ARE STEAMERS BETTER, ENVIRONMENTALLY?

[johnwhelan]

Wrong. If you get a Sewing-Needle sized Pin-hole in the Reactor, In several days, every Person and Every little Critter in a 50 mile radius DIES from Irradiation.

Logically, the Safest and Most Powerful form of Energy is Fusion. They Only Bad thing to it is, we Haven't Harnessed it yet.

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

I think the safety record for nuclear in the west is much better than coal. Measuring the number of related deaths per unit of energy.

There is something called TRA, Threat Risk Assessment. Basically you use it to assess the risk then take appropriate measures. For example crossing the road. If the traffic volume is one car per day the risk of you not seeing the car and being knocked down is remote. If it's a down town city street in the rush hour then the risk is higher so you install lights so pedestrians can cross safely.

A pin-hole in the reactor kills every thing within 50 miles, well first you have to do a TRA. Based on my limited knowledge of emf radiation in general it travels in straight lines. So if we put a double wall around the reactor then you'd need two pin holes lined before anything escaped.

Even then if the radiation escaped downwards the energy would probably be simply absorbed by the ground. Upwards and we knock out a communication satellite.

If we accept that our beam happens to beam out at ground level even then only one direction will be at danger.

Basically your scenario is extremely unlikely.

Fusion, if we come back to TRA then we need to know something about it. Current research is basically trying to contain it. One of the problems in chemistry when building commercial explosives was never how to make one it was how to make one that only went off only when you wanted it to. I mean Aluminum foil and liquid oxygen makes a really good explosive but combining them so that it only explodes when you want it to is much more difficult. This begs the question should we ban Aluminum foil by the way since to can be used to demolish buildings.

Technically I think you can build a fusion bomb and I think that is the problem with fusion at the moment. It's like the Aluminum Foil thing its very difficult to control and be safe at a commercial cost.

Wikis are fine but don't use them as a reference. They have limitations and because their content can edited by anyone including those who do so for commercial gain their content can be suspect sometimes.

Cheerio John

 

[simulatortrain]

Touche, but we can still find better ways then steam trains...steam trains were also killed off becuase they were way too difficult and expensive to maintain. Diesel and Electric power fixed that.

cam

N&W's modern steam (J's, A's, and Y's) was comparable and in some cases cheaper to maintain than diesel because they had streamlined the process of maintenance.

 

[simulatortrain]

Might you want to back this up?

I know that it is in fact possible to produce petroleum from products headed for the landfill. It's called Thermodepolymerization or TDP. Basically, speeding up the natural process of heat and compression.

Cheers,
John

I can't find the article but I've read it somewhere and I've seen references to it from several other sources. It sounds like basically the same process.

 

[paulzmay]

I found this e-book http://www.withouthotair.com/ very informative on all questions of efficiency and power generation. It has a very interesting chapter on transport...

On the nuclear question, I seem to remember that Chernobyl at least (and I think 3 Mile Island as well) happened because safety procedures and interlocks were wilfully ignored or bypassed, and the plant run well beyond it's design limits. A nuclear reactor is as safe as the people, processes and procedures that run it, and these are usually of the highest standard. The way things look at the moment it's probably safer storing nuclear waste in bunkers deep underground compared to storing all that CO2 in the atmosphere...

Mother Earth will always Correct itself to Maintain a Balance. Yes but that can take a very long time and Mother Earth does not care if Humans are around by then.

And not to say that the balance will be anything we recognise as liveable...

Paul

 

[pommie]

Wrong. If you get a Sewing-Needle sized Pin-hole in the Reactor, In several days, every Person and Every little Critter in a 50 mile radius DIES from Irradiation.

Logically, the Safest and Most Powerful form of Energy is Fusion. They Only Bad thing to it is, we Haven't Harnessed it yet.

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

For crying out loud, do you even read a post before you claim it to be wrong, I said "nuclear power is the cleanest, safest* practical power that is available at this time."

First you say I am Wrong "Wrong.", then, for some indiscernible reason you say I am right "we Haven't Harnessed it yet."

And quoting Wikipedia is about the same as quoting graffiti, a waste of bandwidth.

Cheers David

 

[mitch456yui]

HA HA HA good one:hehe: ,
Wikipedia is that bad, anyone can edit it . Any Tom, Dick or Harry can rack up and write their opinion on Wikipedia, stating it as fact . So i always read other sites .

Thanks,
Mitch456yui:wave:

 

[paulzmay]

Wikipedia is as good as it's references - there's some really good accurate entries on there, but look for how well they are referenced...

It's certainly not authoritative.

Paul

p.s. and yes, fusion will be great if they ever get it out of the laboratory...

 

[backyard]

Just check the references...

No website, not even this one is all-knowing, infallible, omnipotent or eternal...check your references, get other opinions, etc.

No method of transportation is going to be without compromises regarding environmental compatibility. As sure as you even invent a method not invasive to the environment, you'll run up against methods of obtaining property as far as ground transport is concerned that will find opposition from the so-called "Not In My Backyard" folks.

I am appalled that current operators of steam locomotives go out of their way to incorrectly run steam locomotives with a full flume of smoke raging out of the smoke stack with the attitude that "it's pretty!" It's just a matter of time before pressure on the EPA stops the practice.

Properly run steam locomotives as well as properly tuned Diesel-electric locomotives will not smoke under a load, but that does not prevent particulate emissions.