Fun isn't it?
paladjinn
paladjinn
The event I linked to was absolutely a public safety risk. The only thing holding the pressure vessel together was, IIRC, 12 bolts that were holding something like twice the force they were rated for (thank God for factors of safety). If they had let go there would have been a major loss of coolant accident- likely…
I'm pro-nuclear power, I have a MS in nuclear engineering after all, but I do think we in the US tend to overstate our safety record. Safety is only as reliable as our vigilance, and we no one any favors by treating it as a solved problem.
Many moons ago, when I was a Boy Scout, I went to a Mom & Son camp. Someone knew this trick when they arrived, and by the end of the weekend everyone else did too - it was like watching an idea go viral in real life. An entire camp full of boys either running around or making a shrill whistling sound.
Well, to the first point, I've taught Boy Scouts the principles of radiation safety:short exposure time, maximum distance from the source, and sufficient shielding. That's not hard.
That was my first reaction as well.
Somehow when Northern Europeans make fun of each other it seems much more innocuous than when, for instance, US states make fun of each other. My wife is Latvian, and the running Estonian joke is Latvians have 6 toes (I gather it's a linguistic joke that doesn't translate well), meanwhile Latvians observe everything…
Nuclear power benefits greatly from economics of scale. Bigger the plant, the faster your return on investment, despite the higher cost to build. It's really the only way we've ever done civilian nuclear power, because it's what makes sense.
What do you mean by safeguards? It seems if this the major sticking point it should be unambiguously defined.
In the US there has always been a clear line between civil and military nuclear activities - the two do not mix. Actually, the USSR was the worst offender mixing civilian and military reactors - this is part of why Chernobyl was so catastrophic when it melted down.
I really think we in the pro-nuclear-power camp need to recognize that public opinion is not the problem. It's a hurdle, sure (sorta), but it's hardly the highest bar. The high bar is set by economics. These plants are cheep to operate but hugely expensive to build. The people who built the generation of plants…
The pebble-bed reactors are not yet ready for prime time. The pebbles break up faster than expected, and need more engineering. Perhaps they'll work it out, or perhaps one of the other gen. IV concepts will iron out.
To be a touch pedantic about it, the sun uses a proton-proton cycle and hydrogen bombs use a deuterium-tritium reaction, so a h-bomb is a very weird sun that would burn even hotter, and die much faster.
I'm going to choose to believe that light switch panel is at average height for a light switch panel, around 3 1/2 to 4 feet off the ground, making him average height surrounded by really short people.
Part of me thinks he was trying to draw a facile analogy, wires got crossed and oopsies! it came out a whole lot more misogynistic than he intended.
Lady! Look behind you! Run!
A McClatchy report on the incident.