Fukushima disaster level raised to level 7 (like chernobil)

[SinbadEV]

So what? I only said that because people who compare radiation from coal, fire and bananas to nuclear fallout like they're the same thing are idiots. Enough of anything will kill you but you'd need a mountain sized pile of coal and god knows how many trillion bananas to get the same lethal dose as a few specs of plutonium. Chances are you won't be finding a mountain of coal, a banana plantation or a raging fire in your sushi roll any time soon.


@Hoi. Google and Wikipedia and "thousands of articles" are NOT peer-reviewed journals. Peer review requires you to consistently reproduce the test results, explain them and convince other respectable scientists that your test methods are sound.

Coldfusion does not appear in peer-reviewed journals because the only thing it does consistently is fail these reviews. That hasn't stopped people making claims but frankly I'd trust a roomful of independent* scientists over a thousand teeming idiots on the internet any day.

On the same note I should point out that no "climate sceptic" has ever had an article disputing climate change or it's causes published in a peer reviewed journal. Just something to think about the next time some radio dickhead starts quoting scientists as sources for their pro-oil rhetoric.

* the independent part is important, I'm not going to automatically trust anyone whose funding is provided by the same industry they claim to be studying.

Well you kind of give the answer I want to give you. Peer-reviewed isn't everything, and in general, nothing that is not generally accepted and supported by classical theories is allowed to be in those magazines.

Peer reviewed journals don't really allow articles that involve major changes in the laws of physics or ground breaking ideas, and therefore you shouldn't expect anything cold fusion related in them before we use it as a main power source (if we ever will).

Also many of the researchers are independent and/or accidentally had experiments that indicate the existence of cold fusion (they were not researching cold fusion but found traces/evidence of it).

Wrong.

What peer reviewed journals don't allow is claims based on experiments that cannot be repeated, or claims that are not evidenced.

There has been many times the scientific community was turned on it's head when someone proved something that wasn't known before and published it. There are no processes in place preventing peer reviewed work from being controversial or ground breaking.

Well, except for that thing about the gay gene and all the studies suppressed by the oil industry/car company conspiracy.

[Licho]

Actually stuff published in peer reviewed journals, even in high impact, is often extremely crazy, more shocking than the craziest conspiracy theories people invent

* mysterious dark matter and dark energy - check
* realism disproved by recent experiments (stuff really does not exist until measured because non-locality exists) - check
* Testing time traveling grandfather paradox with photon acting on its past state - check
* Providing evidence that humans subconsciouisly predict future stimuli few seconds ahead - check

Now compare to that "shocking" claim that there is some anomalous thermal energy in bottle packed with chemical energy in the form of water/and/or hydrogen, reactive electrodes and pumped with electricity..

[SwiftSpear]

Well, except for that thing about the gay gene and all the studies suppressed by the oil industry/car company conspiracy.

Suppression of a study is not the same thing as blocking a peer reviewed report. If a peer reviewed report fails it is most likely because some error was made on some process the in the testing, or the findings are impossible to reproduce experimentally.

[zwzsg]

the gay gene

The whole concept of gay gene makes as much sense as the Balanced Annihilation gene.

Yes, if you did a large genetic survey about it, you could isolate a gene, or maybe some genes, that correlate with players prefering Balanced Annihilation over Zero-K. It still wouldn't mean that playing BA-DSD is a genetic disability.

Behavior are much more complex and much more loosely related to genes than, uh, polyo. Finding X gene augment by Y % the chance to turn Z should not be simplified into Z is caused by X!

My prefered are still new brieves about gene finding for entirely human constructs, like "Team of scientist discovered gene of divorce!" quickly followed by a joke about how reader shouldn't feel bad about quitting husband since it's not her fault, but her gene! (Yes, science is funnier in female mag.)

[Cheesecan]

This is not a failing of nuclear power, but of administration. Is it bad to keep a very outdated and depriciated nuclear plant running? Yes. Does that mean nuclear power is bad?

I'm just going to let you answer that because the answer is obvious.


Nobody is saying the situation in Japan was perfectly fine and problem-free, but people like yourself are placing the blame in the completely wrong places and using it as an opportunity to spread uninformed fear-mongering bullshit.


TEPCO has a history of falsified upkeep and repair reports, as well as general sloppyness and bad administration. They need to be replaced or nationalized, but this NOT a reason to stop nuclear power. Dishonestly like what they displayed would be despicable in ANY field, but the difference is that if it were any other field the blame would be placed on right thing, that being the offenders, and not the field itself.




You mention spent fuel, and I think you need to look into that as well. There are lots of very thorough and safe plans for the storage of nuclear waste until such a time that we develop the means to get rid of it or use it safely.


You also mention saving power. Saving power is great, we should all turn of our lights and not suck extra power. Is that a solution to a power generation problem? FUCK. NO. That's a pathetic excuse used by people who have a totally unrealistic outlook and don't know how to come up with a decent solution. the simple fact is, the entire world, even places where there wasn't before, there is a huge rising demand for energy. How is this demand going to be met? If you think turning off lights is going to make that demand go away you're retarded, more countries are going to need more plants and we can't just scrape that out of the planet in the form of coal forever, especially considering the massive effects it has on the environment, and renewable solutions are not even NEAR viable.

Olol, you could have saved yourself some writing by reading my post more carefully. I have not gone out and said nuclear power should be banned, but that it should not be built where there is an elevated risk for earthquakes and a reckless government pursuing a greedy energy policy out of sheer desperation. Do you think it's a mere coincidence that the Japanese government chose to keep running the reactor? It's because they are broke and they knew the risks they were taking because experts allowed to see the plant told them so. Yet despite of that they kept it running to boost their economy.

I doubt nationalizing their nuclear power is the right direction to go because many other countries have private nuclear power and it works fine for them. Add to that the fact that Japan would have to buy all those plants first which brings us back to the economy. And don't forget that some of those plants are built and operated by foreign companies.

So no what you actually want is tougher government regulation but that's not going to happen because the Japanese government is notoriously corrupt. You also have to remember that Japanese are historically not known for questioning authorities especially their government, their government does and then they dutifully obey. This is generally not a good thing when it comes to nuclear policy because you can always trust a government to pursue a reckless short-term policy in times of desperation when perhaps the people would have been in it for the long haul.

I have actually looked into spent fuel disposal as my country is big dumping ground for that and also happens, unfortunately as it is one of the safest places on earth, to be decommissioning perfectly fine nuclear plants because of a referendum taken before I was born. They replace that loss of power with fossil fuels which is moronic.

The current means available for disposing spent fuel all comes down to(no pun intended) putting fuel into the ground where it will remain for millions of years. We are not solving anything by doing that, same way detonating nukes on pacific islands has rendered those islands inhabitable so are we rendering the earth's inside inhabitable slowly but steadily and dooming future generations to clean up our mess. You should realize that there is a distinct possibility that even with future advances in technology it will never be possible to take radioactive material and simply wave a magic wand at it to make it disappear as you seem to think.

Reducing the power consumption of our homes, industries and offices is an effective and proven track so I don't see why it should not be pursued with a greater vigor than today. At least this belief is shared by the EU but not much of the rest of the world. People still use 100W light bulbs when they could be replacing that with a 5W LED. I am sorry but you have to be quite ignorant about both the environment and electronics to not feel that there is a huge waste going on there. Also sounds like you may have never paid an electricity bill in your life yet. Consumers like you are a big part of the problem but luckily companies are being provided incentives from progressive governments to market to cavemen like you as well lol.

There has been many times the scientific community was turned on it's head when someone proved something that wasn't known before and published it. There are no processes in place preventing peer reviewed work from being controversial or ground breaking.

Well be that as it may but cold fusion was something that when announced caught the entire world and sent every single university physics department into a frenzy of experiments - because it was supposedly so easy to reproduce. But none were able to reproduce the results. So if it carries a stigma and rightfully so. Nothing about it has been proven since then so it's somewhat unrealistic to bring it up as a real option to fission.

Fusion is a better option then but they still have not been able to achieve a sustained reaction long enough for the technology to become useful as a power source. Last time I checked they could not even get more electricity out of it than what they put in. And unlike what most people think fusion is not underfunded, it has the single biggest research budget of any fuel. It's a sort of vaporware really because scientists have been predicting it has been 20 years away ever since they split the atom, but still we have to burn our poo and dig it into the ground so to speak(fission).

Solar power is in theory the best current option but the oil industry is suppressing it. In contrast to cold fusion the theory behind solar power is proven and lobbied against for real in real life TM. As a result solar panels have no more than 40%ish thermal efficiency. And the "consumer-affordable" panels made in China have only about 20% efficiency which means they are not cost effective unless you happen to live in the Australian outback or somesuch place where you can fry an egg in the sun on your car hood.

[momfreeek]

a few days ago..

Google Invests US$168 million In World's Largest Solar Power Tower Plant
http://www.gizmag.com/google-invests-16 ... wer/18383/

[SpliFF]

As a result solar panels have no more than 40%ish thermal efficiency. And the "consumer-affordable" panels made in China have only about 20% efficiency which means they are not cost effective unless you happen to live in the Australian outback or somesuch place where you can fry an egg in the sun on your car hood.

'Thermal efficiency' has no direct relationship to 'cost efficiency'. It is the cost per kWh over the lifetime of the panel that matters. If I switched to solar today it'd cost me AUD$3000 (USD$3162, 2182 Euro) fully installed for 10 panels (1.9kW) and 4.2kW inverter. The price includes the government rebate ($5000). The system is grid connected, there are no batteries. If I use more than I generate the grid feeds me and if I generate more than I use the power company pays me $0.60 kWh.

I'd save about $1000 per year (at current electricity prices). The life expectancy of the panels is about 20 years so I've paid them off in 3 years and getting free electricity for 17 years after that. I don't live in the outback, I live in a moderate-cold climate.

These are real figures I obtained by contacting multiple suppliers this week. They're not something I made up.

The only reason I'm not doing it is because I rent and I don't intend to stay here. Only my landlord would benefit and I don't like her very much.

[Cheesecan]

As a result solar panels have no more than 40%ish thermal efficiency. And the "consumer-affordable" panels made in China have only about 20% efficiency which means they are not cost effective unless you happen to live in the Australian outback or somesuch place where you can fry an egg in the sun on your car hood.

'Thermal efficiency' has no direct relationship to 'cost efficiency'. It is the cost per kWh over the lifetime of the panel that matters. If I switched to solar today it'd cost me AUD$3000 (USD$3162, 2182 Euro) fully installed for 10 panels (1.9kW) and 4.2kW inverter. The price includes the government rebate ($5000). The system is grid connected, there are no batteries. If I use more than I generate the grid feeds me and if I generate more than I use the power company pays me $0.60 kWh.

I'd save about $1000 per year (at current electricity prices). The life expectancy of the panels is about 20 years so I've paid them off in 3 years and getting free electricity for 17 years after that. I don't live in the outback, I live in a moderate-cold climate.

These are real figures I obtained by contacting multiple suppliers this week. They're not something I made up.

The only reason I'm not doing it is because I rent and I don't intend to stay here. Only my landlord would benefit and I don't like her very much.

Initially that all sounds quite affordable but assuming one panel is about 1 m┬▓ in size you then have 10 m┬▓ worth of panels which means you need 1900W/10=190 W/m┬▓ sun on them at 100% thermal efficiency. With 20% thermal efficiency you would need an input of 950 W/m┬▓. Now according to this chart
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... d_area.png

you're never going to reach that in average under a year even living in the tropics therefore I think your supplier, which I assume are wholesalers, are trying to sell you the stuff of dreams.

If we have 50% efficiency and build panels in the Californian desert(like google) then it's a different matter as you could get close to what you need (~380W/m┬▓).

Welcome to comment on that.

[Licho]

Just wait for infrared solar panels. Those have nanoscale antenas to capture photons and generate extremely high frequency AC directly.

They can capture 30-60% of incoming photon's energy, though they have to be tuned for specific frequencies ..

And of course, they will work at night too capturing infrared or near infrared radiation.

[Tobi]

That sounds like a narrow bandwidth of the spectrum that is captured and hence a relatively low efficiency (in W/m^2), unless they can be stacked so that the same panel can capture photons of a big part of the spectrum.

[Gota]

Just wait for infrared solar panels. Those have nanoscale antenas to capture photons and generate extremely high frequency AC directly.

They can capture 30-60% of incoming photon's energy, though they have to be tuned for specific frequencies ..

And of course, they will work at night too capturing infrared or near infrared radiation.

If they actually manage to store the created energy than we will see how efficient it actually is....
It's far form commercial production, if it will ever even get there.

[momfreeek]

And of course, they will work at night too capturing infrared or near infrared radiation.

Doesn't the vast majority of infrared come straight from the sun (just like the visible spectrum)..?

[Licho]

Momfreek - everything emits "black body radiation" - during night even skies shine due to greenhouse effect of atmosphere.

Antenas can be layered so narrow band should not be a major problem.

Only remaining problem is turning that AC into DC - ordinary semiconductors wont do that for such frequency, but there was some progress with topological diodes.

[TradeMark]

in theory... wouldnt those solar panels then make earth cooler?

[Licho]

Nope, why should they? Captured energy will be used and end up as waste heat anyway..

[momfreeek]

Mirrors reflecting energy back out the atmosphere (rather than capturing it) would in theory cool the earth.

Momfreek - everything emits "black body radiation" - during night even skies shine due to greenhouse effect of atmosphere

I'm just surprised it would be a significant harvest.

[TradeMark]

Nope, why should they? Captured energy will be used and end up as waste heat anyway..

i thought infrared = heat.

so if it captures heat and makes waste heat... umm... profit?

[Licho]

Using energy for work usually eventually releases it as heat ..

You cannot "destroy" energy..

You just ride it on the way from low entropy to high one, and heated stuff has high entropy.

Most of the energy civilization spends ends up as heat - waste heat being released to environment.

Only really really tiny fraction is temporarily captured in objects with decreased enetropy (structures, people, ..) until they too fall apart to entropy and release it as heat.

So yes, capturing heat from environment and using it for work again is massive profit.


Momfreek you are right large scale mirrors would decrease temperature, but this will be like oposite of mirror, it will be black made to absorb as much as possible, just like normal solar panels.

[Gota]

Just use this for energy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy4yRrOw2Ww

[Cheesecan]

I agree with tobi, infrared is only about 5% of the sun's spectrum. It's a nice boost when layered though.

An interesting thing is when you look at the solar constant of 1366 W/m┬▓ out in space before the rays go through the atmosphere. That's about 4x what we receive on the ground.

Theoretically we could build some gargantuan solar panels out in space and then beam the electricity back into the earth's ionosphere using Tesla's idea of telepower. We would then have an endless supply of fuel for the whole planet, available anywhere on the globe for all generations to come.

Of course the secretive Bilderberg group would never allow such a thing!!1