Interesting things from treehugger.com

[unixronin]

Found by cymrullewes, Treehugger posts teasers on:

• Multipurpose broad-spectrum OLED panels -- It's a window!  It's a light panel!  It's a HD TV!  The article -- or the USC researcher quoted in the article -- tosses around a claim of "100 percent efficiency out of a single, broad spectrum light source."  I'll believe THAT when I see it.
• "Zero footprint energy" in Ontario -- or, lease-to-own your own ground-source heating/cooling plant.  US power utilities would probably hate it enough to buy a Congressman or six to pass a law making it illegal.

Comments

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

But they're still toxic as all get out.

-Ogre

[smandal.livejournal.com]

True. The question is, does it bother you more than the carbon output from fossil power, or the impact on the landscape from hydropower?

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

I think Nuclear is the way to go. The problem is, as part of arms limitations treaties, we're forbidden from reprocessing fuel rods. Fuel rods go in at 100% capacity, and come out and get thrown away (realistically: stored forever) at 95% capacity. And we can't recycle them because Carter signed away our right to do so.

-Ogre

[smandal.livejournal.com]

I imagine that this is of strategic importance -- have some moral authority over other countries who want nuclear power, to keep them from making the step to weapons processing.

This, I think, is the most important criticism of nuclear power.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Except for the fact that fuel rods are 5% pure enriched uranium, and weapons grade is 95% pure. And the techniques involved aren't really the same.

We're the only country who has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation. We have no moral authority, at all.

Wind and solar cannot provide enough power. Fossil fuels will choke us out, even if global warming turns out to be a scam. Unless someone pulls off fusion, our choices are nuclear, or a massive reduction in capacity. I like the SCA, but I don't really want to live in the middle ages.

-Ogre

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Except for the fact that fuel rods are 5% pure enriched uranium, and weapons grade is 95% pure. And the techniques involved aren't really the same.
So is it possible to reprocess fuel-grade uranium into weapons-grade uranium? Otherwise, why would one sign away reprocessing liberties?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It is perfectly possible to reprocess fuel-grade into weapons-grade uranium, and you can make a perfectly viable bomb using nothing but U-235. Little Boy, one of the only two nuclear weapons used in anger¹, was a uranium bomb. It's even easier to reprocess weapons-grade plutonium out of "spent" fuel rods.

Unfortunately, we are cursed in this regard with a gaggle of stupid politicians who stubbornly and defiantly persist in believing, against all reason and evidence, that it's possible to put the genie back into the bottle. One more case of inability to learn from the lessons of history.







[1] Though it may not stay that way long if the Prophet Dubya gets his way.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

The logic here being that once nuclear weapons became commonplace, there's no sense putting restrictions on reprocessing spent rods? Hmmm ... well, doesn't reprocessing afford states with less industrial capacity than the US a shortcut to getting weapons-grade uranium? Or are you saying that it doesn't matter either way?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'm saying that it's foolish of them to think they can put the genie back in the bottle; knowledge of the basics of nuclear technology is sufficiently widespread, and enough nuclear material is known "mislaid" or unaccounted for, that any government that wants badly enough to develop some kind of minimal nuclear capability is going to be able to do so sooner or later.
Hell, you can build a quite functional single-stage atomic bomb given nothing more than a three-meter chunk of 12" drain pipe, some epoxy resin or bolts, a piece of light rope and access to a metal-turning lathe, if you can get your hands on the nuclear material. It'll be crude, it'll be inefficient, it'll be low-yield and dirty, but it'll work and probably deliver in the 10KT range. And some of the "unaccounted for" losses of nuclear material are measured in tons.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Right, but i'm talking about strategic capabilities, like producing many megaton warheads.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was just citing the drainpipe bomb as an example of something virtually ANYONE could build. Even the most incompetent government ought to be able to manage something much more professional and effective.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Ic.

Thanks for letting me pick your brain -- nuclear weapons are a weak spot in my education.