uvdiv

56 ms·

481.
by uvdiv 14y ago
This isn't technically a nuclear reactor (not critical), so it doesn't appear on any of the usual lists like [1] or [2] (prior to edits made after this story came out). It isn't mentioned on any major NRC page, although they host some of it
482.
by uvdiv 14y ago
They're not open-source hardware in that sense. What they publish is a 19-page pdf of schematics of how the components are put together [1] -- and even that has redactions due to NDAs (like page 14 -- the say they have a "super NDA" with th
483.
by uvdiv 14y ago
Besides the current costs (especially the solar PV part), there's the problem that you're throwing away most of your energy in the [electricity => hydrogen => electricity] loop. Electrolysis isn't perfect [1], but the big waste is e
484.
by uvdiv 14y ago
It's a nice concept, although I'd more interested if it were written by someone who knew what they were talking (enough not to be proposing things like which blatantly violate conversation of energy, i.e. "antimatter power plants"), and who
485.
by uvdiv 14y ago
Starting with the earth's crust [1]: gold is one of the absolute rarest elements there -- at 72nd out of 78 [a] at between 1-4 parts per 10^9 (mass). The volume of the crust is on the order of 10^10 km^3 [2][b], with a density around 3 g/cm
486.
by uvdiv 15y ago
You also can't beat a commercial-sized bucket of lard for caloric efficiency and cost.
487.
by uvdiv 15y ago
Let's built a future with 300mph self-driving supercars and mach 20 spaceplanes -- addressing the actual desires and wants of most users (mobility, convenience) rather than imposing personal ethics of asceticism (mass transit, anti-urbaniza
488.
by uvdiv 15y ago
Another observation from the datasheet: this seems extremely energy-intensive, even compared to desalination. Modern desalination ranges from about 3 kWh/meter^3 (reverse osmosis) to 13-25 kWh/meter^3 (multistage flash distillation) [1] [el
489.
by uvdiv 15y ago
There's a slight disconnect between the PR and spec sheet, which predicts an output of 1,000 L/day in a "temperate zone" (60% relative humidity, 25 ºC), or 350 L/day in a "desert zone" (30% r.h., 35 ºC). http://www.eolewater.com/assets/fil
490.
by uvdiv 15y ago
Yes, 27 million people in dystopian poverty, or about 1 million average (mean) residents of this rich petrostate. [1] Getting to the point on costs: it's supposed to be around $2/m^3 in the UAE for desalination, so ~$400/capita/year. It wo
491.
by uvdiv 15y ago
Try per unit of water, so you can make meaningful comparisons. Desalinated water apparently costs/is priced at USD $2-3/meter^3 in the UAE [1,2] (0.2-0.3 cents/liter), so 1,000 liters/day => $2-3/day or ~$1,000/year. A large UAE desalin
492.
by uvdiv 15y ago
I think that line is specific to the basic instructions only (if it weren't, "...and is the lower six bits" would be false). "For Non-basic opcodes, 'a' is actually the opcode" Actually it's the single argument -- 'o' is the opcode.
493.
by uvdiv 15y ago
It's one of many, many research projects in thermochemical hydrogen production -- the idea of splitting water using only heat (thermal decomposition), indirectly through longer chemical processes. It's been going on since at least 1977 [1],
494.
by uvdiv 15y ago
I'm not sure if it's well-specified. What does this do? JSR POP Does the argument POP (or [SP++]) get evaluated before, or after, the "[--SP] <- PC" implicit in JSR?
495.
by uvdiv 15y ago
Unfortunately The Paper [1] is closed source. I can't find much information; no comparison with existing, chemical synfuels processes (like methanol via syngas [CO]). There's a serious problem with the general idea: "clean" CO2 is hard to g
496.
by uvdiv 15y ago
You mean, Cleveland? http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/08/city_of_cleveland_to... Government agents there are empowered to root through private citizens' trash without probable cause, to search for recyclables. Additionally they put sm
497.
by uvdiv 15y ago
Yeah I'm the same, thanks! :)
498.
by uvdiv 15y ago
I lost his reasoning somewhere between the astrophysical power output of a galaxy being ~10^37 watts, to the conflation of energy with economic utility, to the endorsement of deindustrialization and world socialism.
499.
by uvdiv 15y ago
When someone suggests energy, fuel, fresh water are in danger of "running out", you should ask them to sketch what they think the supply curve is for those resources. They have something in common: a horizontal asymptote. With energy, it's
500.
by uvdiv 15y ago
Completely wrong: The 80-percent increase predicted by 2050 translates to a total global energy consumption of 900 exajoules (EJ) per year (in other words 9 x 10^20 joules)—65 times the annual energy consumption of the US in 2009. 2008 pr
501.
by uvdiv 15y ago
Not actually a good representation for wind energy potential, because wind power is cubic in wind speed (v^2 for kinetic energy per unit volume, times v^1 for volume/(cross sectional area * unit time)). So energy potential is concentrated
502.
by uvdiv 15y ago
The photo @11:30 wasn't identified correctly. She's talking about spent fuel, high-level waste ("very big problem"), but the photo slide is absolutely not that at all; it is stored depleted uranium hexafluoride, a byproduct of isotope enri
503.
by uvdiv 15y ago
"Now, I agree about the temps and pressures being unnecessary. The reason for these is about efficiency of scale. In a power grid like America's where we need 1 gigawatt and greater plants, plus with licensing a plant being so difficult, y
504.
by uvdiv 15y ago
There's an (unrelated) neat trick to see around corners by looking at diffuse scattered light: http://homepage.mac.com/sigfpe/Dual/dual.html
505.
by uvdiv 15y ago
That's a bit pessimistic. If you can do 10^10 years, you can go out to a red dwarf and stick around 10^13-10^14 more. And with a few small mods you can go further. For example, should you want a "small, slow" world, consider what what would
506.
by uvdiv 15y ago
"Fissile material is not useful for making nuclear weapons (of any more than the dirty bomb variety). So far, we seem to have converged on uranium and plutonium, and while at least uranium is relatively common in the Earth the processing a
507.
by uvdiv 15y ago
"Even with nuclear weapons, if you rewind the tape you notice that it turned out that in order to make a nuclear weapon you had to have these very rare raw materials like highly enriched uranium or plutonium, which are very difficult to ge
508.
by uvdiv 15y ago
I think you've misread your article. SSTAR is a not a thorium reactor; it is a liquid-metal cooled fast reactor. It's a sealed "nuclear battery" type reactor which lasts extremely long without refueling (15-30 years). It uses medium-enric
509.
by uvdiv 15y ago
The most disgusting part is where the Argentine government censors private analysis/journalism of economic statistics: "In an extraordinary abuse of power by a democratic government, independent economists have been forced to stop publishi
510.
by uvdiv 15y ago
It's a confusing metric because stellar fusion is actually extremely slow. The power density of the sun's core is about 0.3 watts/liter, which wikipedia compares to the metabolic heat density of reptiles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#C

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