A.R.S.E.

richo wrote:The point about not having one in your suburb is pretty right , I worked not too far away from Lucas Heights and the locals were always kicking up a stink about the place .

My mother's cousin used to run the place.

Lucas Heights is about as safe as it gets. It doesn't use anything like the about of fuel that a power generation reactor uses, in fact, it's minuscule by comparison because it's a medical research reactor.

Still scary shit to work with though.

For 18 months I worked with concentrated cultures of HIV, but working with radioctively labeled samples (which i did for a lot longer than 18 months) used to make me just as nervous, if not more. I guess because you have a counter beside you clicking away, and when a sample gets near the counter starts screaming, it gets your attention, other dangers I faced at work are silent, radioctivity well and truly let you know it was there.

Interesting stuff Peter. Did you work with the old reactor or the new one?

J.D. wrote:

richo wrote:The point about not having one in your suburb is pretty right , I worked not too far away from Lucas Heights and the locals were always kicking up a stink about the place .

My mother's cousin used to run the place.

Lucas Heights is about as safe as it gets. It doesn't use anything like the about of fuel that a power generation reactor uses, in fact, it's minuscule by comparison because it's a medical research reactor.

If the thing had just a smidge more radioactivity than a luminous watch dial you can bet your sweet bippy that people won't want to live near it

J.D. wrote:Interesting stuff Peter. Did you work with the old reactor or the new one?

Didn't work at the reactor, I worked with the result of it. I used to do molecular biology research, lots of labelling DNA with radioactive nucleotides, then seperating them out on gels. Once our departmental radioactivity safety guy was away and I had to do the bulk reaction that bound the label to the nucleotides for the whole department for the two weeks. The lab to do it was in the basement, with foot thick concrete walls, you'd just step into the room and the counter would start to squeal, hated every minute of it

I think the idea that the fuel feedstock for contemporary nuclear power technology will last only 100 years or less, is based on currently worked deposits, not known reserves and resources.

See --> http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/200 ... urces.html

Intresting talk with Bill Gates around the new type of reactor they are reaseaching
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Durrie wrote:I think the idea that the fuel feedstock for contemporary nuclear power technology will last only 100 years or less, is based on currently worked deposits, not known reserves and resources.

See --> http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/200 ... urces.html

Link doesn't work for me.

I think the future for contemporary nuclear power generation is probably going to fall short of that anyway.

Although I have already posted this before, it's worth reposting. Check this out:

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You may have to watch it more than once though. It's reasonably complicated.

Fusion power will solve the energy crisis. A modern fission reactor can be a good standby and would probably pay a lower overall cost to the environment than coal but I wouldn't want to rely on for much longer than one (reactor) generation. I think Australia should be involved in the ITER project right off the bat.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011 ... actor.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks Dex, that's brilliant.

J.D. wrote:Thanks Dex, that's brilliant.

agreed!

Sort of off topic, but interesting...

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It says in that article because there was no electricty the cooling pumps could not be operated . Why wouldn't they have back up deisel pumps for an emergency like that ?

They weren't working for an unknown reason it was reported in something else I read earlier I think.

I think that they were taken out by the tsunami too.

pab wrote:I think that they were taken out by the tsunami too.

that's what I've heard as well...

by the way RE the radiation levels, this chart tells the story pretty well

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011 ... l?ref=asia" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Uranium reserves and their expected life. Shame about the other link, it doesn't work for me anymore either

Although this one is a much more extensive discussion of how to interpret the life cycle of known reserves anyway.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html

This seems like a pretty good site with relevant info regarding the situation in Japan.

http://mitnse.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Durrie wrote:Uranium reserves and their expected life. Shame about the other link, it doesn't work for me anymore either

Although this one is a much more extensive discussion of how to interpret the life cycle of known reserves anyway.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html

Thanks Durrie. Reading through that now.

I had no idea we had so much of the stuff. No wonder there's pressure on the government to sell it.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/japanq ... nt-workers" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A nice little up side to this.

wobblysauce wrote:http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/japanq ... nt-workers

A nice little up side to this.

Not for the workers it isn't

It takes a long while, doesn't it?
But it's nice to see things progressing, nonetheless.

Still going to get voted down from the Anti-Nuke/Pro-Miner group.

wobblysauce wrote:Still going to get voted down from the Anti-Nuke/Pro-Miner group.

Does such a group exist?