Japan agrees to hand over nuclear material to United States

[4-2-7]

Originally Posted by MikeG22

No please Japan don't give us that free energy source. I bet Obama's behind this. What's the big theory 4-2-7? Is Obama bringing it here to blow us all up?

Dumbest comment on the thread.

Free energy wow! Don't you think if it was free energy that Japan would not use it them selves?

I don't know if you heard about Fukushima going off line. Japan still has trouble meeting there energy demand. So smarty pants why would they not use it if it's free energy?

[Pio1980]

The situation re-poses the need to develop sustainable energy policies that encourage efficiency and conservation. Once nuke looked good ("too cheap to meter", they said) but the unintended consequences and delaying unsolved problem complications to a future solution that has yet to appear has only highlighted the difficulties. Solar, as the primary source of energy for most natural processes (evaporation/precipitation= hydro, wind turbines, tidal/wave generation, ect), is still the most promising, and geo-thermal the most intriguing if only the whole world looked like Iceland. It's essential to remember that electricity is a converted transmission and storage mode of energy, it needs a source in order to appear. Basing anything in electric gadgetry must that that into account, likewise for hydrogen as a fuel. AFAIK, only Iceland could economically produce hydrogen for fuel from abundant geothermal generation/ electrolytic conversion.

[merrylander]

And the NIH factor will prevent the U.S. from looking at the CANDU reactor. India last I heard was looking at running the ones they bought on Thorium.

[MikeG22]

Originally Posted by 4-2-7

Dumbest comment on the thread.

Free energy wow! Don't you think if it was free energy that Japan would not use it them selves?

I don't know if you heard about Fukushima going off line. Japan still has trouble meeting there energy demand. So smarty pants why would they not use it if it's free energy?

If free to us if they are paying us to take it and it is already enriched. You rebutted your own argument in your response. With Fukushima off line there is stockpiles of unusable energy. Its like having a shed full of wood pellets and no pellet stove.

Your comparing nuclear to coal or oil power generation? Do you realize how little air pollution nuclear creates vs energy it produces? Go with coal we don't have enough climate change.

[4-2-7]

Originally Posted by MikeG22

If free to us if they are paying us to take it and it is already enriched. You rebutted your own argument in your response. With Fukushima off line there is stockpiles of unusable energy. Its like having a shed full of wood pellets and no pellet stove.

Your comparing nuclear to coal or oil power generation? Do you realize how little air pollution nuclear creates vs energy it produces? Go with coal we don't have enough climate change.

Nuclear energy is powerful and clean I agree with that. It also has by products and faults.

If we built nuk plants they would be susceptible to forces out of our control. Once control is lost it's hazards are a 1000 times greater than any other source of energy. As with Fukushima and it's need for massive water cooling places the source to close to dangerous conditions.

Nothing is free....

[MikeG22]

I live very close to Indian Point nuclear power plant which supplies energy to NYC. The Kennedys and their riverkeeper group have been trying to shut this plant down as long as I've lived here. These morons built multimillion dollar mansions right near the existing plant and are now crying it's there. The only reason it still exists is there is no viable option to replace the amount of energy it creates very cleanly and efficiently. Best part is it sits on an inactive fault line.

Hopefully someday these alternative sources will be as clean and efficient. For now though using something intended to kill off human existence to power our homes sounds good to me. The by products are much less dangerous then the fuel BTW. Still extremely dangerous and will be for a long time but not mushroom cloud dangerous.

[djv8ga]

Originally Posted by MikeG22

I live very close to Indian Point nuclear power plant which supplies energy to NYC. The Kennedys and their riverkeeper group have been trying to shut this plant down as long as I've lived here. These morons built multimillion dollar mansions right near the existing plant and are now crying it's there. The only reason it still exists is there is no viable option to replace the amount of energy it creates very cleanly and efficiently. Best part is it sits on an inactive fault line.

Hopefully someday these alternative sources will be as clean and efficient. For now though using something intended to kill off human existence to power our homes sounds good to me. The by products are much less dangerous then the fuel BTW. Still extremely dangerous and will be for a long time but not mushroom cloud dangerous.

Look, this a stupid question, but I'm no expert in nuclear plants.
I heard an "expert" on the radio claim that the old rods were more radioactive than the new rods.
Is this true? If it is, why are they?

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by djv8ga

Look, this a stupid question, but I'm no expert in nuclear plants.
I heard an "expert" on the radio claim that the old rods were more radioactive than the new rods.
Is this true? If it is, why are they?

That may be true when they first pop them out of the reactor. There are lots of isotopes produced in the reactor, both fission products (created when atoms are split) and isotopes created when atoms absorb extra neutrons. But a characteristic of radioactive elements is they decay as they emit particles, and the faster they emit particles, the faster they decay. The most radioactive isotopes thus have half-lives measured in weeks (or less).

Here's a graph of overall radioactive decay over time for three type of nuclear fuel, from Wikipedia.



A thing to note is that plot has a logarithmic scale on both axis. That means that on a linear scale, those lines would basically look like this:



Very fast decrease at first, then a long tail.

[merrylander]

Maybe this is what he was talking about

http://www.4-traders.com/news/Patent...wit--18164377/

[djv8ga]

Could be. He was making the case to shut down all of the plants.