Posted on 09/02/2017 1:53:10 PM PDT by Pontiac
Do some research on Thorium Reactors.
A tsunami took out Fukushima, due to faulty design placement of the backup generators and fuel tanks, as I recall. Hardly “impervious”.
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That’s right.
I mean how much fish are you eating these days from the pacific?
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None that I’ve seen. The Japanese now import much of their fish.
The uranium for that University of Chicago reactor was produced (refined) at Iowa State College (University). It was shipped out in boxcars that looked like they were empty...one layer of uranium ingots met the load limit for the boxcar. Dr Frank Spedding headed the project. A cousin of mine worked on the project.
Dr Spedding was an expert on rare earth elements, and on extraction of metals from minerals. The uranium extraction process helped make it possible for the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bombs.
Dr Spedding founded the Ames Laboratory of the Atomic Energy Commission and headed it. During the early 1960's I worked at Ames Laboratory as an undergraduate Chemical Engineering student. Dr Spedding was our 'boss'.
During the early 1950's...
If possible, a small nuclear power plant in every back yard would be nice.
Chernobyl is a bad example. It was designed and operated under Communism.
Safety is a field we understand well, the problem with projects that later prove to have hazards that were not designed for always turns out to be the project management that usually has a choice to make between long term safety or short term cost savings.
Can humans design a project leadership where this does not enter the picture? Its the equivalent to electing a man who does not have ties to establishment entities and crony contractors. We did elect such a man, will we let him govern?
It poisoned a swath of land from the Ukraine across Russia and parts of Western Europe up into Scandinavia. We stopped eating Jarlsberg cheese for a couple of years till the numbers went down.
Chernobyl is a good example as there are still lots of poorly designed reactors on line throughout the planet. Fukushima is still pouring out nasty stuff into the Pacific. Obama should have forced Japan to accept help in the cleanup. They get tsunamis, from the earthquake zone they live in,on a regular basis. Thoughtful design could have prevented the meltdown. So they waited till there was a problem and then said.....” now that design was flawed. Let’s correct it next time”.
You can’t do ‘next time ‘ with this stuff. The fine points need to be worked our in detail, in the designing stage.
Don’t get me wrong. I am in favor of nuclear over coal and oil and wind and solar. But it is not something that can be made good enough. It has to be done near perfect from the start.
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