Tag: Nuke Energy

I Say NO To Nukes!

I know all you right leaners will figure that I would be against nuke power…..is that not what all radicals are….dead set on the use of nukes to generate power?

The truth is my opposition to it comes not from the emissions, which under normal operating parameters, a very clean source of energy…..my distaste for it is the by-product…..the spent fuel.

Not only is there very few ways to dispose of it but it also becomes very attractive to would-be terrorists, both domestic and international.

We do not get the whole picture of this situation because the debate inevitably comes around to the emissions and not the disposal…..and then there is this report…..

Newser) – The US dumped vast quantities of nuclear material off its coasts between 1946 and 1970—more than 110,000 containers, says one official count. Today, the whereabouts of many of those 55-gallon drums and other containers is a big question mark, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Many were not dropped on target,” according to a 2010 federal report. Their location is just one of several major questions raised by the Journal. It’s also unclear, for instance, how many dump sites there were: Government reports have given numbers ranging from 29 to 60. Then there’s the question of how much radioactivity persists, since some isotopes can stay radioactive for thousands of years.

Potential fish contamination poses another concern. A 1991 report on a site off San Francisco suggested some contamination, but there was no follow-up study—despite a California law calling for annual assessments. The state now says the site should be handled by the federal government, which in a 2001 study found only “very low levels” of radioactivity in local sediment. The barrels are spread across some 540 square miles of ocean floor, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in 2010, and only 15% of it has been assessed. The agency says it wants to investigate the site further, but it doesn’t have the money. Click for the Journal’s full report.

The best we can do today is store the stuff and hope that all remains safe…….hopes and prayers do little when there is a breach.

I do not expect to see Godzilla or some 9 eyed freak because of all this…although it would make a great reality show for the once proud SciFi network but since has succumb to the insanity that is SyFy and reality bullshit.

If and when the science community comes up with a safe way to dispose of the by-product then I may change my mind on my opposition to nuke power but until then I remain a staunch supporter of the anti-nuke campaign.  Just as I am an opponent of the new light bulbs….eventually that mercury will leach off into the water table and then we can kiss it good-bye, our asses that is………

What About The Iranian Deal?

You have heard about the deal made with Iran and the rest of the civilized world concerning the nuke thingy……….I am sure that you have heard all the buzz, to use a polite word, about the deal……Right leaning radio is full of crap and lies……accusations and innuendos…..but what does the deal really give Iran or take away?

Glad you asked…let me help with the confusion  (not that anyone cares)…..let’s look a couple of the talking points…….(thanx to antiwar website for the help)………

1. Iran got too much sanctions relief. Actually, Iran got almost no sanctions relief. The bulk of the goods for Iran is that they got about $7 billion of their own overseas assets, out of approximately $100 billion, unfrozen. Some minor, negligible sanctions were eased on gold and precious medals transactions and to facilitate the delivery of spare parts for Iran’s outmoded airplanes. These will have little positive effect on the Iranian economy, which is a large part of Rouhani’s domestic selling point for diplomacy. The crippling economic sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking sectors – widely considered the most devastating – remain in place.

2. Iran’s enrichment program is left largely intact, leaving room for Iran to cheat. This deal freezes or rolls back the entirety of Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Half of it’s stockpile of 20% enriched uranium, the aspect of the nuclear program most cited by Iran hawks, will be oxidized and the other half will be irreversibly converted into fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor. For the whole of the 6 month period over which this agreement reigns, Iran agreed not to enrich any uranium past 5%. Furthermore, no “further advances” will be made at the facilities at Natanz, Fordow, or Arak. And finally, declared facilities will be inspected daily – not weekly – daily to ensure compliance.

Iran has no incentive to cheat. The hawks’ argument that Iran will use this interim deal to breakout and dash for a nuclear weapon are foolish and illogical. The Iranian regime has staked its domestic and international credibility on this diplomatic path. If it falls apart because they defied the very deal they pushed for and agreed to, they’d look ridiculous. Moreover, it’s clearly preferable in the Iranian cost-benefit analysis to willingly roll back their enrichment program in exchange for thorough sanctions relief and greater international prestige arising out of their acknowledged cooperation.

Not to mention the fact that Iran cheating would give the U.S. or Israel a perfect excuse for bombing, which Iran obviously doesn’t want.

3. The historic deal only materialized because of crippling economic sanctions. This ignores the record. Iran offered the U.S. an even better deal back in 2003 and they were rebuffed by a recalcitrant Bush administration who chose to isolate and sanction Iran instead of respond to diplomacy. In response to increasing U.S. sanctions, Iran’s enrichment program expanded and intensified. In 2003, Iran had 164 centrifuges operating and no 20% enriched uranium. After a decade of escalating sanctions, in 2013 Iran had 19,000 centrifuges and a sizable stockpile of 20% uranium. Only when Rouhani was elected and Iran was engaged in secret negotiations with Washington with the prospects of peaceful compromise on the horizon did Iran halt its installation of new centrifuges and put enrichment on hold.

4. This deal sets the parties up for failure in more comprehensive upcoming talks. This one isn’t all myth, but most media explanations argue this with the wrong reasons. Take, for example, this ridiculous Josh Rogin piece which argues Iran doesn’t feel pressured to comply with the agreement or to cooperate in a second-phase deal because Obama didn’t bomb Syria. The old “credibility” argument.

You will hear a lot of crap flowing from all sides……but before you help spread the manure at least take the time to know what you are spreading……

Money Talks…….

Since we have a tenative deal with Iran on their nuke production…..and since I have already posted the screaming diatribe by Neta….whatever his name is……..I thought I would wait and see how our elected officials in Congress would react……it did not take long at all………

These are quotes by Congress people during the last couple of news cycles…..

“This is in essence it, and the deal has been made,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R- Tenn., the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, implying that Congress really couldn’t undo the accord at this point.

Still, Corker warned that the Iranian regime “has consolidated their gains” and was now “spiking the football in the end zone” and claiming that it has the right to keep enriching uranium.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D- N.Y., said he was “disappointed” by the interim agreement “because it does not seem proportional. Iran simply freezes its nuclear capabilities while we reduce the sanctions…. This disproportionality…makes it more likely that Democrats and Republicans will join together and pass additional sanctions when we return in December.”

Senate Relations Committee chairman Sen. Robert Menendez, D- N.J. signaled in a statement Sunday that the Senate is likely to “provide for a six month window to reach a final agreement before imposing new sanctions on Iran,” even though sanctions would be “immediately available should the talks falter or Iran fail to implement or breach the interim agreement.”

Rep. Elliot Engel, D- N.Y., the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a strong supporter of Israel which has been sharply critical of the deal, said the accord “makes it very difficult to continue the sanctions” against Iran and indicated that Congress was unlikely to pass new sanctions at this point.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R- Va., said the interim deal was a mistake because it “explicitly and dangerously recognizes that Iran will be allowed to enrich uranium.”

House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement Sunday that unless Obama and his international partners press ahead to a final accord that dismantles Iran’s uranium and plutonium programs, then “we will look back on the interim deal as a remarkably clever Iranian move to dismantle the international sanctions regime” while maintaining its ability to pursue nuclear weapons.

Sen. Ben Cardin, D- Md., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that “progress must be made during the next six months to have a more permanent elimination of Iran’s capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. If not, the sanctions are re-imposed. And I think Congress will be watching this very closely…. We will not stand by and just let this be the final deal.”

House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R- Mich., said on CNN’s State of the Union, “We have just rewarded very bad and dangerous behavior. Think about what this agreement does. It says ‘you can continue to enrich.’ That’s what the Iranians believe and they have made no changes – no changes — in the development of their nuclear weapon program….”

In a statement early Sunday morning, Sen. Marco Rubio, R – Fla., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a potential contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, blasted the agreement.

Rubio argued that it “makes a nuclear Iran more likely. There is now an even more urgent need for Congress to increase sanctions until Iran completely abandons its enrichment and reprocessing capabilities.”

“The administration has gotten it backwards and it is time to reverse course before any further damage is done,” Cruz said in a statement.

Just a few of the notable comments from the talking heads in DC…….and since the militant ass PM of Israel has thumped his chest I was thinking that AIPAC would get its lackeys to do the same……

I got to thinking….maybe it would be interesting to see how much cash was paid to these people by the AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Comm)…….I went to the website Maplight, which tracks money in politics to see if they could help me with my search………and they were extremely helpful……..and here is what I found about our Congress people in order of the above comments……

Sen. Corker–$114,770

Sen. Schumer–$248,149

Sen. Menendez..$344,670

Rep. Engel–$94,150

Rep. Cantor–$209,410

Rep. Boehner–$129,924

Sen. Cardin–$267,542

Rep. Rogers–$26,200

Sen. Rubio–?…..could not find a total but if he runs for prez he will be on their payroll soon enough

Sen. Cruz–$39,354…2016 is coming…he will get more….

As you can see their money is well spent…..and their lackeys do their job well…..

In case you have not understood the deal with Iran….a very short synopsis…..

Without going into a lot of technical detail (which can be read here), the point is this: The agreement makes it impossible for the Iranians to make any further progress toward making a nuclear weapon in the next six months—and, if the talks break down after that, and the Iranians decide at that point to start building a nuclear arsenal, it will take them much longer to do so.

In exchange for these restraints, the P5+1 nations agree to free up about $6 billion of Iran’s long-frozen foreign assets. This amounts to a very small percentage of the sanctions imposed on Iran’s energy and financial sectors. Meanwhile, all other sanctions will remain in place and continue to be vigorously enforced; the agreement doesn’t affect those sanctions at all. The U.S. Congress does have to agree not to impose additional sanctions in the next six months. If it imposes them anyway, they must know that this agreement—and the international coalition holding the sanctions in place—will collapse. Even this Congress is likely to hold off. If it does go ahead and passes a bill imposing new sanctions, Obama will certainly veto it.

And this post is………… WHY I AM HERE!

You’re welcome!

Let’s Make A Deal

Monday…..brain refreshed…..time to get busy…..

If you did not realize it….we just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the killing of JFK……and in the3 background they are still mumbling about ACA…….and finally that little prick Zimmerman made the news again…..and now for something important.

While you were asleep peacefully in your bed on Sunday morning, early Sunday morning, the announcement came over the wire….we may have a tentative agreement with the Iranians on the nuke thing……

(AP) – The French and Iranian foreign ministers say a deal between six world powers and Iran has been struck that calls on Tehran to limit its nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief. “Yes, we have a deal,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said as he walked past reporters crowding the hotel lobby in Geneva where marathon negotiations had taken place over the past five days. Asked if there was a deal, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said, “Yes,” and gave a thumbs up sign.

The goal had been to hammer out an agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program for six months, while offering the Iranians limited relief from crippling economic sanctions. If the interim deal holds, the parties will negotiate final-stage agreements to ensure Iran does not build nuclear weapons. The deal came after the personal intervention by Secretary of State John Kerry and other foreign ministers whose presence had raised hopes for a breakthrough. Diplomats refused to spell out details of the talks.

This would be good news if it is true……but we must approach any deal with the Iranians with caution….to quote little Ronnie Reagan….”trust but verify”………..

With this seemingly good news comes the inevitable crap from…..you guessed it!…..the Israelis……..

(AP) – Israel’s prime minister harshly condemned the international community’s nuclear deal with Iran today, calling it a “historic mistake” and saying he was not bound by the agreement. Speaking to his Cabinet, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the world had become a “more dangerous place” as a result of the deal and reiterated a long-standing threat to use military action against Iran if needed, declaring that Israel “has the right and the duty to defend itself by itself.” Netanyahu told his Cabinet that the deal gave Iran much-needed relief from the sanctions, but left most of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact. In particular, he cited Iran’s continued ability to enrich uranium, a key step in making a nuclear bomb.

Earlier, Netanyahu’s Cabinet minister for intelligence issues, Yuval Steinitz, said the deal was based on “Iranian deception and (international) self-delusion.” Yet he and other officials said Israel would have to turn its focus to the outcome of the final negotiations. Iran’s allies, meanwhile, lined up behind the deal. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Moussawi called it a “step forward in order to solve other regional problems.” The Syrian government, which relies on Iran’s support in its battle against rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad, also said it was proof that negotiations were the best way to resolve a conflict.

Who among us did not see that coming?  If you did not…where have you been for the last 50 years?

And now for a little analysis from Prof. Chuq…….it is time for Israel to stop acting like the thugs that their ancestors were when they destroyed Jericho and everything breathing….time for them to start acting like a civilized country….I say if they want to go it alone….let them!  See just how quick the world will side withe the Palestinians…if they want to shit in their chili….then by God tell them to have at it!.

Netan…whatshisname to stop talkjng like the midget that Iran just got rid of and start thinking like a country with ties to the rest of the world…

STOP thumping your chest like a sex crazed primate….you look silly and stupid!

Pass The Collection Plate

We consumers have been paying for everything for a long time….power plants make us pay for the construction of their new plant……we pay for a sea wall to help curb tidal flow and it never gets paid…we pay and pay….

I am always finding stuff that just keeps me pissed off at the whole economic system that allows such BS to occur….unrestrained…….

(Newser) – Ever since 1983, the Energy Department has been collecting fees paid for by Americans who use nuclear-generated electricity. The tenth-of-a-cent charge per each kilowatt-hour of electricity adds up to about $750 million a year, earmarked to pay for a program disposing of these power plants’ nuclear waste. Only, uh, that program doesn’t actually exist, so a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the DOE must stop collecting the fees, the New York Times reports. The waste was to be disposed of at the Yucca Mountain repository, but the Obama administration halted work on the facility in 2010, Politico reports.

“Nuclear utilities and their consumers have paid more than $30 billion since the early 1980s for the construction of a nuclear-waste repository,” says the executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which filed the lawsuit over the fees. “These consumers have upheld their end of the deal, but unfortunately all they have to show for their investment is a hole in the Nevada desert.” The judge agreed, saying it’s “quite unfair to force petitioners to pay fees for a hypothetical option.” About $7 billion collected had already been spent, largely on the Yucca project, and about $30 billion remains; the fees could be reinstated once the DOE figures out how to deal with the nuclear waste. The Times notes the DOE’s timeline now has it slated to open a repository by 2048.

1983?  Let me see…who was the president in that year?  Thinking…….thinking…….oh yeah that guy that began more taxes than just about any prez since……

Does anyone else have problems with a system that would allow this to happen….over and over………

News You Will NEVER Hear

While all the mental midgets rattle on and on about the BS that is ACA (Obamacare, for those that may be confused)…..the world and its affairs continue…and some of them are good news…..Israel may not think so…but they are good news…..

Though the details of the IAEA’s report itself have not been made public, officials familiar with it say that the Iranian government basically stopped its expansion of its civilian enrichment program after the election of President Hassan Rouhani.

The report is said to also note that the Arak heavy water reactor’s construction isn’t speeding up in any real way, and that no new components have been added to the reactor since Rouhani’s inauguration.

The report appears to dramatically undercut claims from hawks that Rouhani is using the talks as cover while he expands his nation’s civilian nuclear program, since the program itself appears to be settling down.

The announcement was quickly criticized by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, likely on the fear that it could bolster the case for diplomacy, insisting he is “unimpressed” by the report, and the question was never if Iran was still expanding its civilian program, but how to force them to scrap the entirety of the program.

(thanx to antiwar.com for the op-ed)…….

We have all heard the horror stories of the Saudis and their morality police…..dudes that patrol around beating people for driving if female, talking to men, if you are a female, wearing the proper attire, if you are a female….etc….but did you know that the old Iranian regime had a similar police force?  But wait!

(Please check out the reblog)…….a good source of info from an Iranian young women.,..thanx for the updates.

New Nuke On The Way

The weekend begins and time for the sciencey stuff…….

I am opposed to nuke power as we have it now…..yes, i know the energy i clean…..but the by-product is not…..and there is my problem with the energy….there is virtually no way to dispose of the waste material…..some of that stuff has a half-life of a bazillion years……

graphic novels and the SyFy network is always showing stuff like cool fusion and just how good it could be if it were ever invented……never fear…the future is near!

Nuclear fusion might be achieved in a preheated cylindrical container immersed in strong magnetic fields.  A series of computer simulations performed at Sandia National Laboratories show the release of output energy that was, remarkably, many times greater than the energy fed into the simulation.

Sandia researcher Steve Slutz, lead author of the paper published at Physical Review Letters said, “People didn’t think there was a high-gain option for magnetized inertial fusion (MIF) but these numerical simulations show there is. Now we have to see if nature will let us do it. In principle, we don’t know why we can’t.”  Take that to mean “might” moves to “could”.

The Sandia team is talking about high-gain or quite substantial returns past breakeven reactions.
Before we get too far let’s have a very brief refresher.  The two leading Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (ICE) paths are from Dr. Robert Bussard with quite a bit of design information and the Rostocker design handled quietly by Tri-Alpha Energy.  Add to those the plasma method gaining ground designed and led by Eric Lerner.  The easiest comparison is the Bussard confinement design – a semi spherical (essentially a cube) volume held by magnetic fields within which fusion is occurring and expected to get past breakeven.

This year the press release explains the MIF technique heats the fusion fuel (deuterium-tritium) by compression as in normal inertial fusion, but uses a magnetic field to suppress heat loss during implosion. The magnetic field surrounds a small liner so together they act like a kind of shower curtain to prevent charged particles like electrons and alpha particles from leaving the party early and draining energy from the reaction.

At the top and bottom of the liner are two slightly larger coils that, when electrically powered, create a joined vertical magnetic field that penetrates into the liner, reducing energy loss from charged particles attempting to escape through the liner’s walls.

Once set up the simulated process relies upon a single, relatively low-powered laser to preheat a deuterium-tritium gas mixture that sits within the liner.

An extremely strong magnetic field is created on the surface of the liner by a separate, very powerful electrical current, generated by a pulsed power accelerator such as the Sandia Z accelerator machine. The force of this huge magnetic field pushes the liner inward to a fraction of its original diameter. It also compresses the magnetic field emanating from the coils. The combination is powerful enough to force atoms of gaseous fuel into intimate contact with each other, fusing them.

What they get is an implosion, everything crashing in rather than exploding out.  The product we’re interested in is heat, and the new work shows there is a lot of it.

Heat released from that reaction raises the gaseous fuel’s temperature high enough to ignite a layer of frozen and therefore denser deuterium-tritium fuel coating the inside of the liner. The heat transfer is similar to the way kindling heats a log: when the log ignites, the real heat – here high-yield fusion from ignited frozen fuel – begins.

Tests of physical equipment necessary to validate the computer simulations are already under way at Sandia’s Z accelerator.  Sandia engineer Dean Rovang expects a laboratory result by late 2013.  Sandia has already performed preliminary tests of the coils. Portions of the design are slated to receive their first tests this month and continue into early winter.

Physics is just cool!  Thoughts?

It’s Not As Bad As You Think

Calm Down!  Just take a deep breath and calm down!

There is been a plethora of “experts” paraded across the tube trying to calm the sensibilities of the American people over the possible contamination from radiation pouring out of reactors in tsunami torn Japan…….CALM DOWN!

Here is a quickie for your history buffs…….about 25 years ago we had the same scenario playing out in the world……we bombed Libya and Chernobyl was heating up (no pun intended)……okay on to the main point of this post……

If you are old (like me) then you will remember all the fear that was foisted onto the American people back in the days of the Cold War…..we told that we could die from radiation and we were told how to protect ourselves from it…..like hiding under your desk…..now there was a brilliant idea……we were told that fallout….even if miles away would still infect us with all sorts of biblical afflictions….boils, loss of hair, blindness,  frogs (no that one was not in there)….anyway you get the picture….we were told that it was bad…..really BAD!

But now it is not so bad that we need to worry about any sickness……but how bad is bad?

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica:-

“The average total dose received from all three [natural] sources by a person residing at sea level is approximately 0.91 mSv per year; however, a dose twice this size [which makes 1.82 mSv per year] may be received by a person residing at a higher elevation such as Denver, Colo., where cosmic rays are more intense, or by a person residing in a geographic region where the radium content of the soil is relatively high.   In the latter type of region, the radioactive gas radon, which is formed in the decay of radium, may enter a dwelling through its floor or basement walls and accumulate in the indoor air unless the dwelling is well ventilated periodically; occupants of such a dwelling may therefore receive a dose as high as 100 mSv per year in their lungs from inhalation of the entrapped radon and its disintegration products “

Anyway, you now have an official explanation to radiation and its effects (a scientist will be more help than me….I am a political historian and what the Hell do I know about the science side of this?)

We are already finding signs of radiation in the Northwest……but not to worry…it is NOT enough to cause in serious danger…..but what if the plant in Japan goes boom?  Will we, as Americans, need to start worrying then?  Or will we be kept in the dark to add cover to an industry trying to claw its way out from under the happenings in Japan and save its future government subsidies?

So after decades of terrifying young children….we have come to….”We have nothing to fear but fear itself”  (if you recall that was a statement about Japan….go figure)

Now Is NOT The Time For Domestic Policy

I watch a lot of political stuff and usually try to watch “Meet The Press” to get caught up on the dialogs I may have missed over the week….of course, we all know the problem in Japan a quake, a tsunami and a nuclear disaster waiting to happen…..everyone seems to be trying to analyze the nuclear situation (personally, I do not think the Japanese are being totally honest on the situation)…..but here they are gonna start re-evaluating the nuclear program because of the disaster in waiting….

I hear the GOP’s point man in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, talking on the Japanese problem and what the consequences could be for the US and then he said something that I found very telling on the GOP stance on energy and environmental issues….he said…..”after an environmental crisis is not the time to make domestic policy”  (A paraphrase)

OK, if not now, when?

The GOP wants to wait for calmer days when NO one gives a crap and it can be addressed without much attention….where any restrictions of nuclear construction can be blocked at every turn….without much media attention…..think I am mistaken?

Look at deep water oil drilling…..after the massive oil spill that damn near destroyed the US Gulf Coast…..we are back to issuing permits to do it again….funny how that worked out!  The old saying, “outta sight, outta mind”…is one that the GOP lives by and will do whatever it takes to keep it that way…..

So, sports fans….I ask again…..If Not Now, Then When?

For a little injection of humor into the post….you need to hear from Glenn Beck……

http://mm4a.org/h3kPu1……..enjoy!