So, Fukushima...

[Xooxe]

Interesting time to cart out a thought experiment: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

At an annual 2.3% growth rate of energy consumption it would take about 2500 years before we'd need 100 billion suns worth of energy.    (We'll need at least a small star cluster for iPads.)

Also, in just over 700 years, any energy generated on Earth would put the surface temperature at the melting point of steel - because thermodynamics, that's who.

Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed.

[Doktor Howl]

Interesting time to cart out a thought experiment: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

At an annual 2.3% growth rate of energy consumption it would take about 2500 years before we'd need 100 billion suns worth of energy. 

Also, in just over 700 years, any energy generated on Earth would put the surface temperature at the melting point of steel - because thermodynamics, that's who.

Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed.

I like the assumption that we'll be here to use energy in 700 years.

[Xooxe]

Yeah, he said it was a flawed argument.

[Faust]

In space, nuclear has a few different applications. As Dok said, solar panels degrade. But also, if we ever do start branching out, we wouldn't be able to rely on solar power the further we got from the sun. Also, it's probable that that uranium deposits exist on other worlds and moons, making it a local resource. It could also be used for propulsion. Theoretically, we have the capability of within a lifetime interstellar travel using nuclear pulse propulsion (once a safe distance from Earth, naturally), which basically involves exploding a lot of bombs behind your ship to get to about 10% light speed.

That will never, ever work.  Ask me why.

No.

Ok, I'm too curious.

Why?

Okay, I'm gonna put you in an aluminum can with a complete life support system, etc.  Mind you, our life support systems aren't the most robust things in the world.  They can't be, by their very nature...Remember, the Apollo 13 mission failed due to a $5 solenoid, and that was a SIMPLE system, designed to last 2 weeks.

Then we're gonna strap a giant iron plate to the back of it, and off you go.

Every so often, we're going to beat the living blue Jesus out of the plate, with a nuke detonated some distance behind the spacecraft.  The radiation won't get through the plate, but it's going to vibrate like a church bell, and maybe flex a little.

That vibration is going to transmit, to some small degree, into the can.  The can holding your life support system, which is ALSO being irregularly accelerated, comparable to dropping a few pounds of weight on each and every component - irregularly - in your system.

Good news:  You're gonna go like a bat out of hell.

Bad news:  You died of asphyxiation sometime at the beginning of the flight.

It has to be a passive system to get that level of speed. Most deep space probes get the slingshot treatment around Jupiter to bring up their speed now in a way that wont damage the device.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So, sixty years later, we still have no solution for the majority of our nuclear waste. Not even a bad solution; no solution at all.

We have a solution:  Put 'em on the roof.  Generators on the ground.

In the pool?

On the roof?

Welcome to the Fukushima Plant!  Pool's on the roof!

[Elder Iptuous]

So, sixty years later, we still have no solution for the majority of our nuclear waste. Not even a bad solution; no solution at all.

We have a solution:  Put 'em on the roof.  Generators on the ground.

In the pool?

On the roof?

Welcome to the Fukushima Plant!  Pool's on the roof!

No, it's fine.
look.... they employees are back to work!

(yeah. that's the pool up there, open to the air....)

[P3nT4gR4m]

So, sixty years later, we still have no solution for the majority of our nuclear waste. Not even a bad solution; no solution at all.

We have a solution:  Put 'em on the roof.  Generators on the ground.

In the pool?

On the roof?

Welcome to the Fukushima Plant!  Pool's on the roof!

We need to destroy this forum, now before they base any more nuclear reactor designs on it

[The Wizard Joseph]

Interesting time to cart out a thought experiment: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

At an annual 2.3% growth rate of energy consumption it would take about 2500 years before we'd need 100 billion suns worth of energy. 

Also, in just over 700 years, any energy generated on Earth would put the surface temperature at the melting point of steel - because thermodynamics, that's who.

Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed.

I like the assumption that we'll be here to use energy in 700 years.

Yeah me too, makes me think there's a chance.  I, personally, need to think that.

The bit that gets to me, in my poorly-educated but persistent state, is that there may be a total catastrophe.  These facilities are built on the silly assumption that things will remain stable here on Earth.  THINGS ARE NOT SO STABLE. 
Or so it would seem to me.

I'm not fool enough to get stuck on ideas of what I want.

If the poop hits the spreader I just want to know how to survive as a species.  There's no amount of power worth having if it results in the degeneration of our species due to nuclear fuel contamination.

As an aside, did you guys know that literally ALL insurance plans available to the public through employment (in the US at least) have a loophole that makes them immune to damages in the event of nuclear catastrophe?
That was what I read, any way.  It's not like the SYSTEM didn't see this potential coming.

Not sure what's really worth saying, but wanted to put a bit down.  I also want to see what comes up on this thread in the future.

[Doktor Howl]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/06/19891351-radioactive-water-seeping-into-pacific-from-fukushima-is-emergency-official-says?lite

"And you don't stop."
- The ghost of Harry Daghlian

Oh, fun fact:

During and after the end of World War II, scientists working on the Manhattan Project and other nuclear weapons research projects conducted studies of the effects of plutonium on laboratory animals and human subjects.[70] Animal studies found that a few milligrams of plutonium per kilogram of tissue is a lethal dose.[71]

In the case of human subjects, this involved injecting solutions containing (typically) five micrograms of plutonium into hospital patients thought to be either terminally ill, or to have a life expectancy of less than ten years either due to age or chronic disease condition.[70] This was reduced to one microgram in July 1945 after animal studies found that the way plutonium distributed itself in bones was more dangerous than radium.[71]

Eighteen human test subjects were injected with plutonium without informed consent. The tests were used to create diagnostic tools to determine the uptake of plutonium in the body in order to develop safety standards for working with plutonium.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/06/19891351-radioactive-water-seeping-into-pacific-from-fukushima-is-emergency-official-says?lite

"And you don't stop."
- The ghost of Harry Daghlian

Oh, fun fact:

During and after the end of World War II, scientists working on the Manhattan Project and other nuclear weapons research projects conducted studies of the effects of plutonium on laboratory animals and human subjects.[70] Animal studies found that a few milligrams of plutonium per kilogram of tissue is a lethal dose.[71]

In the case of human subjects, this involved injecting solutions containing (typically) five micrograms of plutonium into hospital patients thought to be either terminally ill, or to have a life expectancy of less than ten years either due to age or chronic disease condition.[70] This was reduced to one microgram in July 1945 after animal studies found that the way plutonium distributed itself in bones was more dangerous than radium.[71]

Eighteen human test subjects were injected with plutonium without informed consent. The tests were used to create diagnostic tools to determine the uptake of plutonium in the body in order to develop safety standards for working with plutonium.

Hahaha, yeah, in order to work with human research subjects I had to go through ethics training. TRUST ME, that's the merest tip of the iceberg of human rights violations when it comes to unethical research on humans. The atrocities done to prisoners, poor people, and wards of the state in the name of science are unspeakable. I could tell you things that would make your stomach turn. Not just anyone's... yours. Right up into the 1970's (officially) in the US as well as elsewhere. And you want to know what pharmaceutical researchers do when they can't legally/ethically/affordably run research on humans in the US? They contract out with agencies that find poor people in other countries to research on. It's charming.

[Doktor Howl]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/06/19891351-radioactive-water-seeping-into-pacific-from-fukushima-is-emergency-official-says?lite

"And you don't stop."
- The ghost of Harry Daghlian

Oh, fun fact:

During and after the end of World War II, scientists working on the Manhattan Project and other nuclear weapons research projects conducted studies of the effects of plutonium on laboratory animals and human subjects.[70] Animal studies found that a few milligrams of plutonium per kilogram of tissue is a lethal dose.[71]

In the case of human subjects, this involved injecting solutions containing (typically) five micrograms of plutonium into hospital patients thought to be either terminally ill, or to have a life expectancy of less than ten years either due to age or chronic disease condition.[70] This was reduced to one microgram in July 1945 after animal studies found that the way plutonium distributed itself in bones was more dangerous than radium.[71]

Eighteen human test subjects were injected with plutonium without informed consent. The tests were used to create diagnostic tools to determine the uptake of plutonium in the body in order to develop safety standards for working with plutonium.

Hahaha, yeah, in order to work with human research subjects I had to go through ethics training. TRUST ME, that's the merest tip of the iceberg of human rights violations when it comes to unethical research on humans. The atrocities done to prisoners, poor people, and wards of the state in the name of science are unspeakable. I could tell you things that would make your stomach turn. Not just anyone's... yours. Right up into the 1970's (officially) in the US as well as elsewhere. And you want to know what pharmaceutical researchers do when they can't legally/ethically/affordably run research on humans in the US? They contract out with agencies that find poor people in other countries to research on. It's charming.

Warren Ellis was right about everything.

[Pæs]

Paging Dr McGrupp. Dr McGrupp please come to the thread, please.

We need a PUPPY to explain the Fukushima didn't get bad while it was a headline and then just stop being bad once people forgot about it.

[The Johnny]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/06/19891351-radioactive-water-seeping-into-pacific-from-fukushima-is-emergency-official-says?lite

"And you don't stop."
- The ghost of Harry Daghlian

Oh, fun fact:

During and after the end of World War II, scientists working on the Manhattan Project and other nuclear weapons research projects conducted studies of the effects of plutonium on laboratory animals and human subjects.[70] Animal studies found that a few milligrams of plutonium per kilogram of tissue is a lethal dose.[71]

In the case of human subjects, this involved injecting solutions containing (typically) five micrograms of plutonium into hospital patients thought to be either terminally ill, or to have a life expectancy of less than ten years either due to age or chronic disease condition.[70] This was reduced to one microgram in July 1945 after animal studies found that the way plutonium distributed itself in bones was more dangerous than radium.[71]

Eighteen human test subjects were injected with plutonium without informed consent. The tests were used to create diagnostic tools to determine the uptake of plutonium in the body in order to develop safety standards for working with plutonium.

Hahaha, yeah, in order to work with human research subjects I had to go through ethics training. TRUST ME, that's the merest tip of the iceberg of human rights violations when it comes to unethical research on humans. The atrocities done to prisoners, poor people, and wards of the state in the name of science are unspeakable. I could tell you things that would make your stomach turn. Not just anyone's... yours. Right up into the 1970's (officially) in the US as well as elsewhere. And you want to know what pharmaceutical researchers do when they can't legally/ethically/affordably run research on humans in the US? They contract out with agencies that find poor people in other countries to research on. It's charming.

Oh, I've know people in my university that hired themselves out to take pills from some shady companies for about $80 USD a month.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/06/19891351-radioactive-water-seeping-into-pacific-from-fukushima-is-emergency-official-says?lite

"And you don't stop."
- The ghost of Harry Daghlian

Oh, fun fact:

During and after the end of World War II, scientists working on the Manhattan Project and other nuclear weapons research projects conducted studies of the effects of plutonium on laboratory animals and human subjects.[70] Animal studies found that a few milligrams of plutonium per kilogram of tissue is a lethal dose.[71]

In the case of human subjects, this involved injecting solutions containing (typically) five micrograms of plutonium into hospital patients thought to be either terminally ill, or to have a life expectancy of less than ten years either due to age or chronic disease condition.[70] This was reduced to one microgram in July 1945 after animal studies found that the way plutonium distributed itself in bones was more dangerous than radium.[71]

Eighteen human test subjects were injected with plutonium without informed consent. The tests were used to create diagnostic tools to determine the uptake of plutonium in the body in order to develop safety standards for working with plutonium.

Hahaha, yeah, in order to work with human research subjects I had to go through ethics training. TRUST ME, that's the merest tip of the iceberg of human rights violations when it comes to unethical research on humans. The atrocities done to prisoners, poor people, and wards of the state in the name of science are unspeakable. I could tell you things that would make your stomach turn. Not just anyone's... yours. Right up into the 1970's (officially) in the US as well as elsewhere. And you want to know what pharmaceutical researchers do when they can't legally/ethically/affordably run research on humans in the US? They contract out with agencies that find poor people in other countries to research on. It's charming.

Oh, I've know people in my university that hired themselves out to take pills from some shady companies for about $80 USD a month.

Yeah, it's fucked UP). Technically US companies have to abide by NIH ethics guidelines, but there are so many ways around it that it's basically the honor system. At least universities are constrained by the threat of losing funding.

[P3nT4gR4m]

In the United States, across the Pacific, there was no sense of alarm.
"With the amount of dilution that would occur, any kind of release in Japan would be non-detectable here," said David Yogi, spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

It's official - the US Environmental Protection Agency have absolutely no idea what an environment is