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"Nothing like this will be built again"
- jmduke 13y agoMirror: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:S384WfJfgYgJ:www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/rants/nothing-like-this-will-be-buil.html&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:S384WfJ... Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2140900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2140900
- glurgh 13y agoAnd previous previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=569564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=569564 Seems like quite the evergreen.
- cdr 13y agoThis is many, many years old - maybe even 10 years old? Maybe someone can find the original date and put it in the title.
- EdwardCoffin 13y agoArchive.org's earliest snapshot of it [edit: at this URL - see below] is from January 6, 2010, but have a snapshot of the same content at a different URL from December 26, 2002. Their snapshots of the site itself go back to July 6, 2005, so I'm inclined to believe the article dates only back to 2010 or late 2009 at the earliest. Edit: and archive.org has an even earlier snapshot from December 26, 2002, under a different URL.
- _delirium 13y agoHere's a Metafilter discussion of it from January 2003, fwiw: http://www.metafilter.com/23068/Nothing-like-this-will-be-built-again http://www.metafilter.com/23068/Nothing-like-this-will-be-bu...
- RyanZAG 13y agoLooks like whoever posted this got around the repost limit by appending a '?' to the end of the url. Someone should fix that.
- sbierwagen 13y agoYou can resubmit a link after a year, I think? In any event, there's no way to block resubmissions programatically: the site owner could just change the name of the file.
- adamtulinius 13y agoOr people could append random query parameters, HN would have no way of detecting that http://example.com/?foo http://example.com/?foo, http://example.com/?bar http://example.com/?bar and http://example.com/?baz http://example.com/?baz points to the same article. No need to change anything on the webpage.
- neur0 13y agoThe page content's hash or any other blueprint (an arbitrary regex match) could be checked against for resubmissions. For convenience, if resubmission should be detected, the original post could be topped on the frontpage nevertheless, because old material may as well be worth revisiting for several reasons -- I for one had missed this article before, and enjoyed it reading greatly now.
- sbierwagen 13y agopage content hash Change one byte. regex match Now we get into ship-of-theseus arguments. What counts as the "same" article? 99 percent? 51 percent? What if you resubmit a blog post that's picked up 150 more comments since it was last posted? How would HN tell the comments apart from the article text? What if someone submits a blog post that heavily quotes another article that's been submitted, in the process of rebutting it, and ends up being a 80% match? What if you include the full text of moby dick, in a display:none <div>? What if the page loads the text of the article with javascript? Would the HN submissionbot have to render CSS and javascript?
- gaius 13y agoNothing like it will be built again because a) successive British governments over the last 30 years have buried their heads in the sand over energy policy[1] and b) we as a country don't do actual engineering anymore. Both a and b mean that our energy future likes wholly in the hands of France! [1] Say what you like about Thatcher, at least she had a halfway coherent energy story.
- objclxt 13y ago>we as a country don't do actual engineering anymore ...is that really true? The UK is currently home to Europe's largest civil engineering project (Crossrail), my hometown produces Trent jet engines and designs wings for all Airbus aircraft. And there's the cars that are both manufactured (BMW, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, etc) and designed (Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover, McLaren...) here. The engineering we do has changed, and maybe there is less of it than there was forty years ago, but it's a bit hyperbolic to say we simply "don't do" actual engineering.
- moomin 13y agoI seem to recall that, measured by value in real terms, the UK does more engineering than ever. Just because it's a smaller part of the economy and doesn't support as many unskilled people doesn't mean it's not happening. On an unrelated note, some of the social issues we complain about these days seem to be a direct consequence of the off-shoring of manual labour.
- arethuza 13y agoThe UK does (at least before the recent recession) more manufacturing that ever - it's just that the whole process has become super efficient that it doesn't employ very many people: "A 2009 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, citing data from the UK Office for National Statistics, stated that manufacturing output (gross value added at 2007 prices) has increased in 35 of the 50 years between 1958 and 2007, and output in 2007 was at record levels, approximately double that in 1958." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_Kin... Our problem is that we got too good at manufacturing!
- arethuza 13y agoWorth noting that the visitor centre for Torness recently re-opened, it looks like you need to make an appointment in advance (for security checks) but, having had a detailed tour of another AGR plant years ago, I suspect it may be worth visiting: http://www.edfenergy.com/about-us/energy-generation/nuclear-generation/nuclear-visitor-centres.shtml http://www.edfenergy.com/about-us/energy-generation/nuclear-... Also, if you do visit Torness and you have an interest in science (which seems likely) then you might want to visit the nearby Hutton's Unconformity at Siccar Point - this is one of the places where 18th century geologist James Hutton first found evidence of the tremendous age of the Earth, as his travelling companion John Playfair put it: "The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far back into the abyss of time" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton%27s_Unconformity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton%27s_Unconformity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siccar_Point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siccar_Point
- alan_cx 13y agoTangent thought.... Might be worth booking an appointment to see what the British government's internet slurp has on one. At least one would know if they thought one were dangerous or not. And if one finds out one is not a terrorist after all, one can celebrate by having a rather cool day out.
- cstross 13y agoThis wasn't a visitor centre tour. This was a "psst, wanna come visit where I work?" tour from one of the guys who built and ran the plant. Either pre-9/11 or very shortly post-9/11 -- with the rise of the post-9/11 security state there's no way such a tour would happen today. Indeed, the friend in question said some time later that he didn't have that kind of access-all-areas pass any more.
- digitalengineer 13y agoDon't be so sure... In cinema's this year: Pandora's Promise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fm8SVLOacQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fm8SVLOacQ
- takluyver 13y agoThe claim is that the particular kind of reactor (gas cooled) is unlikely to be built again. It's (apparently) more efficient than competing designs, but also larger and more complex, and it didn't really become popular. It certainly looks like more nuclear power plants in general will be built.
- DennisP 13y agoSilly nitpick: this exact design appears to be finished, but some of the Gen IV designs are gas-cooled: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
- solox3 13y ago> smelling the thing (mostly machine oil and steam, and a hint of ozone near the transformers) Possibly just metal oxides or dimethylsulphide, as ozone is odourless.
- rimantas 13y agoNext time choose your sources more carefully. Not only ozone has smell, its name means that.
- VLM 13y agoHe's technically correct in that the "smell of ozone" is just burned/oxidized respiratory system. That's why all the strong oxidizers smell pretty much the same unless they've got "something interesting" attached to them other than boring ole O2 like ozone. On a small scale like parts per billion its a unique stinkyness and mostly harmless, so they claim. Its more of a flash burn of the respiratory system, not a slow cooked fat rendering, which in that case does kinda smell like burned meat. Smell of oxidized proteins, not so much slowly rendered fat.
- jfb 13y ago"Anti-rabbit defenses"?
- arethuza 13y agoTorness has been shut down due to jellyfish, maybe they expect suicide rabbit squads to invade and nibble vital cables? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torness_Nuclear_Power_Station#Shutdown_after_sea-water_intake_blockage_by_jellyfish_.E2.80.93_June_2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torness_Nuclear_Power_Station#S... [NB I carefully avoided making any reference to The Wasp Factory]
- cstross 13y agoThink radiation leaks. In event of a major incident, you do not want rabbits on site burrowing around and then spreading cesium-137 and other pernicious decay products.
- arethuza 13y agoSo protection from radioactive rabbits? :-)
- korethr 13y agoYou'd be surprised where those critters can get and the kind of damage they can cause in their search for some place warm to sleep. A single rabbit making its way into a building's transformer can short the transformer, causing a surge that trips the breakers of every PDU in that building, but not before the building's UPS gets fried.
- _delirium 13y agoOne often gets the "nothing like this will be built again" feeling around these kinds of engineering projects from the 20th century, since modern constructions tend to have a very different feel, more sleek and less massive. Also true with things like transit infrastructure: even though a modern subway or elevated train line, like the Copenhagen metro (which has both), is better in just about every way from the old style of construction, it subjectively doesn't have the same impressive feel of something like the NYC subway or Chicago El, with their massive steel columns and hundreds of thousands of rivets.
- at-fates-hands 13y agoAgreed. It just feels like these structures were built to last a lifetime and then some. Most of the stuff being built nowadays appears as though it already has a due date of "the not to distant future" to be torn down and replaced. At least here in the US, the architecture just feels like everything else around me - it's disposable.
- tomkarlo 13y agoFor a lot of infrastructure, the ability to more accurately model and calculate the performance of structures has meant that they don't need to be overbuilt so much. The less you overbuild a structure, the less it weighs, and the less structure you need to build - a virtuous cycle. If you look at the last 400 years of bridge design you can see the transition from overbuilt compression structures to gossamer suspension bridges. This is a good thing, but it's easy to mistake old, overbuilt structures as being more "robust" when what they really are is an inefficient design meant to avoid failures due to a weak understanding of how the materials and structure will perform under use.
- nakedrobot2 13y agoI agree that there is a vast increase in productivity and saved resources from better modelling and understanding of the materials. But you cannot ever convince me that our steel suspension bridges are going to last for centuries like our stone bridges from the 15th century and onwards.
- joezydeco 13y ago"For starters, some embedded controllers in racks in the auxilliary deisel generator control rooms have EPROMs which have been known to be erased by camera flashes in the past, triggering a generator trip" Wow, I don't know where to begin with this one. Either the engineers have completely lost all knowledge about how their controllers operate, or nobody has the right mind to think about putting opaque labels on the EPROM chips or over the controller board itself? This kind of stuff borders on urban legend / cargo cult engineering territory.
- shardling 13y agoErr, or maybe it's just a sensible precaution, because relying on a single defense against failure is a bad idea?
- joezydeco 13y agoIn 1997, someone taking a picture of an embedded controller board at the Haddam Neck nuclear plant set off the fire protection systems in the control room, causing everyone to evacuate the control room for an hour. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/1997/in97082.html http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-... And the conclusion? "They also confirmed that the light from the Canon flash and the Polaroid flashbulb could be effectively blocked by "black bagging" the flash, or by blocking the EPROM window with "tin foil" held in place by clear cellulose tape, or by blocking the EPROM window with "standard electrical tape."
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- quattrofan 13y agoCan someone explain this? "generators spin in a sealed atmosphere of hydrogen gas", hydrogen, really?
- benxron2 13y agoHydrogen offers low drag and good thermal conductivity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-cooled_turbo_generator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-cooled_turbo_generator
- nakedrobot2 13y agoWhy wouldn't they spin instead in a near-vacuum, instead of an environment of hydrogen?
- msandford 13y agoIf they're sealed and there's no oxygen in there, then there's no boom. Since hydrogen is so light it makes for less aerodynamic drag on the moving parts.
- quattrofan 13y agoAh ok makes sense, thanks!
- gambiting 13y agoFantastic. I live within an hour drive to the plant so I just sent them an email asking if there are any tours scheduled in coming weeks. Would love to visit myself.
- scrumper 13y agoMy father and I went on an equally in-depth guided tour of Hinkley Point station back in the mid '80s when I was a boy. We too got to walk on the reactor lid, view the cooling ponds, and meander underneath miles of thrumming piping. It was utterly fascinating and one of the very best memories I have of my childhood. Hinkley Point is a PWR rather than an AGR, but what the author writes about that collision of space age technology and Victorian plumbing definitely rings true. Other highlights for me not mentioned in this article: a great video showing a high speed diesel train (not just the locomotive) crashing into a waste transport container; climbing around a whole fleet of tiny decontamination trucks with radiological protection gear for the drivers and manipulator arms for picking up material; and getting hands-on with the security system (not part of the tour; my dad made a friend) and broadcasting over the plant tannoy. No chance of any of that stuff happening for my kids, sadly. I was happy to read this even if it is a repeat. A great write up that took me back.
- vadman 13y agoOff-topic, but it's the first time I see somebody use "tannoy" in place of "PA" - really identifies you as a Brit :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannoy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannoy
- scrumper 13y agoGuilty. I've lived in the US for a few years and my usage and spelling is hopelessly mixed up, but that kind of cultural thing is so deeply ingrained you could use it to catch spies.
- dasmoth 13y agoHinkley Point B is an AGR (or, more specifically, two AGRs). Hinkley Point A was an earlier Magnox station. It's one of the leading sites for new-build nuclear in the UK, and if Hinkley Point C does happen, it'll be a PWR. Right now, the only operating civil PWR (naval reactors are a rather different matter) in the UK is at Sizewell. I also had the Hinkley Point tour as a child and remember it fondly.
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- micro_cam 13y agoLast year I went on a tour [1] of the 1944 "B reactor" at Hanford (the first large scale reactor [2]) They don't allow you to crawl around on stuff but you can see a surprising amount and they have people who worked on it giving talks. Pretty cool and worth doing. To me one of the coolest things was the complexity of the (pre computerization) monitoring/control room and systems. [1]http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/ http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/ [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Reactor
- WalterBright 13y agoHeck, half the things in my house will never be built again. Like my Minox camera from the 1950's. It's beautifully machined, marvelously engineered, and utterly obsolete. And, back when I could still get film for it, the pictures were crappy even by disposable camera standards.
- afterburner 13y agoDidn't realize nuclear reactors were that inefficient. But I get most of my power from hydro, so that's perhaps an unfair comparison.
- pjscott 13y agoThere are hard limmits on the efficiency of any heat engine; the plant described here is actually doing pretty well. And, hey, fuel is cheap; the energy density of uranium is pretty spectacular. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_efficiency
- gwern 13y agoAn interesting counterpoint, in being submitted on the same day as http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/07/03/1300018110 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/07/03/1300018110 "Evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China’s Huai River policy" starts getting publicity: > This paper's findings suggest that an arbitrary Chinese policy that greatly increases total suspended particulates (TSPs) air pollution is causing the 500 million residents of Northern China to lose more than 2.5 billion life years of life expectancy. The quasi-experimental empirical approach is based on China’s Huai River policy, which provided free winter heating via the provision of coal for boilers in cities north of the Huai River but denied heat to the south. Using a regression discontinuity design based on distance from the Huai River, we find that ambient concentrations of TSPs are about 184 μg/m3 [95% confidence interval (CI): 61, 307] or 55% higher in the north. Further, the results indicate that life expectancies are about 5.5 y (95% CI: 0.8, 10.2) lower in the north...
- jamesaguilar 13y agoLove your writing, but how is this a counterpoint? The article claims no more AGR reactors will be built. It's bullish on nuclear reactors in general.
- bdr 13y agoHe's using a different meaning of the word counterpoint than the one you're thinking of.