Be glad you don't live in Japan Friday

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by tickler

I still like the ideal of these mini-nuclear plants!

$25 million, 20,000 homes. at about $0.10/kwh, and the size of a garden shed!

Self-contained units, factory built, not major security item, swappable modules, and can be used at location without upgrades to the grid.

http://www.physorg.com/news145561984.html

Unfortunately they fail to mention that if you had one of these in an earthquake of a magnitude of about 5 and up you would crack the concrete and have a worse dispersal of material than they have in Japan right now - and I tend to believe that Homeland Security would have some real issues with these

[tickler]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Unfortunately they fail to mention that if you had one of these in an earthquake of a magnitude of about 5 and up you would crack the concrete and have a worse dispersal of material than they have in Japan right now - and I tend to believe that Homeland Security would have some real issues with these

I'll have to take your expert advice on that, but I do believe that they are sealed metal units!

As far as Homeland Security, as mentioned in the article, you would have to break into the area, use heavy equipment to dig the unit up, break into the actual unit itself, and deal with a small amount of material that is "too hot(temperature wise) to handle" manually! People might just happen to notice this going on!

Also, the material is so low grade, you would need massive amounts, and massive technology to upgrade it!



I come from an uranium mining & processing part of the country, and radiation levels are constantly monitored! Studies show that nuclear workers tend to be exposed to about half the radiation as normal people!

Perhaps because of protective work gear, working in "shielded" areas, more caution about X-rays/CTs, etc.
http://www.brucepower.com/docs/Topic...ugust%2026.pdf

Actually in one small processing town, the cancer rate is lower than average population, and the cancer rate for nuclear employees working there is lower even than the rate for the town!


That sort of ties in with family history(living in a uranium mining area) where almost nobody seems to die from cancer, although there are the other normal medical problems! We just blame it on constant radiation theraphy from the slightly higher background radiation! There are some actual long term studies of my family being conducted about this effect!

[Linkster]

I'd have to see exactly what they submit to the NRC (if they ever do) to see the design but I tend to believe that some of their claims are already impossible (like no moving parts - when they say they use turbines to produce electrical energy - impossible to do with no moving parts)

They claim on their website that the unit is enclosed in concrete which is why I made the comment - also the uraniom that is used in the fission process wouldnt just be "hot" thermally - it would be instantly fatal if exposed to it - the enrichment figures they talk about are not much different than you see in a University reactor at colleges in the US.

The low level exposure studies are something Ive been following for a long time - seems that most researchers come to the conclusion that some small amounts of exposure are beneficial - while others claim that "any" exposure has a risk - seems kind of weird since the body is a source of radiation from the bones naturally (Potassium).