A large amount of time was spent on Sunday on Fukushima. I don't know how I feel about that - I feel that the more time the nuclear community spends on it gives the impression that the event was more serious than it is. Kinda like how brooding on something makes it appear worse. (Not saying that it wasn't serious and what not).
Some interesting tidbits of information:
- The terabequral exists! (A bequerel is a decay / sec, but I have never heard anybody use the 'tera' prefix in science without talking about floating point operations.
- A guide to the crisis level. I still think this is a lot like the terror alert system.
- A short quiz on 'clean' energy from AREVA (I am think about working for them next summer between my masters and Ph.D.) The quiz itself is kinda dumb, but the high score names are funny - they are names of reactor designs and famous reactors.
Hydrogen Production!
I pretty much stole the chart from Yildiz, Kazimi 2006. I don't know much about the benefits of hydrogen fuel cells over better batteries, but I like the idea of developing new types of reactor. You can read the paper for more details on each method. I included Steam Methane reforming as an option because they did (and it is the most common commercial method), but as it uses methane and produces carbon dioxide I don't think that it will be a good hydrogen production method in the long run. Of the reactor designs I like the LMFR (liquid metal fast reactors) the best because they close the fuel cycle and I think have the best passive safety because of their pool type design. They have been built before - The Russians use them on their Alpha Class submarines.
 |
| Pool Type Design (Pool provides a large heat sink) The Soviets used a molten lead fuel for the Alpha Subs, while the above is Sodium |
On an unrelated note, some poor bloke at Syracuse has the user ID 867-5309. You can use it to get a copy of Office 2010. Try it - I tried it as a joke (long story) and was amazed.
No comments:
Post a Comment