Quite the androgynous Andy this cat, he'd make a better looking woman-
Uhhh, small-scale modular fusion reactors....DUUUDE. Frikkin' nuclear power.

It's guys like this so excited about the work and the science that scare the holy shit outta me. Nuclear power is going to end up being one of the biggest fuck-ups we ever decided to embrace....already is.

Love that diagram of the reactor under the house-Does anyone else immediately imagine ground water toxicity and the end of all mammalian life on earth?

'out of tolerances', 'dump tank' , drain the core....duuuuude!!

Put your nuclear dream into orbit or meta-galaxial and get excited about something else, please. (and his TEdtalk ends with the economic efficiency of it all....please.)

Maybe EIA as well.

Sorry to say but I doubt these things are killing so many birds they will go extinct.

The number of animals that have died to wind power is probably far less than the number of animals that have been killed due to fossil fuels or nuclear power even if you take into account stats over time.

Drone strikes in northern Pakistan are not indiscriminate. Count how many of the Taliban and Al Qaida's top leadership has been killed off by them. That's some pretty impossibly lucky indiscriminate fire to so frequently end up taking out major jihadist leaders.

Do you have an alternative proposal for dealing with militant jihadists in Pakistan? They are killing civilians, and in particular women, children and students daily. During Pakistan's elections, the Taliban killed multiple candidates, including candidates lobbying extremely hard for an end to drone strikes, an end to military action in the tribal regions, and for talks with the Taliban. Even those candidates were declared enemies by the Taliban for taking part in elections and were killed by them. This isn't about protecting white christians from muslims, it's about jihadists killing off muslims and trying to stop them.

America can't take more precise policed action to arrest or capture militant leaders in Pakistan either. Killing Bin Laden led to even greater outrage than the drone strikes, but boots on the ground are the only method left with less risk of collateral damage. Even if Pakistan's military is finally persuaded to do so instead, it is guaranteed that it will again increase civilian deaths over the short term as any campaign to retake control of the tribal areas is put into action.

It's a mess and simply saying leave them alone is naive and stupid. The Taliban are actively working to topple a nuclear powered state that is particularly vulnerable to them. More over, we are not even sure just how removed from each other key leaders in Pakistan's ISI and military leaders are from jihadist leaders. This instability doesn't play out with a nuke thrown our way in the opening, it comes as jihadists getting enough influence to instigate sending one into India.

If all you pay attention is the idiotically simplistic, war is bad lets not fight pseudo commentators you miss the entire picture.

*promote

Allah Akbar, my balls.

Much rather live on a planet with folks who have less of their collective heads shoved up each others asses.

I like Israel for her policy of continually keeping nuclear power out of the hands of neanderthals.
I get a warm fuzzy every time they use their air force to wrench nuclear facilities out of the hands of any developmentally-disabled children....

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I'm a pro-nuke green. But not nuclear power as we know it. This stuff: http://videosift.com/video/LFTR-in-5-Minutes-THORIUM-REMIX-2011

If you only watch a couple minutes of this video, the man at 1:12:46 leads you to this quote:

"Star Trek I think has had a lot of impact on the future. I mean we have cellular flip phones; they have nuclear powered uh rocket engines already that I'm sure will take us to Mars. And basically all science fiction now is true."

That's interesting... I wasn't aware of that. It seems Nazi policies and distaste for "Jew Science" greatly slowed their nuclear research down, but they were still making fast progress on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_energy_project

"In the late 1930s, Germany might very well have had a 5-year lead on the West in [atomic weaponry]. ... [But] Manhattan did go forward, first and foremost as a counter to the feared German development [of atomic weaponry]." Google Books: How to lose a War.

The following thread isn't a primary source, but it's enough to make me think more research would probably find similar conclusions to the commenters:

Germany was working on nuclear bombs and reactors. German scientists Hahn, Meitner and Stassmann discovered the nuclear chain reaction in uranium in 1939. One reason Albert Einstein wrote FDR lobbying for an all out effort to make an atomic bomb was he got letter from German friends saying we know how to make atomic explosions for Gods sake hurry up. Einstein got through to FDR and we know were this ended up. In Germany they put their best man in charge a theorist named Werner von Heisenberg...

http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/1062440-will-isreal-attack-nuclear-power-plant-4.html#ixzz2OnfHjt7X

*promote nuclear power

Heading back to school for nuclear engineering myself in the next year or so, hopefully to make reactors completely self regulating.

Since no source is mentioned, I assume this to be your comment and therefore applaud and envy you. Most of my passion for a couple of things died somewhere along the way.

Questions, comments or concerns on nuclear or energy in this thread are always welcome (and encouraged!)

Meaningful questions would require a level of knowledge I do not possess, so I'll stick to the layman's reaction: a comment.

Two issues that are not exclusive to the use of nuclear technology make me a strong opponent of nuclear energy in general, aside from technology-specific problems. It's the involvement of people in every stage of the process and centralisation.

Anything run by private entities has to generate a profit. Therefore corners will be cut, regulations will be circumvented. Mistakes will be made, design flaws covered up. The cheapest material will be used by the least paid worker, supervised by a guy on his second job who just wants to go home to his family.

Case in point would be the reactors in Germany, one of the most stricly regulated and controlled markets in the world. Absurd levels of negligence and coverup after coverup have become public over the years, and that's before cost cutting measures became en vogue.

Or take the EPR Olkiluoto 3 in Finland. The reports on the construction process would be hysterically funny if it wasn't a bloody nuclear reactor they're working on.

Google some pictures of "Schachtanlage Asse" to see the reality of "due dilligence" in these matters. If people are involved, bean counters and politicians will run the show, fuck-ups and bad calls are inevitable.

Even if engineers call the shots, they'll overengineer it, they'll make it incompatible with real life conditions. We've seen it time and time again. I could tell you stories about the ICE train, for instance, that'll make your head spin. Incidently, the same company is also involved in the construction of nuclear power plants.

As for centralisation: if energy generation is focused on large scale power plants, it creates monopolies/oligopolies. If a handful corporations, or regionally even just a single corporation, controls the market for something as fundamental as energy, it turns all concepts of a market into a farce. Look at France where EDF basically owns every single plant. Or Germany, where Vattenfall, E.ON, RWE and EnBW control the grid, control the power plants, control the market, control the price, control the politics. It's madness.

Edit: Blimey! This was supposed to be a short comment, yet it turned into another incoherent rant. Sorry.

>> ^CaptainObvious:

>> ^Asmo:
>> ^CaptainObvious:
Fuck no.
Noam Chomsky is a genius and I agree with him almost always - but on this - no way - no.
ANY country with nuclear weaponry is a threat to everyone - let alone a country like Iran. Look what a pain in the ass we have with North Korea and Pakistan.
I remember the cold war and the persistent fear of mutual destruction and the perverse rationality behind it.
I don't want ANY country (including my own) to have nukes, least of all non-democratic countries.
Allowing them and any other non-nuclear country to have nukes is the wrong direction.
We need countries to start giving up nuclear weapons, not proliferating and spreading the disease even more.
The United States might be denying Iran nukes for the wrong reasons (OIL) and perhaps Israel for the right reasons, but frankly I don't care either way.
One less country with nukes is never a bad thing.
---------
"Mr. President, it is not only possible, it is essential. That is the whole idea of this machine, you know. Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy... the FEAR to attack. And so, because of the automated and irrevocable decision-making process which rules out human meddling, the Doomsday machine is terrifying and simple to understand... and completely credible and convincing". - Dr Strangelove - yeah. makes sense huh.

What if all they want enrichment for is nuclear power..? \= |
Or, ya know, the right of self determination?

"The state of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran has been criticized both by Iranians and international human right activists...
The government of Iran is criticized both for restrictions and punishments... such as the torture, rape, and killing of political prisoners, and the beatings and killings of dissidents and other civilians....
...execution of offenders under 18 years of age, restrictions on freedom of speech and the press (including the imprisonment of journalists), and restrictions on [[freedom of religion[[ and gender equality in the Islamic Republic's Constitution (especially attacks on members of the Bahá'í religion)...
...execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, and the widespread use of torture to extract repudiations by prisoners of their cause and comrades on video for propaganda purposes....
Under the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s human rights record "has deteriorated markedly," ... --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Islamic_Republic_of_
Iran
Not all countries are built the same.
"right of self determination" - well, where do you draw the line? Can dictators pull this card out as well?


You are conflating two entirely different issues, and doing a bad job of it to boot...

Iran has done the same things for years, but the only thing that get's the US and Israel wet is when nuclear is involved. Don't kid yourself for a second in believing either country would go in to save the people from a dictatorial regime, all they care about is someone else dealing themselves in to the nuclear game. I suspect you know this very well of course but it makes a much more compelling case to break out the violins and claim the action is humanitarian.

>> ^Asmo:

>> ^CaptainObvious:
Fuck no.
Noam Chomsky is a genius and I agree with him almost always - but on this - no way - no.
ANY country with nuclear weaponry is a threat to everyone - let alone a country like Iran. Look what a pain in the ass we have with North Korea and Pakistan.
I remember the cold war and the persistent fear of mutual destruction and the perverse rationality behind it.
I don't want ANY country (including my own) to have nukes, least of all non-democratic countries.
Allowing them and any other non-nuclear country to have nukes is the wrong direction.
We need countries to start giving up nuclear weapons, not proliferating and spreading the disease even more.
The United States might be denying Iran nukes for the wrong reasons (OIL) and perhaps Israel for the right reasons, but frankly I don't care either way.
One less country with nukes is never a bad thing.
---------
"Mr. President, it is not only possible, it is essential. That is the whole idea of this machine, you know. Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy... the FEAR to attack. And so, because of the automated and irrevocable decision-making process which rules out human meddling, the Doomsday machine is terrifying and simple to understand... and completely credible and convincing". - Dr Strangelove - yeah. makes sense huh.

What if all they want enrichment for is nuclear power..? \= |
Or, ya know, the right of self determination?


"The state of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran has been criticized both by Iranians and international human right activists...

The government of Iran is criticized both for restrictions and punishments... such as the torture, rape, and killing of political prisoners, and the beatings and killings of dissidents and other civilians....

...execution of offenders under 18 years of age, restrictions on freedom of speech and the press (including the imprisonment of journalists), and restrictions on [[freedom of religion[[ and gender equality in the Islamic Republic's Constitution (especially attacks on members of the Bahá'í religion)...

...execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, and the widespread use of torture to extract repudiations by prisoners of their cause and comrades on video for propaganda purposes....

Under the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s human rights record "has deteriorated markedly," ... --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran

Not all countries are built the same.

"right of self determination" - well, where do you draw the line? Can dictators pull this card out as well?

>> ^CaptainObvious:

Fuck no.
Noam Chomsky is a genius and I agree with him almost always - but on this - no way - no.
ANY country with nuclear weaponry is a threat to everyone - let alone a country like Iran. Look what a pain in the ass we have with North Korea and Pakistan.
I remember the cold war and the persistent fear of mutual destruction and the perverse rationality behind it.
I don't want ANY country (including my own) to have nukes, least of all non-democratic countries.
Allowing them and any other non-nuclear country to have nukes is the wrong direction.
We need countries to start giving up nuclear weapons, not proliferating and spreading the disease even more.
The United States might be denying Iran nukes for the wrong reasons (OIL) and perhaps Israel for the right reasons, but frankly I don't care either way.
One less country with nukes is never a bad thing.
---------
"Mr. President, it is not only possible, it is essential. That is the whole idea of this machine, you know. Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy... the FEAR to attack. And so, because of the automated and irrevocable decision-making process which rules out human meddling, the Doomsday machine is terrifying and simple to understand... and completely credible and convincing". - Dr Strangelove - yeah. makes sense huh.


What if all they want enrichment for is nuclear power..? \= |

Or, ya know, the right of self determination?

It partly explains voter apathy on the Dem side. Obama was sent to the White house with a clear mandate (which he ran on), and he largely ignored it or "compromised" it away after he got there. And don't post me a link to that "lookie at what all Obama's done" page. It's horseshit. This election, many Dems are just voting for Obama because he's not Romney.

Also, fusion has been 30 years away for about 40 years now. How about a Manhattan Project-level effort towards that? In the meantime, let's help Japan build their space elevator so we can have a safe method of disposing all the nuclear waste from all the nuclear power plants we are going to need to build until fusion is viable.

>> ^VoodooV:

It's less dirty coal, but it's still dirty, yet they get to call it CLEAN for some reason.
cold fusion, solar, hydrogen fuel cells or GTFO


Name 3 things that won't work in time for it to matter!

Go gen4 reactors, lots of them, and now! I recommend David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" as to why I believe this. Available for free at http://www.withouthotair.com/

Video reference here:

http://videosift.com/video/TEDxWarwick-Physics-Constrain-Sustainable-Energy-Options


But ya, coal needs to go, but you have to remember, 2 billion people live in abject poverty. They try to bridge the gap using as cheap a source of energy they can...like coal. Until you make energy cheaper than coal, your never going to displace the use of dino fuels around the world. The physics on fusion, solar, and hydrogen can't answer that call for quite awhile (we have been trying to make fusion work for decades, same with solar, and fuel cells are just terrible right now and only work for transportation fuels not baseload power generation). I do think we can answer a large number of these problems with new generations of nuclear power, with passive safety and no emissions, gen4 reactors have a lot of great points if people give them a chance!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

In relation to the direct content of the video, your NEVER going to get China and India on board with giving up cheap energy...they are BOTH x3 the population of the US, they have to care about cheap energy WAAAAY more than us, for population and standard of living issues. The only way to win this isn't through regulation, it is through technological innovation...and China has been buying up our AP1000 Gen3 for all the reasons I just mentioned.

To say that dino fuels are "Destroying us" is a little bit of a misnomer, you don't get food without hydrocarbons, you don't have refrigeration without hydrocarbons, you don't get heating and cooling without hydrocarbons. Energy isn't the enemy, any attempts to price out energy will only hurt the most reliant on its low price...if you doubled the price of gas via taxation, you aren't helping the little man. Cheap energy prices, even if they are oil based, aren't the devil, any attempts to make them so is a misunderstanding of the energy crisis. More oil drilling isn't even going to lower costs, at best, it will keep them the same, but peak oil in the US has already come, more drilling in more exotic places is just going to tow the line...and it isn't even going to do that.

Talking about clean coal is just so "we" can talk about how much we need cheap energy without talking about the health effects. Coal does kill, without a doubt, but so does electricity so costly you can't afford heating or cooling. You can't call for an elimination of coal without talking about what is going to replace it, and at what cost. This is even MORE relevant with the recent spout of weather, imagine if that area was packed full of solar and wind...it most likely be completely destroyed, and those are already very cost heavy forms of energy.

Anyway, I will end the rant. I really recommend the book above if you wish to delve down the rabbit hole of energy solutions. It isn't as easy as you think, it is why we are still using dino fuels. Any path you choose is challenging, and VERY capital and R&D intensive. Were are talking multiple trillion dollars to role out replacements on a national scale. Now, oil does a trillion a year, so this isn't outside the realm of possibility, but it is going to take a technical answer to solve, not a political one.

easy fix, Futurama showed us how to fix global warming

just affix the largest nuclear powered engines on one side and push the planet a little further away from the sun

course in futurama they used robots