HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling f
Date: 24 Jul 92 19:31:15 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada

ken@sugra.uucp (Kenneth Ng) writes:

> Stating that it is a political problem rather than a technical problem puts
> the focus on where it belongs.

True, but it neither solves the problem, nor ensures that it will be solved.
Until the political problems regarding nuclear waste are solved, nuclear waste
is a concern (potential problem) and the technological solutions are
meaningless unless they work _despite_ the politicians and corrupt contractors.

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca
From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling for real?
Date: 27 Jul 92 00:23:22 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:

[me]
>>No it's not.  Low Level NOS waste is harmless by definition.  Try reading

>Harmless by government edict. But, not necessarily harmless in the real
>world.

This yackadamn fellow reminds you of that little kid on the trike who
keeps ramming his head into the wall and can't figure out why it 
hurts each time.

So tell us, Vic, how is LLNOS waste NOT harmless.  Oh, just to qualify
yourself, first tell us what you think LLNOS is.

>The required level of safety of any engineering project is a political
>problem, not a technical one. There is no technical reason for requiring
>air-bags or even brakes on automobiles and there is no technical reason
>why we should not be happy with a rad-waste stream distributing "low-level"
>rad-waste into county dumps. 

Old yackadamn there, he occasionally stumbles into a good one.
I like the air bag analogy.

Air bags are useless except in certain carefully defined situations.  
and are harmful in many others.  Despite the growing body of evidence that 
they either don't work or are actively harmful, and NTSHA is suppressing that 
fact, those little bits of explosive continue to get embedded in America's 
steering wheels.  At least in the case of air bags, I have a choice.  
I can simply refuse to buy a new car.  The yackadamns of the world have 
deprived me of the choice of making engineeringly sound decisions regarding 
nuclear byproducts.  

Tell us, Vic.  If, say, medical rad-waste is diluted to the point where
its activity is below that of ambient background, and it is placed in
a landfill, is there positive, negative or zero radiological environmental 
impact? Please be specific and present your supporting evidence.  Please don't
copy verbatim from a book.  That didn't work in elementary school
and it does not work here.

John
-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC        |Interested in high performance mobility?  
Rapid Deployment System, Inc. |Interested in high technology and computers?  
Marietta, Ga                  |Write me about "Performance Engineering" (TM) 
jgd@dixie.com                 |Magazine. 
Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta?  Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
Newsgroups: sci.energy
From: houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle)
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling f
Organization: New Mexico Tech
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 23:53:42 GMT

>Tailings tend to release materials (radon, uranium, etc) at a faster rate as
>tailings than as solid rock.  The radioactivity is the same, but the rate of
>release into the environment is higher.  The tailings are also an environmental
>problem from non-radioactive factors too (acid leachate).
>

	Yes,  many people don't realize that transport properties determine
how dangerous different radioisotopes are.  About 30 megacuries of radioactive
noble gases were estimated to be released from the TMI accident.  That's
alot of radiation -- but noble gases don't stay in the body or get
concentrated in the ecosystem,  so this isn't as severe as it could be.

	Probably between 10-20 curies of radioactive iodine were released;
this stuff is really bad because it concentrates in the thyroid.  Had 30
MCu of radioactive iodine leaked from TMI,  this would have been a serious
health problem...  But 30 MCu of noble gases is much less severe.



--
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Date: 30 Jul 92 08:14:42 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.160427.17369@cerberus.ulaval.ca>, yergeau@cornu.phy.ulaval.ca (Francois Yergeau) writes:

|> One such design is not only ready for construction, but in actual
|> operation in many places in the world.  It's the CANDU, which uses
|> heavy water as both the coolant and the moderator.  This gives it two
|> nice advantages:
...
|> 2) It is "inherently safe" in the sense that accidental loss of coolant
|>    automatically results in the reactor stopping through the loss of
|>    the moderator.
|> 
|> This is my understanding of the expression "inherently safe": you are
|> _passively_ protected against a runaway reactor by the fact that
|> coolant and moderator are one and the same fluid; you cannot lose one
|> without losing the other, and if that happens, the chain reaction stops
|> automatically.

I expect someone has been feeding you a line here.

In a "passively safe" reactor you are protected against many
other failure modes as well.  The property you describe above
is not unique to CANDU;  all existing light water reactors have
the same property.  Nor does that design necessarily protect
against overpower accidents; if the control rods are blown out
of a reactor (never mind how) on a time scale short compared
to the time needed for heat to conduct out of the fuel rods,
the fuel rods can damage themselves in the transient.

In any case, the fashionable accident scenario is loss of coolant
or loss of circulation, not loss of control of the chain reaction.
Afterheat from fission products can melt the fuel just fine, thank
you, even if the chain reaction has been stopped.  That's what
happened at TMI, you know.

For a better example of a passively safe reactor, see either
the Integral Fast Reactor (safe against transient overpower and
loss of circulation with failure to scram, although not against
loss of coolant) or various high temperature helium cooled
reactor designs.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
From: munck@stars.reston.unisys.com (Robert G. Munck)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Burn The Bombs
Keywords: plutonium, burner, reactor, Japanese
Date: 27 Jul 92 19:03:03 GMT
Reply-To: munck@stars.reston.unisys.com
Followup-To: sci.energy
Organization: DARPA STARS/NATO PCIS

According to a fact-sparse article in the business section
of the Washington Post, the Japanese are proposing to use
the surplus weapons-grade plutonium from the former SU
nuclear arsenal to generate power.  They plan to build
"burner" reactors (as contrasted to "breeder") that change
the plutonium into "another form" unsuitable for weapons.
The article estimated the amount of material available at
130 tons and that this would be enough for "thirty years."

Does anyone know anything more about this idea?  Do the
burner reactors share the problems of size, cost, and risk
of conventional reactors, or is it possible to build smaller
ones?  What's the "other form" of plutonium that they
produce?  How much energy would the 130 tons produce?  (It
seems unlikely that the "thirty years" is the total energy
needs of the former SU republics for thirty years.)

After all, we have a great deal of this stuff also, and it's
awfully hard for even the most extreme of hawks to make a
case for our needing to retain more than a hundred of our
tens of thousands of warheads.  So how about if we turn our
underground test area into an energy park of burner reactors
and run superconducting cables to the nearest population
centers?

-- 
Bob Munck
From: jmichael@nosc.mil (James A. Michael)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: braking distances
Summary: Flashing Brake Lights
Date: 23 Jul 92 16:36:27 GMT
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego, CA




>
>Not so long ago, people used to pump their brakes when they had to brake hard.
>(Man, did flashing brakelights ever get my attention, two or three cars ahead,
>even.) With the advent of ABS, the tell tale warning of a panic stop has all
>but vanished. Even people without ABS seem to just push the brakes until
>well after the wheels lock up. It seems to me that flashing brakelights for
>hard stops (maybe brakelights flash when the ABS kicks in) would be very
>helpful, because you can see hard stops a few cars ahead.
>

This is interesting.  The third brake light (the cyclopes) was made mandatory 
for new cars sold in the USofA in 1986, I believe.  Before then, it was an 
option for a couple of years on some models.  I have a friend who is very safety
conscious, and when these lights first started to appear on new cars, he also 
thought they were a good idea.  So, he installed one on his 1971 Volvo, simply 
wiring it to the brake light wires.  However, he put a bi-metallic switch (one 
of the switches that make the turn signals blink on and off) in series with the 
light, so that it flashed anytime the brakes were pushed, not just panic stops. 
Like you, he felt that a flashing light would be more attention getting.  Note 
that the other brake lights worked normally, and only the cyclopes light 
flashed.  He considered pursuing this idea for an invention, and wanted to make 
the frequency of flashing proportional to the deceleration (a panic stop would 
flash quickly, while a leisurely stop would flash slowly).  This kind of device 
would certainly provide more information to other drivers than just another 
brake light.  Probably, my friend's installation on his Volvo was illegal, 
because it didn't do exactly what the DOT had mandated when they started 
requiring the third light, and I'm not suggesting that anybody make this change.  
I still think it's a good idea, though.


                                  Jim Michael
Addresses:
ARPA: jmichael@cod.NOSC.MIL           (preferred)
UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax,dcdwest,seismo}!sdcsvax!nosc!cod!jmichael
AT&T: (619) 553-2416    (work)
      (619) 223-9405    (home)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
From: wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com (R. Cage)
Subject: Re: High-tech highways, chicken/egg (was: Is car pooling for real?
Summary: Get real.
Organization: Ford Motor Company Scientific Research Labs, Dearborn, MI
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 23:30:54 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.235425.13042@engrserver.uark.edu> pcl@engrserver.uark.edu (Peter Laws) writes:
>Let's see:  One TGV trainset is 10 cars (+2 Power cars) long, I think
>about 700' long, and seats ~450 people.  Using the original poster's "4
>feet between" trains, ~7 trains in a mile, 150 miles/hr (conservative),
>that comes to, let's see...~500,000 passengers per hour.

The train is useless unless it stops to let passengers on and off.
A 4' spacing makes the 150 MPH speed impossible.  So blow off this
figure as the ravings of an innumerate.

>Not as far from reality as "smart highways".

Sorry, you have it reversed.  Much, much father, due to physical
impossibility.  IVHS is only technically difficult.

>12 trains / hour is more realistic
>and only brings the passenger / hour down to 5400.  In a "lane" 15'
>wide.

I'll grant it that.  But it's still wider than the traffic lane
and has smaller capacity due to train spacing requirements.

>With almost no noise.   

Excuse me, what have you been smoking?  I want some.

YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND if you think that a TGV/Shinkansen train
makes "almost no noise".  They are some of the worst noise polluters
in existence.  Worse, the bullet trains require extremely smooth
track, which has to be ground back into flatness.  Grinding is LOUD.
This happens when the trains aren't running:  at night.  

Are you going to pay people living near the rail routes for the
value of their now-worthless property, fractured marriages from
stress, and lack of sleep?  Plug that into your "externalities".

>SUPPORT A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD:  TELL YOUR CONGRESSMAN TO SUPPORT THE
>"AMPENNY" BILL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Judging from what you've been saying above, I wouldn't want to.
Let's put some money into superconducting maglev (a technology
pioneered at MIT) and see if we can't come up with something
which is a better neighbor.
-- 
Russ Cage   wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com  russ%rsi.uucp@destroyer.rs.itd.umich.edu
  *  When Ford pays me for my opinions, THEN they can call them theirs. *

                           _Bad_ cop.  No donut.
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Running out of oil.  Was Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are
Date: 29 Jul 92 12:21:13 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.213130.19001@michael.apple.com>, ems@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith) writes:

|> More than that, we could put one heck of a dent in land fill costs for
|> garbage.  Most garbage is either yard plant waste or paper.  Both can
|> be easily converted to ethanol (enzyme to sugar, yeast to ethanol, 
|> vacuum distil to fuel).  San Jose is presently collecting 'green waste'
|> to composting.  They could just as easily dump it into an ethanol plant.
|> 
|> Non-recylable paper could be similarly handled.
|> 
|> Garbage to motor fuel has been done on a demonstration scale and works.
|> It just isn't as cheep as oil or methanol.


I'd say.  Ethanol from cellulose waste comes out to be at least twice the
price of current gasoline, I believe.  Hardly worth it.

Ethanol from corn is only there as a sop the big corn processors like ADM
(along with the sugar import quotas).  Sugar from cane is cheaper, but even
Brazil that had a large domestic alcohol industry has given up -- it was
just too expensive.

Methanol has the advantage that it can be produced by straightfoward
nonbiological chemistry, an inherently more efficient and controllable
process.  I recently posted a note about a study of a newly proposed
process that uses both biomass and natural gas as feedstocks, producing
several times more fuel as methanol than could be derived by conversion
of the biomass to ethanol, yet still retaining net zero CO2 emission
(assuming no "mining" of soil carbon and fueling of the vehicles
involved in biomass production with alcohol.)   The overall efficiency
of this process for converting biomass and fossil energy to energy
as embodied in methanol was about 70%.  The cost of this methanol
came out to $.05/gallon of gasoline equivalent more than 1989 gasoline prices
(both including distribution, taxes, etc.)

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
From: houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling f
Date: 27 Jul 92 14:54:15 GMT
Organization: New Mexico Tech

>The release of I, if any, was postulated.  None was ever measured.  It
>should be noted that essentially the entire core inventory of I was
>released at TMI as the fuel melted.  This I either plated out on
>internal surfaces (minor contribution) or immediately combined with
>the cesium also released and made cesium iodide which happily stayed
>in solution in the primary coolant.  It should also be noted that the
>inventory of I in the core quickly (minutes) drops below 30 MCi (note
>the correct abbreviation) number you hypothesized due to decay.
>
>You really ought to know what you're talking about in this group and
>not just read that greenie stuff to us.

	I got those numbers from a textbook on nuclear reactor engineering,
which is decidedly not a "greenie" source.

>jgd@dixie.com                 |Magazine. 
>Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta?  Write Me for info on Dixie.com.


--
From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling f
Date: 23 Jul 92 06:29:46 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:

> Repeat after me 1000 times.  This is a POLITICAL problem.  The technology was
> developed decades ago.  POLITICAL, not technical. Remember that.

Being a political problem and not a technical problem doesn't make it any less
of a problem.  In fact, technological problems are often easier and faster to
solve.  :-\

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca
Xref: sparky sci.energy:3684 talk.environment:2990
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.energy,talk.environment
Subject: Re: NEWS: Pioneer Project: Solar Hydrogn Power
Date: 26 Jul 92 08:03:31 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <JMC.92Jul23212906@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>How will the cost of solar produced hydrogen compare with the
>cost of nuclear produced hydrogen.

My reference says nuclear is 3 times cheaper, but it was written in 1978
before nuclear became a dirty word.

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.energy,misc.consumers.house
From: pngai@adobe.com (Phil Ngai)
Subject: Re: home cogeneration coming in 93
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 06:02:41 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.171138.5864@adobe.com> pngai@adobe.com (Phil Ngai) writes:
about natural gas powered heat pumps. I know I made at least one small
mistake in my calculations but rather than try to correct it, I hope
that someone else who has taken thermo (I managed to weasel out of it
in college, to my regret now) will analyze the merits of heat pumps.

-- 
My opinions are my own.
From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less
Date: 23 Jul 92 06:27:56 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:

> and the buses I see usually hold less than 6 in the summertime while spitting
> out foul and noxious fumes.

Many (most?) of Vancouver's buses are electric trolley buses; clean, quiet and
probably significantly lighter than diesel buses.  I've heard that we'll have a
pair of fuel-cell powered electric buses for trial operation soon.

As for low passenger counts, that's true in off-hours in the outlying areas.  I
think they should have a fleet of mixed sizes, with buses of appropriate sizes
sent according to predicted passenger counts.

BTW, on one of Vancouver's primary arterials, buses make up 4% of the vehicles
during rush hour, yet carry about 50% of the travellers.  A recent poll showed
that a majority of people were willing to redesignate some car lanes to HOV
lanes.  They also supported other measures to reduce bus travel time (at the
expense of car travel time), such as bus-controlled traffic signals.

The better bus service becomes, the more people will decide that it's cheaper
and more convenient than driving.

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca
From: khchung@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au (mr kh chung)
Newsgroups: sci.energy,aus.general,aus.conserve,aus.wanted
Subject: Re: Wanted: info. on alternative car energy systems
Summary: not  quite
Date: 30 Jul 92 05:39:33 GMT
Followup-To: sci.energy
Organization: Monash University, Australia.

In article <1992Jul28.164812.27973@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:
> In article <1992Jul28.060757.13569@newshost.anu.edu.au> robertm@cres2.anu.edu.au (Robert McArthur) writes:
> [asking for characteristics of various alternatively powered auto technologies]
> >
> >	1. electric vehicles
> 	o range 
> 	short
> >>>>	o performance
> 	modest   <<<<<<<<<
> 	o ecological performance
> 	depends on the source of the electricity
> 	o cost
> 	relatively high
> 	o average/max speed
> 	modest
> 	o possibilities for car and mini-bus usage
> 	conversions available today
> 
Not quite.  The GM Impact (designed by MacCready et al) accelerates from
0 to 100 in 8 sec, and has a top speed of 160 km/h.
Newsgroups: sci.energy
From: ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Subject: Re: High-tech highways, chicken/egg (was: Is car pooling for real?
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 15:05:06 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.034641.4905@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:

>
>This is a fatal flaw of mass transit.
>It's only efficient when it's full, yet it has to run 24 hours a day
>if it's to be accepted as an alternative to private autos. So it's
>usually running mostly empty. 

There are many mass transit systems that are accepted as alternatives
to cars for going to work; very few (if any?) run 24 hrs per day.
In many cities they are not just accepted, but essential; just
look at what happens during transit strikes (Paris in 87 is an extreme
example).
From: king@reasoning.com (Dick King)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: What I've done to my house (conservation)
Date: 28 Jul 92 19:26:55 GMT
Organization: Reasoning Systems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA

In article <1992Jul24.211442.7241@michael.apple.com> ems@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith) writes:
>In article <Jym.24Jul1992.9am3@naughty-peahen.org> jym@remarque.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer) writes:
>
>>> About 4 years ago we added a 65w Sodium Vapor yard light over
>                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>> the garage door/front yard/street.  This was after my wife had
>>> her car stereo 'boosted' in our driveway.
>>
>>=o= You can get a motion-detecting infrared thingy that will use
>>fewer watts and only turn the 65w sucker on if there's somebody
>
>Notice that it is a Sodium Vapor light.  These start up VERY SLOWLY.
>It wouldn't be lit by the time it went out again...
>

Yes, but with the duty cycle so low you don't mind replacing the 65W sodium
light with a 200W tungsteon.

-dk
From: parrish@helios.ecn.purdue.edu (paRtiCLe maN)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Cold Fusion, real again?
Date: 31 Jul 92 15:08:21 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network

In article <28549@goofy.Apple.COM> ems@Apple.COM (Mike Smith) writes:
>Enclosed is a snippit from sci.physics.fusion:
>
>There is some interesting stuff being discussed there ... 
>
>***** BEGIN QUOTE *****
>
>Materials scientist Edmund Storms reported in a paper submitted to a
>scientific journal that he has measured 20% more power coming out of his
>experiment as heat than was put into it electrically.  The experiment was
>almost identical to a  heat-producing cold-fusion type of experiment
>described earlier this year by Akito Takahashi of Osaka University.

<DELETED>
>
>***** END QUOTE *****
>
>14 kWh is no small quantity of heat!  and 70% is a non-trivial percentage.
>
>Maybe B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmannn will have the last 
>laugh yet ...
>
>-- 
>E. Michael Smith  ems@apple.COM
>
>"Nothing can keep an argument going like two persons who aren't
>sure what they're arguing about."   O.A.Battista


My favorite quote on the subject, from my Reactor Physics Prof...

"Cold Fusion?  There are more neutrons in this room now than they detected
in their 'experiments'."
--
Stephen Parrish
Purdue University    
School of Nuclear Engineering 
parrish@gn.ecn.purdue.edu _or_ ysp@inel.gov
From: Brian R. O'Hern
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: QUIZ- HYDRO-GENERATION
Date: 24 Jul 92 14:39:38 GMT
Reply-To: ohernb@lonex.rl.af.mil
Followup-To: same
Distribution: usa
Organization: USAFRL (Rome Laboratory)

Q1.  How much head (feet) of water do you need to get about 2kw of
power out of a 2" supply.  Answer

Q2.  Can you get 2000 watts from a turbine turned by 2" of water with 30 
feet of drop?


BRO'HERN
STD DISCLAIM APPLIES ('disClaim dat I make is no lie...)
<tab><tab><tab><dr.pepper><coke><mtn.dew><pepsi><sprite>
Newsgroups: sci.energy