Posted on 07/29/2005 2:28:26 PM PDT by Grendel9
Thursday 28 July 2005, 12:01 Makka Time, 9:01 GMT
The test was part of an operation to test US nuclear capability
Scientists at the Nevada Test Site have said they generated a current equal to roughly four times all the electrical power on Earth.
The current, which created pressures in materials millions of times greater than normal, was part of an experiment to better understand nuclear weapons.
The experiment was conducted on Wednesday at the test site's Atlas Pulsed Power Facility by scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, along with staff from the test site and contractor Bechtel Nevada.
19 million amps
During the few millionths of a second that it operated, the 650-ton Atlas pulsed-power generator discharged nearly 19 million amps of current through an aluminum cylindrical shell about the size of a tuna can, the National Nuclear Security Administration said.
Atlas, which works as a giant power multiplier, was designed as part of an Energy Department programme to determine the readiness of the nation's nuclear stockpile without underground testing.
It was built at Los Alamos and recently moved to the Nevada Test Site, a proving ground just north of Las Vegas
This is shocking news...
What a demure Pulsa !
Los Alamos? That means that China knows about it already.
Yes, but most people are not scientists nor have they as laymen spent much time, if any, studying science.
Of course, since journalists know nothing about it but pretend they do, they are of no help.
That is true of most subjects that journalists write about whether it is politics, culture, or science. It seems that their thinking goes like this: since we write about it we are right.
It would be nice if they would give a little sidebar whenever they talk about this stuff. If you want to read it, fine. If not, fine.
That would be ideal, but it will never happen. However the value of a place like FreeRepublic is that now there are public forums where the journalists can be the subject of criticism. Journalists have never had their stories questioned before in a widely accessible publication like a website.
Exactly; that is my point that the media was confusing demand and energy. I've noticed over the years that whenever I know something about a story being reported in the media, the reporting usually has errors in it (which doesn't lead to much confidence on my part in the media in general). The best reporting I've found is in the IEEE Spectrum (I'm talking about non-engineering articles...they had better be correct in engineering specific articles).
Sound cool! What type of experiments did you work on?
And here's another:
"On Tuesday, customers across the state used 32,075 megawatts _ enough to power 32 million homes _ between from 4 to 5 p.m."
You can't use megawatts. You can used energy (joules) at the rate of so many megawatts.
But I guess we could keep this thread going just like this until it gets cool. Speaking of cool, the hottest day this month where I am (Cleveland) has been 95, second was 93. Last month we had a 94. Sounds pretty cool compared to what some folks have been getting.
C'mon give 'em a break. It's not like they did something REALLY BAD, like spell "Havana" with two "n"s.
/sarcasm
"mw/hr" should be "mw".
I agree with most of what you say and I previously mentioned those very things in my posts 41 and 43 and a few others. I just realize there might have been some confusion when I wrote, "You can't use megawatts. You can used energy (joules) at the rate of so many megawatts."
What I mean by that is not that you can't use the TERM 'megawatts' but that you can't use (in the sense of 'consume' or convert in some way) megawatts themselves. Energy is something you can use. Power is NOT something you can use since it is not a commodity but the RATE of using the commodity. You do not buy power (watts). You buy energy (watts times time). Therefore, what I was trying to say was that you CAN use (consume, convert) energy but you CAN'T use power.
You mention that they could have used the term 'watt hours'. I doubt if there are many reporters who know the difference between 'watts' and 'watt hours', assuming 'they' was a reporter.
You said, "Power plants are often described by the power they can generate..." 'Power' plants don't generate power! The generate (or convert) energy. Power is only an indication of how much energy they generate per second or some time interval.
I go back to my analogy that speed is to distance as power is to energy. Speed and power are time rates. The thing you want to get (distance or energy) is the product of that rate times some time. When you ride a plane, they don't generally charge you for speed, they charge for distance. The electric company doesn't charge you for power, they charge for energy.
The 'power' meter on my house spins faster when I use more energy per second. The speed of its rotation corresponds to my 'rate of energy use' (power), but I am using energy, not power. If I told the electric company I wanted to buy 1000 watts (with no length of time specified), they should tell me it is not possible. If I told them I wanted to buy 1000 watt hours, they should be able to do that. I am being picky on the terms but I want to make sure they are used correctly.
Go back to school if you ever were, and then get back to me.
Interesting thread.
See also:
"Thunder Clouds in China -Storm is Brewing"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1443691/posts?page=264#264
I majored in physics, and have taught Honors Physics for 30 years and Advanced Placement (college credit) Physics for 15 years, as well. A lot of my students score 5 (highest) on the mechanics and E&M tests each year. They get the energy and power questions right.
I have to spend some time showing kids the correct meanings of energy and power since they have heard so many people using them incorrectly all their lives. I have read literature from electric companies that uses the terms incorrectly, too.
I would suggest you go to any college and ask any college physics professor and you will see I am right.
I said agreed with most (but not all) of what you said, so I am a bit confused about where your complaint is. Is it my statement that electric companies don't sell power? Or that you can't buy power? Do you have any complaints about my post 74? At least 'stripes1776' knows I am right. See post 53.
Interesting interpretation. I've found it simpler to think in terms of using power, but energy being a relative metric. A conductor might be energized to a particular energy level, but completely useless unless a circuit is completed to a different energy level, thereby allowing power to be produced. The energy is neither consumed nor created, but merely converted from Chemical to Mechanical to to Electrical in a typical petroleum fired electrical generator.
With respect to simple algebraic equations, I've found it more productive to intuitively grasp the metrics of Maxwell's Eqns in differential format used simultaneously with some insight of 2nd rank tensors to better understand what is implied or generates one term from the other.
So do you believe it would be more impressive to generate 4 times the total current or a current density four times greater than a previous record?
If you haven't already found it, I think you'd enjoy this site: Science Myths. It has an extensive section on electricity. I think that electromagnetic theory is the least understood area of physics. Feynman even gives the (incorrect) "rolling wave" interpretation of Maxwell's Equations in his physics books, eg. a change in B causes a change in E a "short distance away". Ummm, that would be action-at-a-distance.
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