5 ms·

To make an an HN-relevant analogy: The FDA-hobbling of 23andMe pales in comparison to what it's like to work with nuclear regulatory frameworks and societal co

by ISL 13y ago

To make an an HN-relevant analogy: The FDA-hobbling of 23andMe pales in comparison to what it's like to work with nuclear regulatory frameworks and societal concerns regarding nuclear science. When I was an undergrad, DOE was willing to pay the university the entire relicensing and operating costs of the on-campus TRIGA. The university declined, knowing that the requisite environmental impact study for relicensing would bring withering community backlash. (For those who haven't seen one, here's what it looks like when the control rods are blown out of a TRIGA [1]; the reactor runs away momentarily, but then self-moderates when the fuel warms. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orNP1wMmPK4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orNP1wMmPK4 . The Cherenkov flash is a beautiful blue.) Nuclear power can provide a safe, well-studied, and effective bridge to solar power. Almost nobody's dabbling in it because there's so much societal opposition. Working on a reactor in an old schoolhouse in a rural area? Someone elsewhere in the county will be willing to speak at every county governmental meeting to shut you down. Their opposition has merit; it's easy to point to Fukushima and Chernobyl as major disasters. A simple, clear, and publicly-understandable regulatory framework in which both society and innovators can feel comfortable with small-scale nuclear experimentation would go a long way toward driving new startups in the field. Experimenters shouldn't get their hopes up too far: Some forms of radiation are extremely penetrating/hard to shield, and some hazardous isotopes live a long, long time. If you're dabbling in the field, please plan from the beginning to minimize and safely store your waste. We only get one planet; I'd rather it not be too warm nor contaminated by our litter. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIGA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIGA

archgoon 13y ago
Can you point to resources to safely and legally begin dabbling? Are you familiar with the process to obtain proper licensing? How are simple reactors like the Farnsworth Fuser regulated, or why are they exempt? Are non power generating reactors exempt from regulation? How does that get defined? Is it based on maximum emitted radiation?
- ISL 13y ago
  While I work in the same lab as a bunch of nuclear physicists, my physics expertise is in experimental gravity. To get the official scoop on such things, I'd start with the NRC: http://www.nrc.gov http://www.nrc.gov . If you're at/near a university, many of them have a radiation safety office as a part of their Environmental Health and Safety department. University radiation safety officers are a great resource for timely details regarding rules in an experimental setting. Even if there's no "nuclear science" underway at a school, if there's a medical school or nuclear chemistry at work, there's probably a radiation safety office.
  - s800 13y ago
    What is Experimental Gravity? serious. tnx.
    - ISL 13y ago
      We do precision tests of gravity and searches for forces weaker than gravity. (Front page is dated, see publications tab for more recent work) http://www.npl.washington.edu/eotwash/ http://www.npl.washington.edu/eotwash/ The most-important experiment we do is to test the Equivalence Principle [1], the idea that if you drop two things in vacuum, they'll fall at the same rate regardless of what they're made from. Results from our lab have shown that, at 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 (10^-13), that's apparently true. General Relativity takes the Equivalence Principle as a postulate, and works from there. Many theories of new physics would break the EP at scales of ~10^-15 or so. My almost-complete thesis research is searching for violations of the gravitational inverse square law at short distances. In short, over distances smaller than the diameter of a hair, nobody knows if gravity acts. It probably does, but you don't know until you check. String theory would suggest that, at short-enough distances, gravity should get unexpectedly stronger. Solutions to the Cosmological Constant problem [2] may suggest that gravity should turn off at distances shorter than the diameter of a hair. Dark Energy/Hubble Constant observations would suggest that gravity might do something interesting at around this same scale. Our workhorse technology is the venerable torsion balance [4], souped-up with modern experimental readout and data analysis techniques. Our best angle sensors [5] sense a nanoradian's angular displacement in less than a second. For scale, if we shine a laser pointer from Seattle to San Francisco, a nanoradian is equivalent to about a millmeter's displacement of the beamspot on the TransAmerica building. If you want me to build you an angle sensor or a precision force sensor, I'm interested in hybrid industrial and academic work [6]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsion_spring#Torsion_balance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsion_spring#Torsion_balance [5] http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.4828 http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.4828 [6] http://www.nanoradian.com http://www.nanoradian.com
whitneyrblack 13y ago
my classmate's mother makes $82/hr on the computer. She has been fired from work for ten months but last month her pay check was $12046 just working on the computer for a few hours. why not try this out=======> jobs25.ℭＯM
coldtea 13y ago
>Their opposition has merit; it's easy to point to Fukushima and Chernobyl as major disasters. The disasters are one thing. The constant lying from authorities, government and assigned experts was another. They were caught pants down telling lies and misinforming in handling the Fukusima accident. This breaks trust. And for projects like that, that involve billions of dollars (enough to fuel much payola and greed), it's easy not to have much trust in the good intentions of those building and managing them in the first place.
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  Sources, please? I don't disbelieve you; I want to know more. (And precisely what you're referring to.)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - y4mi 13y ago
    this is very well covered. its trivial to search for sources yourself. as for the lying part: check the timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Fukushima_I_nuclear_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Fukushima_I_nu...
    - ewoodrich 13y ago
      That's over 28 pages. And I haven't found an obvious example in the few pages I've read so far. Which portions of the article are you referring to?
      - nl 13y ago
        Yeah, that's pretty useless. This is better: On August 29, 2002, the government of Japan revealed that TEPCO was guilty of false reporting in routine governmental inspection of its nuclear plants and systematic concealment of plant safety incidents.[1] (Note that date - 2002!) As for Fukushima, here's a few links about false statements from TEPCO this year alone: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201302100051 http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201302... http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/07/22/national/tepco-now-admits-radioactive-water-entering-the-sea-at-fukushima-no-1/ http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/07/22/national/tepco-n... http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/07/31/editorials/yet-more-tepco-incompetence/#.UqRPrmQW1WI http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/07/31/editorials/ye... http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/27/national/tepcos-whack-a-mole-prompts-government-take-over-in-fukushim http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/27/national/tepcos-... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Electric_Power_Company#Safety_inspections http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Electric_Power_Company#Sa...
pflanze 13y ago
I'm not sure what you mean with litter, but isn't nuclear waste storage still an unsolved problem?
- ISL 13y ago
  It's far from solved, but there are partial solutions, including reprocessing. My appeal to dabblers was to think through the entire life cycle of an experiment before beginning. If I were to crack open a smoke detector in order to play around with the Americium source, I'd think hard first about whether I actually knew what I was doing, making sure I worked in a clean/orderly environment, that the entire experiment was nicely contained, and that I had a viable plan for how to safely manage the waste I'd created. Just as with the bathtub ring in "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" [1], once contamination leaves containment, it can wander everywhere, generating lots of low-level waste. You'd rather not eat or aspirate an alpha-emitter. Nobody wants an unsafe nuclear experiment in the garage next door; it's irresponsible. It's one thing to hurt yourself, but quite another to harm someone unaware of a risk. It's also irresponsible to dispose of a hot source in your garbage can. That source may no longer be able to hurt you, but it's able to harm everyone who comes into contact with it in the future. Our lab's standard for whether or not something has been cleaned up: any residual activity is comparable to/indistinguishable from background, and any activated waste has been disposed of with someone licensed to handle it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_in_the_Hat_Comes_Back http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_in_the_Hat_Comes_Back
- peterpathname 13y ago
  here in australia, decades of research and policy development have hit upon a world-class solution to the nuclear waste challenge. We're building a road in a semi-arid remote location, on the traditional lands of a small, disemowered, remote indigenous community. At the end of the road, we plan to build a shed with a barbed wire fence. In return for this inconvenience, the local community will see employment opportunities (2 security guards) and compensation (scholarships for their children). this standard of excellence is possible when you have a society that tolerates institutionalised inequity and cultural genocide, and apartheid style laws that target particular races. None of this should surprise, as this is the same spirit in which a large portion of the world's uranium is mined on traditional lands in Australia. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/12/08/calls-ranger-uranium-shut-after-major-accident http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/12/08/calls-ranger-u...

by ISL 13y ago

archgoon 13y ago

Can you point to resources to safely and legally begin dabbling? Are you familiar with the process to obtain proper licensing? How are simple reactors like the Farnsworth Fuser regulated, or why are they exempt? Are non power generating reactors exempt from regulation? How does that get defined? Is it based on maximum emitted radiation?

ISL 13y ago
While I work in the same lab as a bunch of nuclear physicists, my physics expertise is in experimental gravity. To get the official scoop on such things, I'd start with the NRC: http://www.nrc.gov http://www.nrc.gov . If you're at/near a university, many of them have a radiation safety office as a part of their Environmental Health and Safety department. University radiation safety officers are a great resource for timely details regarding rules in an experimental setting. Even if there's no "nuclear science" underway at a school, if there's a medical school or nuclear chemistry at work, there's probably a radiation safety office.
- s800 13y ago
  What is Experimental Gravity? serious. tnx.
  - ISL 13y ago
    We do precision tests of gravity and searches for forces weaker than gravity. (Front page is dated, see publications tab for more recent work) http://www.npl.washington.edu/eotwash/ http://www.npl.washington.edu/eotwash/ The most-important experiment we do is to test the Equivalence Principle [1], the idea that if you drop two things in vacuum, they'll fall at the same rate regardless of what they're made from. Results from our lab have shown that, at 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 (10^-13), that's apparently true. General Relativity takes the Equivalence Principle as a postulate, and works from there. Many theories of new physics would break the EP at scales of ~10^-15 or so. My almost-complete thesis research is searching for violations of the gravitational inverse square law at short distances. In short, over distances smaller than the diameter of a hair, nobody knows if gravity acts. It probably does, but you don't know until you check. String theory would suggest that, at short-enough distances, gravity should get unexpectedly stronger. Solutions to the Cosmological Constant problem [2] may suggest that gravity should turn off at distances shorter than the diameter of a hair. Dark Energy/Hubble Constant observations would suggest that gravity might do something interesting at around this same scale. Our workhorse technology is the venerable torsion balance [4], souped-up with modern experimental readout and data analysis techniques. Our best angle sensors [5] sense a nanoradian's angular displacement in less than a second. For scale, if we shine a laser pointer from Seattle to San Francisco, a nanoradian is equivalent to about a millmeter's displacement of the beamspot on the TransAmerica building. If you want me to build you an angle sensor or a precision force sensor, I'm interested in hybrid industrial and academic work [6]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsion_spring#Torsion_balance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsion_spring#Torsion_balance [5] http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.4828 http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.4828 [6] http://www.nanoradian.com http://www.nanoradian.com

whitneyrblack 13y ago

my classmate's mother makes $82/hr on the computer. She has been fired from work for ten months but last month her pay check was $12046 just working on the computer for a few hours. why not try this out=======> jobs25.ℭＯM

coldtea 13y ago

>Their opposition has merit; it's easy to point to Fukushima and Chernobyl as major disasters. The disasters are one thing. The constant lying from authorities, government and assigned experts was another. They were caught pants down telling lies and misinforming in handling the Fukusima accident. This breaks trust. And for projects like that, that involve billions of dollars (enough to fuel much payola and greed), it's easy not to have much trust in the good intentions of those building and managing them in the first place.

sillysaurus2 13y ago
Sources, please? I don't disbelieve you; I want to know more. (And precisely what you're referring to.)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- y4mi 13y ago
  this is very well covered. its trivial to search for sources yourself. as for the lying part: check the timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Fukushima_I_nuclear_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Fukushima_I_nu...
  - ewoodrich 13y ago
    That's over 28 pages. And I haven't found an obvious example in the few pages I've read so far. Which portions of the article are you referring to?
    - nl 13y ago
      Yeah, that's pretty useless. This is better: On August 29, 2002, the government of Japan revealed that TEPCO was guilty of false reporting in routine governmental inspection of its nuclear plants and systematic concealment of plant safety incidents.[1] (Note that date - 2002!) As for Fukushima, here's a few links about false statements from TEPCO this year alone: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201302100051 http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201302... http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/07/22/national/tepco-now-admits-radioactive-water-entering-the-sea-at-fukushima-no-1/ http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/07/22/national/tepco-n... http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/07/31/editorials/yet-more-tepco-incompetence/#.UqRPrmQW1WI http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/07/31/editorials/ye... http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/27/national/tepcos-whack-a-mole-prompts-government-take-over-in-fukushim http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/27/national/tepcos-... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Electric_Power_Company#Safety_inspections http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Electric_Power_Company#Sa...

pflanze 13y ago

I'm not sure what you mean with litter, but isn't nuclear waste storage still an unsolved problem?

ISL 13y ago
It's far from solved, but there are partial solutions, including reprocessing. My appeal to dabblers was to think through the entire life cycle of an experiment before beginning. If I were to crack open a smoke detector in order to play around with the Americium source, I'd think hard first about whether I actually knew what I was doing, making sure I worked in a clean/orderly environment, that the entire experiment was nicely contained, and that I had a viable plan for how to safely manage the waste I'd created. Just as with the bathtub ring in "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" [1], once contamination leaves containment, it can wander everywhere, generating lots of low-level waste. You'd rather not eat or aspirate an alpha-emitter. Nobody wants an unsafe nuclear experiment in the garage next door; it's irresponsible. It's one thing to hurt yourself, but quite another to harm someone unaware of a risk. It's also irresponsible to dispose of a hot source in your garbage can. That source may no longer be able to hurt you, but it's able to harm everyone who comes into contact with it in the future. Our lab's standard for whether or not something has been cleaned up: any residual activity is comparable to/indistinguishable from background, and any activated waste has been disposed of with someone licensed to handle it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_in_the_Hat_Comes_Back http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_in_the_Hat_Comes_Back
peterpathname 13y ago
here in australia, decades of research and policy development have hit upon a world-class solution to the nuclear waste challenge. We're building a road in a semi-arid remote location, on the traditional lands of a small, disemowered, remote indigenous community. At the end of the road, we plan to build a shed with a barbed wire fence. In return for this inconvenience, the local community will see employment opportunities (2 security guards) and compensation (scholarships for their children). this standard of excellence is possible when you have a society that tolerates institutionalised inequity and cultural genocide, and apartheid style laws that target particular races. None of this should surprise, as this is the same spirit in which a large portion of the world's uranium is mined on traditional lands in Australia. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/12/08/calls-ranger-uranium-shut-after-major-accident http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/12/08/calls-ranger-u...