Consumer Homes.

Question:

Yes, we would be able to. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > If you can make that claim in 10,000 years THAT will be impressive.

Response:

Thanks for the clarification.  I’m not familiar with SL-1. 73, JohnW – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > SLOWPOKE is not a power reactor and was not designed to produce power, SL-1 was > designed to produce power, SLOWPOKE could be made to produce power but it wouldn’t be > much as SLOWPOKE is a research reactor. > SL-1 operated at temperatures that could be used to generate a useful amount of pwoer > > What about an SL-1 reactor in your home, with a stronger pressure vessel and > > better control rods it would make a wonderful home reactor, no need to worry > > about backup battery for when there is no wind, in fact compared to home nukes, > > solar sound preposterous. > Well, it’s hard to see how you’d generate useful amounts of electricity > from a Slowpoke, as it operates at a temperature before the boiling > point.  Maybe you would go a thermoelectric route, though that would > probably be more expensive than buying power from the local utility. > The amount of heat from a Slowpoke would be far far higher than a home > could use; it’s designed to provide space heating for a substantial > neighborhood of a city or a large campus. > 73, > JohnW

Response:

Just don’t do your own SL-1 Maintenance. If you do do your own maintenance, please follow the instruction manual. We wouldn’t want a bunch of civilians speared by their control rods. When it says remove 3 inches.  Don’t remove it 5.  The peak power production of the SL-1 during the accident was 15000MW. This accident was also instrumental in creating the "one-stuck" rod criteria for reactor design.  This means that if a rod is fully withdrawn, the reactor will remain subcritical. SL-1 was a 2 MW reactor. A little more than the average household needs. TNT Brad Tittle

Response:

> SL-1 was a 2 MW reactor. A little more than the average household needs.

But big enough to replace one large wind farm.  I wonder if one gruesome accidental fatality at a wind-farm installation will be enough to damage the wind industry’s public image for decades and lead to a sweeping overhaul of wind farm design and operation procedures?  Somehow, I doubt it.  Karl Johansson has already posted a long list of wind-energy fatalities, yet the nightmare continues! Happy Halloween, -dl — * Replace "never.spam" with "dlibby" to reply by e-mail *

Response:

>> What about an SL-1 reactor in your home, with a stronger pressure vessel and > better control rods it would make a wonderful home reactor, no need to worry > about backup battery for when there is no wind, in fact compared to home nukes, > solar sound preposterous.

ryan really is insane, a "home nuke" has to be one of the most stupid and dangerous ideas i have ever heard, they cant even get people to deal with old smoke detectors and batterys properly, just imagine all these home owners dumping their waste through dodgey contractors, down drains, in the trash etc. and then there is the HUGE cost of a home nuke, you could probably wire up several homes on a combination of wind and solar with redox storage for less. nice to know that ryan is so infatuated with nuclear technology that he would actually suggest such a stupid and unsound idea, i could see the faults with that idea when it was first floated when i was a kid, nuclear terrorisim, waste disposal and maintaining proper saftey protocols decomissioning and the full comercialisiation of the nuclear industry, the acces to nuclear materials is the killer, imagine how many baby atom bombs we would have the fanatics building, every right wing libertarian inspired fascist group with one, every small dissafected ethnic group with one. it gives a whole new meaning to that american term of going postal. i can just imagine it, some fool installs a home nuke and the local homeowners association finds out about it… "although the large cube of concreet detracts from the asthetic propertys of the street it will contain any radoactive leakage within the reactor owners property and was seen as the only solution as the fanatic refused to remove the reactor." >Well, it’s hard to see how you’d generate useful amounts of electricity >from a Slowpoke, as it operates at a temperature before the boiling >point.  Maybe you would go a thermoelectric route, though that would >probably be more expensive than buying power from the local utility. >The amount of heat from a Slowpoke would be far far higher than a home >could use; it’s designed to provide space heating for a substantial >neighborhood of a city or a large campus.

argh, he does not even understand the technology well enough to see its limitations, and he wants us to trust him. ant

Response:

> "The generation of electricity from a typical 1000 MW(e) nuclear power > intermediate level waste per year and some 30 tonnes of high level solid > packed waste per year."

Only three cubic meters, before reprocessing, of high level waste generated from heating/cooling/powering the homes of 600,000 people for a whole year.  That waste is totally contained and never released to the environment.  That’s impressive! —  fungee… Unsolicited commercial email (spam) is not desired.  Senders of spam will help me beta test new virii, mailbombs, and/or DoS attacks.  Sending spam to this address constitutes agreement to these terms. Before you buy.

Response:

That waste is totally contained and never released to the >environment. That’s impressive!

If you can make that claim in 10,000 years THAT will be impressive. — Windpower, over 15,081  Mw sold. Assuming a 25% Capacity factor, that’s over 40,431  1980 F-100 equivalents !! Regards , Tim O’Flaherty

Response:

> >So 132 tons is the proper figure. > Of course that is false Gregory.  It is false because we are not currently > reprocessing > spent reactor fuel nor is there any plan to change that in the immediate > future.  While separating each atom of each radioisotope would perhaps yield > 132 tons we don’t do that.

Tim,    Although we are not reprocessing now – we could and reap the benefits if we changed the law in the USA.  That’s one of my main gripes with the anti-nukes – they get a law passed to outlaw reprocessing, and then they complain about how much waste there is.     My response would be – don’t complain about the amount of waste, if you are part of the group that outlawed the waste minimization process. Dr. Gregory Greenman Physicist

Response:

> ryan really is insane, a "home nuke" has to be one of the most stupid and > dangerous ideas i have ever heard, they cant even get people to deal with > old smoke detectors and batterys properly, just imagine all these home > owners dumping their waste through dodgey contractors, down drains, in the > trash etc. and then there is the HUGE cost of a home nuke, you could > probably wire up several homes on a combination of wind and solar with > redox storage for less.

I’m not going to help you prove that. Anyway, what could a home nuke do, and if you have the money it beats solar and wind. It has been suggested that it would cost about the same to buy as a diesel generator (which is less then solar and wind with batteries) and almost nothing to fuel. > nice to know that ryan is so infatuated with nuclear technology that he > would actually suggest such a stupid and unsound idea, i could see the > faults with that idea when it was first floated when i was a kid, nuclear > terrorisim, waste disposal and maintaining proper saftey protocols > decomissioning and the full comercialisiation of the nuclear industry, the > acces to nuclear materials is the killer, imagine how many baby atom bombs > we would have the fanatics building, every right wing libertarian inspired > fascist group with one, every small dissafected ethnic group with one. it > gives a whole new meaning to that american term of going postal.

What could happen with Natural Uranium, if it used highly enriched stuff then I would see reason to worry, but not with the natural stuff, and you aren’t going to leave Depleted Uranium lying around those reactors are you? Making Plutonium?  These reactors can’t produce much, and even if they could the technology needed to make a nuke isn’t what your average terrorist has in their garage. > i can just imagine it, some fool installs a home nuke and the local > homeowners association finds out about it… > "although the large cube of concreet detracts from the asthetic propertys > of the street it will contain any radoactive leakage within the reactor > owners property and was seen as the only solution as the fanatic refused to > remove the reactor."

With a Graphite Moderated Gas Cooled reactor you don’t need a containment, anyway the SL-1 reactor building contained 99% of the fission products released during the accident and it wasn’t designed as a containment. > argh, he does not even understand the technology well enough to see its > limitations, and he wants us to trust him.

I’m not talking about using a SLOWPOKE for power generation, I was talking about a completely different reactor design, don’t use the Strawman fallicy on me. > ant

I will squash you now.

Response:

Washington (Nucleonics Week) 26Oct2000 US nuclear plants may beat their record-setting 1999 performance in 2000, Nucleonics Week reported. The 103 operating units are averaging four percentage points higher in capacity factor for the first two-thirds of 2000 than they did for the same period in 1999, a year in which the plants barreled their way to a record 84.5% gross capacity factor. The average previously had never topped 80%. Nucleonics Week, part of the Platts energy group, says if the plants follow last year’s pattern, they’ll end up averaging above 88% capacity factor. In the first two-thirds of 2000, this performance has translated into an extra 27-million net megawatt-hours on the grid. [end of snippet] And that’s like adding 3500 MWe (gross) of nuclear electricity to the grid, about 3.5 nukes.  Or, that’s like adding 12320 MWe (gross) of wind to the grid. —  fungee… Unsolicited commercial email (spam) is not desired.  Senders of spam will help me beta test new virii, mailbombs, and/or DoS attacks.  Sending spam to this address constitutes agreement to these terms. Before you buy.

Response:

> The average previously had never topped 80%. > Nucleonics Week, part of the Platts energy group, > says if the plants follow last year’s pattern, they’ll > end up averaging above 88% capacity factor. In the > first two-thirds of 2000, this performance has > translated into an extra 27-million net > megawatt-hours on the grid. > [end of snippet] > And that’s like adding 3500 MWe (gross) of nuclear electricity to the > grid, about 3.5 nukes.  Or, that’s like adding 12320 MWe (gross) of wind > to the grid.

Whoops.  I didn’t realize that the 27 E6 MWh was only for the first 2/3 of the year!  My numbers above need to be multiplied by 1.5. That’s 5250 MWe of nuc or 18480 of wind.  More nuclear capacity "installed" this year, than the total wind of the familiar saying "Windpower, over 15,081  Mw sold." Pretty impressive. —  fungee… Unsolicited commercial email (spam) is not desired.  Senders of spam will help me beta test new virii, mailbombs, and/or DoS attacks.  Sending spam to this address constitutes agreement to these terms. Before you buy.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> The average previously had never topped 80%. > Nucleonics Week, part of the Platts energy group, > says if the plants follow last year’s pattern, they’ll > end up averaging above 88% capacity factor. In the > first two-thirds of 2000, this performance has > translated into an extra 27-million net > megawatt-hours on the grid. > [end of snippet] > And that’s like adding 3500 MWe (gross) of nuclear electricity to the > grid, about 3.5 nukes.  Or, that’s like adding 12320 MWe (gross) of >wind > to the grid. >Whoops.  I didn’t realize that the 27 E6 MWh was only for the first 2/3 >of the year!  My numbers above need to be multiplied by 1.5. >That’s 5250 MWe of nuc or 18480 of wind.  More nuclear capacity >"installed" this year, than the total wind of the familiar saying >"Windpower, over 15,081  Mw sold." >Pretty impressive.

Yes, they will also have generated roughly 3 thousand tons of high level rad waste and a lot more low and intermediate rad waste for the year, Pretty impressive, and at about twice the capital cost and O&M cost of windpower. What a deal! — Windpower, over 15,081  Mw sold. Assuming a 25% Capacity factor, that’s over 40,431  1980 F-100 equivalents !! Regards , Tim O’Flaherty

Response:

Yeah, nukes grow faster then wind without any new nukes being made. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > Washington (Nucleonics Week) 26Oct2000 > US nuclear plants may beat their record-setting > 1999 performance in 2000, Nucleonics Week > reported. The 103 operating units are averaging four > percentage points higher in capacity factor for the > first two-thirds of 2000 than they did for the same > period in 1999, a year in which the plants barreled > their way to a record 84.5% gross capacity factor. > The average previously had never topped 80%. > Nucleonics Week, part of the Platts energy group, > says if the plants follow last year’s pattern, they’ll > end up averaging above 88% capacity factor. In the > first two-thirds of 2000, this performance has > translated into an extra 27-million net > megawatt-hours on the grid. > [end of snippet] > And that’s like adding 3500 MWe (gross) of nuclear electricity to the > grid, about 3.5 nukes.  Or, that’s like adding 12320 MWe (gross) of wind > to the grid. > — >  fungee… Unsolicited commercial email (spam) is not desired.  Senders > of spam will help me beta test new virii, mailbombs, and/or DoS attacks. >  Sending spam to this address constitutes agreement to these terms. > Before you buy.

Response:

> Yes, they will also have generated roughly 3 thousand tons of high level rad > waste and a lot more low and intermediate rad waste for the year, Pretty > impressive, and at about twice the capital cost and O&M cost of windpower. > What a deal!

No, they didn’t make that much high-level waste, anyway we could always just reprocess it if needed. Anyway, nuke is cheaper then wind. And for those small is beautful people you can have a small nuke that only weighs a few tonne, runs your home, fits in the basement and is fully shielded, no need for pesky backup batteries that can be overcharged and start to remember things. > Windpower, over 15,081  Mw sold.

Thats nothing. > Assuming a 25% Capacity factor,

Nuclear could get 88%.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Yes, they will also have generated roughly 3 thousand tons of high level rad > waste and a lot more low and intermediate rad waste for the year, Pretty > impressive, and at about twice the capital cost and O&M cost of windpower. > What a deal! > No, they didn’t make that much high-level waste, anyway we could always just > reprocess it if needed. > Anyway, nuke is cheaper then wind. > And for those small is beautful people you can have a small nuke that only > weighs a few tonne, runs your home, fits in the basement and is fully shielded, > no need for pesky backup batteries that can be overcharged and start to remember > things.

… Speaking of small reactors, what ever happened to the Slowpoke system? This is an Atomic Energy of Canada, Limited (AECL) reactor that has the nucleonics designed so it runs at a temperature below the boiling point, is loaded with fuel, IIRC, once at startup, and can be essentially started and left alone until its fuel runs out (maybe 30-40 years).  The idea was that you put the reactor vessel at the low point of your system, so any water leak still leaves the core covered.  In any case, IIRC, if it went dry the lack of moderation would shut down the chain reaction, and the power density was so low that air convection would keep the fuel from overheating from decay heat.  Power control was via thermal negative feedback; nobody needed to mess with control rods until it was time to shut down.  They wanted to sell them for district heating and similar applications, and I heard that a new hospital complex was interested.  (Data as of about 1983). 73, JohnW

Response:

> And for those small is beautful people you can have a small nuke that only > weighs a few tonne, runs your home, fits in the basement and is fully shielded, > no need for pesky backup batteries that can be overcharged and start to remember > things.

You wish. You can do that with natural gas and renewables but it’ll never happen with nuclear. Your information on batteries is very poor. > Windpower, over 15,081  Mw sold.

John

Response:

>Speaking of small reactors, what ever happened to the Slowpoke system?

Sounds good, but also sounds like a PR disaster. For example, any school who wishes to halve their electricity bill by installing one would be quickly under siege by ‘concerned’ placard-waving parents who want to keep their school ‘nuclear free’ (whatever the hell that means).

Response:

>>Speaking of small reactors, what ever happened to the Slowpoke system? >Sounds good, but also sounds like a PR disaster. >For example, any school who wishes to halve their electricity >bill by installing one would be quickly under siege by ‘concerned’ >placard-waving parents who want to keep their school ‘nuclear free’ >(whatever the hell that means).

Well in this case it would mean they don’t want their kiddies sitting one or two floors above a nuclear reactor.  Of course this is just a silly troll, as the idea of "home nukes" is preposterous poop! — Windpower, over 15,081  Mw sold. Assuming a 25% Capacity factor, that’s over 40,431  1980 F-100 equivalents !! Regards , Tim O’Flaherty

Response:

SLOWPOKE was a reaseach reactor, I think your talking about the nuclear battery, you can find out about it at http://www.ncf.carleton.ca./~cz725/cnf.htm#g4 – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> > Yes, they will also have generated roughly 3 thousand tons of high level rad > > waste and a lot more low and intermediate rad waste for the year, Pretty > > impressive, and at about twice the capital cost and O&M cost of windpower. > > What a deal! > No, they didn’t make that much high-level waste, anyway we could always just > reprocess it if needed. > Anyway, nuke is cheaper then wind. > And for those small is beautful people you can have a small nuke that only > weighs a few tonne, runs your home, fits in the basement and is fully shielded, > no need for pesky backup batteries that can be overcharged and start to remember > things. > … > Speaking of small reactors, what ever happened to the Slowpoke system? > This is an Atomic Energy of Canada, Limited (AECL) reactor that has the > nucleonics designed so it runs at a temperature below the boiling point, > is loaded with fuel, IIRC, once at startup, and can be essentially > started and left alone until its fuel runs out (maybe 30-40 years).  The > idea was that you put the reactor vessel at the low point of your > system, so any water leak still leaves the core covered.  In any case, > IIRC, if it went dry the lack of moderation would shut down the chain > reaction, and the power density was so low that air convection would > keep the fuel from overheating from decay heat.  Power control was via > thermal negative feedback; nobody needed to mess with control rods until > it was time to shut down.  They wanted to sell them for district heating > and similar applications, and I heard that a new hospital complex was > interested.  (Data as of about 1983). > 73, > JohnW

Response:

What about an SL-1 reactor in your home, with a stronger pressure vessel and better control rods it would make a wonderful home reactor, no need to worry about backup battery for when there is no wind, in fact compared to home nukes, solar sound preposterous. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > Well in this case it would mean they don’t want their kiddies sitting one or > two floors above a nuclear reactor.  Of course this is just a silly troll, > as the idea of "home nukes" is preposterous poop!

Response:

> You wish. You can do that with natural gas and renewables but it’ll > never happen with nuclear. Your information on batteries is very poor.

Natural gas which gives out CO2, renewables that have a very low capacity factor, nuclear is so much better for small needs. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> > Windpower, over 15,081  Mw sold. > John

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->> The average previously had never topped 80%. >> Nucleonics Week, part of the Platts energy group, >> says if the plants follow last year’s pattern, they’ll >> end up averaging above 88% capacity factor. In the >> first two-thirds of 2000, this performance has >> translated into an extra 27-million net >> megawatt-hours on the grid. >> [end of snippet] >> And that’s like adding 3500 MWe (gross) of nuclear electricity to the >> grid, about 3.5 nukes.  Or, that’s like adding 12320 MWe (gross) of >wind >> to the grid. >Whoops.  I didn’t realize that the 27 E6 MWh was only for the first 2/3 >of the year!  My numbers above need to be multiplied by 1.5. >That’s 5250 MWe of nuc or 18480 of wind.  More nuclear capacity >"installed" this year, than the total wind of the familiar saying >"Windpower, over 15,081  Mw sold." >Pretty impressive. > Yes, they will also have generated roughly 3 thousand tons of high level rad > waste and a lot more low and intermediate rad waste for the year, Pretty > impressive, and at about twice the capital cost and O&M cost of windpower. > What a deal!

Tim,    WRONG AGAIN on the amount of waste 103 nuclear plants will produce in a year.    Each nuclear plant will discharge about 33 tons of nuclear fuel each year. For 103 plants – that’s 3300 tons. However, of that 3300 tons – only about 4% of it or 132 tons is radioactive. As another poster pointed out – we can reprocess the fuel – i.e. chemically separate the radioactive materials from the non-radioactive materials – mostly slightly radioactive U-238, which is no more radioactive than when it was dug out of the ground. And don’t respond with that old argument that reprocessing creates more radioactive waste – anyone that knows anything about chemistry knows that you don’t create radioactivity with chemical reactions. So 132 tons is the proper figure. I don’t post misleading numbers concerning windpower – why do the windpower advocates feel they have to post misleading numbers about nuclear power? Dr. Gregory Greenman Physicist

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Yes, they will also have generated roughly 3 thousand tons of high level rad > waste and a lot more low and intermediate rad waste for the year, Pretty > impressive, and at about twice the capital cost and O&M cost of windpower. > What a deal! >Tim, >   WRONG AGAIN on the amount of waste 103 nuclear plants will produce >in a year. >   Each nuclear plant will discharge about 33 tons of nuclear fuel each year. >For 103 plants – that’s 3300 tons.

OK so I was 10 % low.  That’s in the ballpark, that fits under "roughly" >However, of that 3300 tons – only about 4% of it or 132 tons is radioactive. >As another poster pointed out – we can reprocess the fuel – i.e. chemically >separate the radioactive materials from the non-radioactive materials – >mostly slightly radioactive U-238, which is no more radioactive than when >it was dug out of the ground. >And don’t respond with that old argument that reprocessing creates more >radioactive waste – anyone that knows anything about chemistry knows >that you don’t create radioactivity with chemical reactions. >So 132 tons is the proper figure.

Of course that is false Gregory.  It is false because we are not currently reprocessing spent reactor fuel nor is there any plan to change that in the immediate future.  While separating each atom of each radioisotope would perhaps yield 132 tons we don’t do that. It is correct to classify spent nuclear power plant fuel as high level waste and 30 tons times the *roughly* 100 odd plants in the US gives, as I correctly posted, 3000 tons.  If you want to quibble about 10% fine. If you need a greater authority than me well how about the International Atomic Energy Agency??  Here’s what they say about the amount of *quote* High Level Waste from a typical nuke plant…… http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Periodicals/Factsheets/English/manradwa… ote_b "The generation of electricity from a typical 1000 MW(e) nuclear power intermediate level waste per year and some 30 tonnes of high level solid packed waste per year." >I don’t post misleading numbers concerning windpower – why do the >windpower advocates feel they have to post misleading numbers about >nuclear power?

You are constantly calling others liars and trolls while you post disingenuous crap like this.  You have no shame. — Windpower, over 15,081  Mw sold. Assuming a 25% Capacity factor, that’s over 40,431  1980 F-100 equivalents !! Regards , Tim O’Flaherty

Response:

> What about an SL-1 reactor in your home, with a stronger pressure vessel and > better control rods it would make a wonderful home reactor, no need to worry > about backup battery for when there is no wind, in fact compared to home nukes, > solar sound preposterous.

Well, it’s hard to see how you’d generate useful amounts of electricity from a Slowpoke, as it operates at a temperature before the boiling point.  Maybe you would go a thermoelectric route, though that would probably be more expensive than buying power from the local utility. The amount of heat from a Slowpoke would be far far higher than a home could use; it’s designed to provide space heating for a substantial neighborhood of a city or a large campus. 73, JohnW

Response:

SLOWPOKE is not a power reactor and was not designed to produce power, SL-1 was designed to produce power, SLOWPOKE could be made to produce power but it wouldn’t be much as SLOWPOKE is a research reactor. SL-1 operated at temperatures that could be used to generate a useful amount of pwoer – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> What about an SL-1 reactor in your home, with a stronger pressure vessel and > better control rods it would make a wonderful home reactor, no need to worry > about backup battery for when there is no wind, in fact compared to home nukes, > solar sound preposterous. > Well, it’s hard to see how you’d generate useful amounts of electricity > from a Slowpoke, as it operates at a temperature before the boiling > point.  Maybe you would go a thermoelectric route, though that would > probably be more expensive than buying power from the local utility. > The amount of heat from a Slowpoke would be far far higher than a home > could use; it’s designed to provide space heating for a substantial > neighborhood of a city or a large campus. > 73, > JohnW

Response: