostly to construction errors and bad quality assurance. The US Navy did only loose one nuclear submarine since then and that can really be directly be attributed to the change in attitude.

Thresher caused very few changes in reactor design. It lead to a great many changes in the way the rest of the boat was desinged and construced. It led to changes in reactor operations but these were in the form of better emerengcy procedures. Thresher forced home the realization that the reactor is not safe unless the ship is safe, and in many circumstances, a ship at sea is not safe without prouplsion.

 

[Linguofreak]

Show me data to back up the assumption that having lights on could/would have prevented a robbery.
I offer that Most burglaries (65.8 percent) occurred at residences; most residential burglaries (62.0 percent) occurred during the daytime. (source http://crime.about.com/od/stats/a/ucr_burglary.htm) I offer that light helps burgularies and robberies to a great extent. I offer that my neighbor (since you like personal experiences of no statistical value) has been robbed three times in the last ten years. Two of those WERE night-time burgularies. In the last incident they broke into a locked tool trailer under his house (we live in stilt houses) to steal some really crappy Black and Decker Pekker Wrecker cheap-butt tools. We have a 8' wooden fence between out houses so that I can block the freaking laser light show he has going. It is dark under my house. I have never been robbed. I have a full woodshop/boatshop of tools under the house, no doors, no walls, no locks...and all of it Porter Cable, Hitachi, Delta...good stuff. Tons of hand-tools in the open bed of a little pickup under the house as well. I don't lock my truck doors even. We have no lights on at night, and we are shaded (under the house, but my bedroom window is the target of one of his freaking spotlights) from his 10,000000000 candlepower set-up.

Firelight keeps away the bears and the night-fears, not the real monsters.

Ever try to be quiet while stumbling around in someones totally dark toolshed? Which attracts more attention; a flashlight or someone standing in a streetlight? I call bull****.

Aside from that, my statement that excessive stupid firing up of the skyline is an idiot waste on the order of SUV's

Upshot: if you want surveilled security, you need a dog or a dark environment outfitted with the currently inexpensive motion detectors (wire em to lights and a warning beeper inside if you like), thermal cameras or light amplifying cameras.

I'll accept that lighting might help burglaries.

Burglaries are not the sum total of all crimes however. What percentage of robberies (theft by use or threat of force) occur in daytime? Murders? Rapes?

The added visibility of a flashlight compared to someone standing under a streetlight makes the average citizen walking around at night *more* vulnerable if you get rid of street lighting.

In my personal case, had the front of the house I was delivering to been properly lit, I might have been able to read the address, which would have allowed me to make my delivery on my first pass on the block, which would have given the robbers less time to notice my nice little lit up "Domino's" sign and get ready to stick me up. (Of course, a decent curbside address marking would have helped just as well too).

 

[Urwumpe]

Thresher caused very few changes in reactor design. It lead to a great many changes in the way the rest of the boat was desinged and construced. It led to changes in reactor operations but these were in the form of better emerengcy procedures. Thresher forced home the realization that the reactor is not safe unless the ship is safe, and in many circumstances, a ship at sea is not safe without prouplsion.

The general design of the reactors had not been touched, but I remember that the standards for connecting the various pipes together changed, as they had been connected by a inadequate way of soldering in the Thresher, which worsened the effects of sloppy manufacturing.

I would have to ask a friend, who just had a long internship about soldering and welding techniques, what exactly was the problem with the Thresher and why it got changed, he told me about this aspect some months ago.

 

[pattersoncr]

Among other things, compared to earlier boats, boats built after Thresher, had drasticly less seawater piping. Seawater cools only a few components, among them fresh water heat exchangers. The fresh water system then cools most other machanery. The piping problems you mentioned were on sea water piping.

 

[Urwumpe]

Yeah, makes sense when you think about it. When there is a more corrosive thing then sea water, then it is heated sea water.

 

[pattersoncr]

Yeah, makes sense when you think about it. When there is a more corrosive thing then sea water, then it is heated sea water.

That and on a submarine, the only thing worse than fire is flooding (large sea water leak).

 

[Urwumpe]

That and on a submarine, the only thing worse than fire is flooding (large sea water leak).

Yeah. I have seen how the Germans train fighting flooding inside a submarine mock-up. The training scenario was really a confrontation therapy, as you even had the water raising to your knees (with only minimal light in the mock-up) when you did everything right.

The only worse scenario I have seen there is the emergency exit training from a sunken submarine...

 

[pattersoncr]

Yeah. I have seen how the Germans train fighting flooding inside a submarine mock-up. The training scenario was really a confrontation therapy, as you even had the water raising to your knees (with only minimal light in the mock-up) when you did everything right.

I did that very thing during my training. Lot's of fun while you were in there then spooky as hell when you realized the reason behind what we were training for.

 

[Urwumpe]

I did that very thing during my training. Lot's of fun while you were in there then spooky as hell when you realized the reason behind what we were training for.

LOL, the same was my reaction in the army training, when we had been in fox holes while simulated artillery let dirt rain on us. And then our trainer said: "And now comes the artillery of the enemy..." :dry: