Al Gore
Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 5:40 am
I have said this before; Al Gore. I would hope he is already aware of it, but I would not count on that.
That's a gut reaction actually.Zixinus, I'm detecting some prejudice on your part again. Smile
If he wants to limit greenhouse gasses but is againts fission, then he's ignorant enough to not know the difference between fusion and fission, and would care less. Fission has its downsides, but none of them are bad enough to dismiss it completely.Moreover, he may well be against "nuclear power" but that would mean fission power. There are some coherent reasons to be against that. You may or may not agree with those reasons, but regardless, none of them apply to fusion power. Given his clear and strong desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, I sincerely hope he is against fission power, because then fusion is really the only practical alternative to large-scale base power generation. (Well, except perhaps for space solar power, but that requires a much larger investment to get going than polywell fusion, if Dr. Bussard is right.)
Oh and I must disagree. Fission, especially with breeder reactor design, can supply large-scale power for entire Humanity for centuries if not millenas.I sincerely hope he is against fission power, because then fusion is really the only practical alternative to large-scale base power generation
You must get far with people skills like those. Many non-ignorant people see serious problems with fission power, such as the security issues it raises. No, one doesn't dismiss it completely, but one may still see it as an unattractive option, and yet not be too stupid to know the difference between fusion and fission.Zixinus wrote:If he wants to limit greenhouse gasses but is againts fission, then he's ignorant enough to not know the difference between fusion and fission, and would care less. Fission has its downsides, but none of them are bad enough to dismiss it completely.
Hmm, there seems to be some misunderstanding there. If one is against fission, then by definition, it is not one of the alternatives (to fission) for large-scale base power generation.Zixinus wrote:Oh and I must disagree. Fission, especially with breeder reactor design, can supply large-scale power for entire Humanity for centuries if not millenas.I sincerely hope he is against fission power, because then fusion is really the only practical alternative to large-scale base power generation
I'm not sure any consensus has been reached — but for what it's worth, I'll help with that letter.Schneibster wrote:Since the consensus seems to be that it's not worth doing, I guess I'll do it myself, because I disagree with that consensus. I was just wondering if anyone would like to help craft the letter or has a better contact method than just mailing it to him.
Being member of a community doesn't automatically mean that he knows what he is talking about. Being a politician by very definition is about talking air. To put it mildly.Worth mentioning, I suppose, that Al Gore sat on a variety of military and non-military committees in the Senate; he's pretty well-versed in this stuff, and knows a fair bit of physics- strictly amateur-level, but still, I'd be very surprised if he didn't know the difference between fission and fusion, and even a bit surprised if he'd never heard of the fusor.
If you think that you can persuade Al Gore, then go ahead. Good luck. You are going to need it.Since the consensus seems to be that it's not worth doing, I guess I'll do it myself, because I disagree with that consensus.
Emphasize that Polywell can do p-B11, meaning no nuclear waste, and the only by-product is helium. Emphasize that it can be done cheaply, and relatively fast. Mention EMC2, and the badly-funded research due to the Iraqi war (not the whole truth, but part of it).I was just wondering if anyone would like to help craft the letter or has a better contact method than just mailing it to him.
I'm popular with the ladies. They avoid me like the plaque. The priests that know me also regularly do a cross and a small prayer when they see me. And I then look them in the face and smile.You must get far with people skills like those. Smile
No problem of fission is not solvable with reasonable means, with realistic ideas. Actually most claimed problems are already solved.Many non-ignorant people see serious problems with fission power, such as the security issues it raises.
I do not mean to insult you, but ask yourself: do you honestly think that someone that is opposed to fission will change his mind regarding fusion? When you are anti-nuclear, you are anti-nuclear all the way.I'm not a big fan of it though, and if Gore is strongly against it, then he would be a good candidate to support fusion research (if he can be convinced that Dr. Bussard's efforts could yield near-term results).
Yes, of course I do, because I am such a person, and I've read many others (e.g., I read Science magazine on a weekly basis, where that is a fairly common view). See, for example, the Union of Concerned Scientists' position on nuclear safety. They're not strictly anti-nuclear — nor am I — but they are very concerned about the safety of our nuclear power plants, and have helped to get a number of them shut down. But I would guess they'd have no trouble with p-B11 fusion (an interesting idea deserving of a separate thread).Zixinus wrote:I do not mean to insult you, but ask yourself: do you honestly think that someone that is opposed to fission will change his mind regarding fusion?
Nonsense. These are considered opinions, not knee-jerk responses... somewhat unlike the views you're displaying of anyone opposed to wide-scale nuclear fission.Zixinus wrote:When you are anti-nuclear, you are anti-nuclear all the way.
I've already contributed $50 to EMC2, and I certainly encourage others to contribute whatever they can out of pocket as well.Nanos wrote:Whilst I'm all for hoping that we can reach people and get someone to fund things, at the end of the day, I fear any funding will be down to each of us digging into our own pockets to move things forward in anything approaching our own lifetimes.
We need to plant many seeds, and nurture them as well as we can. There's no predicting which one will grow into the metaphorical tree we need.Nanos wrote:I just want us to be fully realistic that there isn't likely to be a magic person we can speak to and make it all happen overnight, as much as I'd like such a person to exist.
Too bad that the Union is a subject of controversy whether it does actual science or not.. See, for example, the Union of Concerned Scientists' position on nuclear safety. They're not strictly anti-nuclear — nor am I — but they are very concerned about the safety of our nuclear power plants, and have helped to get a number of them shut down.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/28/14154/799About 80 percent of the American public believes it is more dangerous to generate electricity from nuclear power than from coal. Scientific studies show, however, than coal is many times more dangerous. Even Henry Kendall, director of the anti-nuclear lobbying group Union of Concerned Scientists, and anti-nuclear activist Ralph Nader, in private, concede this.
http://home.pacbell.net/sabsay/nuclear/chapter6.htmlAccording to the anti-nuclear group that calls themselves the Union of Concerned "Scientists" (quotation marks mine) a terrorist attack on the nuclear station at Indian Point could result in 44,000 immediate deaths and 518,000 deaths from cancer. Now why they choose 44,000 and not 45,000 and 518,000 deaths and not 519,000, I don't know. Many scientists do error bars, but apparently "Concerned Scientists" do not.
The RSS estimates that a reactor meltdown may be expected about once every 20,000 years of reactor operation; that is , if there were 100 reactors, there would be a meltdown once in 200 years.7 The report by the principal organization opposed to nuclear power, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS),21 estimates one meltdown for every 2,000 years of reactor operation. In U.S.-type reactors, there have been over 2,000 years of commercial reactor operation worldwide plus almost 4,000 years of U.S. Navy reactor operation all without a meltdown (in the sense they are using the word). If the UCS estimate is correct, we should have expected three meltdowns by now, whereas according to the RSS, there is a 30% chance that we would have had one.
Because everyone that is opposed to fission doesn't know all the small little facts and details that make their opinion invalid, to put it mildly.Nonsense. These are considered opinions, not knee-jerk responses... somewhat unlike the views you're displaying of anyone opposed to wide-scale nuclear fission.
In other words, if we built a car with the same way the Soviet Union built Chernobly, we would have a car that has perfectly black windshields, has no brakes, no airbags, no seatbelts, no lights of any kind, spits fire right out of the gas tank when you gently push the gas.There were several problems inherent with the reactor design ; One, it was a graphite-moderated reactor, which meant that the water inside the vessel served as a coolant, not a moderator - in a water-moderated design, as heat increases, steam bubbles appear in the water which don't moderate neutrons, and thus the reaction slows down on its own. In the RMBK reactor, bubbles appear, water doesn't absord neutrons (it always absorbs some) and thus the reaction speeds up as heat increases.
The second flaw was monitoring - the sensors only reached to a certain part of the reactor vessel, and thus do not monitor the most crucial areas - that is, the bottom, where heat increases most rapidly.
Third, the design of the control rods was retarded - they were actually tipped with graphite, which means that they temporarily accelerate the reaction when inserted, rather than stopping it right away.
Fourth, the containment building was...not there. Few people know that water-moderated reactors are actually supposed to explode when all other safety systems fail - because that scatters the nuclear material around, destroys the moderator and thus prevents a meltdown, which is much, much worse than a steam explosion.
Of course, they are supposed to explode within an idiotically resillient containment building - and Chernobyl didn't have containment bunkers, because building it without one saved 30% of the costs. Thus, all the results of the explosion got out into the atmosphere. The KGB actually generated a report pointing out all these flaws, but it was dismissed as scaremongering by the Party.
So, you can see that one of the primary reasons for the catastrophe were idiotic design decisions taken when building the reactor.
Nuclear power is one of the topics I know a bit about, and what I can tell you, is that almost all anti-nuclear arguments are either a lie, a speach out of direct ignorance or only apply to technology that one should only find in museums.For example, the choice of a heavy water moderator inherently solves several problems. The thermophysical characteristics of heavy water are similar to light water, so the moderator system can function as a backup cooling system. Heavy water is also a more effective neutron moderator than light water, so they don't have to use highly refined uranium fuel bundles. The use of low-grade fuel means that it is impossible for the fuel to go critical in light water, so you'll never run into a situation where the light-water coolant can sustain the reaction. The resulting reaction is highly optimized, with very little "excess reactivity". In layman's terms, this means that instead of constantly trying to keep a potential runaway reaction under control, we use a less volatile reaction which is already near its limits. In other words, no matter what goes wrong, it can't run much hotter than it already does. Fusion reactors are an excellent example of minimal excess reactivity; a variety of critical conditions must be met in order for fusion to occur, and virtually any problem will kill the reaction.
But safe engineering doesn't stop with passive measures. The principal philosophies behind the "defense in depth" concept revolve around redundancy, diversity, and isolation. Redundancy means that you should have several systems to handle each function. If one fails, another will take its place. Diversity means that redundant systems should be dissimilar. For example, a CANDU reactor has two redundant emergency shutdown systems, and each system functions on a completely different principle: the primary system uses shutoff rods and the secondary system uses a moderator poison. And finally, isolation means that the various systems are isolated from one another. Each one uses its own computers, sensors, and actuators. They are even physically separated, with sheer distance and atmospheric and/or structural barriers. This ensures that a single physical disaster or a computer, sensor or actuator failure won't affect both systems at once.
Furthermore, "dead man's switch" principles are employed wherever possible, so that a system is ideally activated by a failure condition. For example, a CANDU reactor's primary emergency shutdown system uses shut-off rods that are electromagnetically suspended above the reactor. If the system fails, its electromagnet will lose power and the rods will fall due to gravity, thus shutting the reactor down.