Arcadia Discussion Zone

And now today we see the latest leaked document news showing Obama bowing down and giving in to the international corporations in direct antithesis to his consumer protection promises.



http://www.mediaite.com/online/obama-in ... nt-leaked/

On se pose des questions sur les pretendus-Democrates qui soutiennent Obama coute-que-coute. Ils feraient sans doute mieux d'abandonner leurs pretensions et de voter pour le "real deal", le candidat Republicain. Surtout quand ils ont le culot d'essayer de faire la morale aux autres!

http://liquidfluoridethoriumreactor.gle ... ear-waste/

Here's an interesting article on the capabilities of these Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors if you can get past the scientific figures n' stuff......The Thorium boys contend that LFTRs can deliver clean, safe, cheap power and that they can also reduce the radioactivity of our existing deadly stockpiles which amount to megatons of radioactive waste/spent fuel, from a 300,000 year problem down to a 300-year problem by using it as a secondary fuel.... using it to run the Reactors.

I'm all for solar technology but it won't get rid of the existing nuclear waste and here we have a Nuclear Reactor that;

• uses no water and so can’t have high pressure steam or hydrogen explosions,

• with fuel that can’t have a nuclear melt down,

• that fissions over 99% of its fuel so there’s no waste needing storage for hundreds of thousands of years,

• that can consume spent nuclear fuel from other reactors.


This technology will obviously be too late to save the Japanese people and all that are downwind of the unfolding disaster but i feel a need to research and read up on Thorium and Monazite sands.

The below link's second video is two hours but the first few minutes explain the processes in a nutshell. Well done.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gor ... agate-hard

Thanks TCJ, in a nutshell indeed....an excellent 5 minute TED talk.

You'd be more than happy to have the next new one in your back yard then Bill?

Yes, of course. Radioactive waste could easily be encapsulated in swiss cheese buried under Mont Blanc!

A massive, unprecedented in scope and costly expenditure with a very high risk of disastrous failures. It's not just the spent fuel rods that need more responsible addressing, but all manner of highly contaminated construction materials and machinery parts that need disposing of also.
I'd wondered once if dumping it all into an ocean subduction crevasse would be an answer but then one day radioactive volcanoes could be a harsh realty. Maybe not, but it seems un-wise.

The other side of the thorium question:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ar-uranium

Yes, just as you would like to have the necessary garbage dump in your backyard.

Which garbage dump would that be Bill?

Interesting link hotspur, thanks. From the comments;



Not sure if the writer above was being too harsh but the article's author failed to understand that the fissile materials that could be used for weaponry are intermixed with another similar uranium isotope which make refining so dangerous as to be practically impossible.

There's confusion running about different processes also.

Which garbage dump would that be Bill?[/quote]


I am referring to imminent domain. Of course I don't want a nuclear power plant in my backyard, any more than you would want a garbage dump in your backyard. But governments, being what they are, can put them any where they wish, as well as they can highways. If it is considered good for the majority (some countrys not even that), if you know what I mean.
I still think it is important to remember that France produces some 80% of its electricity from nuclear power.

The thing is Bill, it will always be in someone's "backyard" - as long as it's not our own.

No hotspur. it will be in whosever backyard the (your) government wishes to put it in, you will have no say in the matter. I don't want it and neither do you, but for the common cause someone will get it. This is why I referenced the garbage dump, it will be somewhere. If it is my own I certainly will complain, and what good will that do me? I think that there are over 20 nuclear power plants (not reactors, power plants) in France, whose backyards are they in?

The watchdog estimates the changes would cost tens of billions of euros.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16393560


BTW, the Three Mile Island plant failure was not the result of being located on an active fault. (There's an idea for you Bill. If you want to avoid the location of a nuclear power plant in your backyard, sit yourself on an active fault - hopefully the authorities will have the sense not to build on one.)

I believe some of the problems with Three Mile have been addressed, and certainly there is more advancement to come.
Hmmm, build on a fault zone to avoid having a nuclear power plant in your backyard, why didn't I think of that?

The Diablo Canyon facility in California has the same build time-frame and basic plant design as Japan's.







http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2011/03/13 ... goes-down/

unless the authorities are French obviously....they have an unfailing habit.

....and let's not even go down the route of the Japanese locations or the proposed Italian venture.

and for those who are not aware of French stupidity....



We have the Cadarache facility which is just 60 kilometres north-east of the city of Marseille in the Bouches-du-Rhône, this is a French scientific research centre which specialises in nuclear energy research.
The Cadarache facility is one of the largest nuclear research sites in Europe, hosting 21 fixed nuclear installations, including reactors, waste stockpiling and recycling facilities and research centers.

One of the most notable nuclear installations at Cadarache is the ITER experimental nuclear fusion tokamak, which is expected to be completed by 2018. When operational, ITER is hoped to be the first large-scale fusion reactor to produce more energy than is used to initiate its fusion reactions. Other nuclear installations at Cadarache include the Tore Supra tokamak – a predecessor to ITER – and the Jules Horowitz Reactor, a 100-megawatt research reactor which is planned for completion in 2015.

Numerous nuclear research activities are conducted at Cadarache, including mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) production, nuclear propulsion and fission reactor prototyping, nuclear fusion research and research into new forms of fission fuel. Nuclear waste is also treated and recycled at the site.

oh, and btw.....

Cadarache is situated on the Aix-en-Provence-Durance seismological fault, and lies close to another fault, Trévaresse. The Aix-Durance fault caused France's worst recorded earthquake in 1909

The oldest one in France is Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant which is located in the Fessenheim commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in the north-eastern corner of the country, and basically slap-bang in the middle of Europe.

Due to its location in the Rhine Rift Valley near the fault that caused the 1356 Basel earthquake, there are serious safety concerns.....the Fessenheim plant is subject to particular risks from seismic activity and flooding.


There have been ongoing concerns about the seismic safety of the plant and, following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accidents, there have been calls for the seismic risk to be re-evaluated based on a 7.2 magnitude earthquake; the plant was originally designed for a 6.7 magnitude earthquake. The Swiss cantons of Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft and Jura have also said that they are to going to ask the French government to suspend the operation of Fessenheim while undertaking a safety review based on the lessons learned from Japan.

Despite regional concern over the plant in the aftermath of Fukushima, nuclear power remains popular in the commune of Fessenheim itself, where the plant has brought prosperity and employs many locals...which is the reaction you get throughout France when you wear a "Nuclear Power - No Thanks" T-shirt...taking away local jobs, how dare she!

Let's hope the new government follow through with their plans to decommission this old facility.

You'd probably get the same reaction in Sellafield, Cumbria (Windscale, as was, before they "re-branded" it). I think I'd rather have no power for half the day, than live anywhere near one, but obviously I don't work in the industry, my livelihood doesn't depend on it, and I can afford to have a different perspective. But I still wouldn't build any more if it was up to me. Apparently there are about eighty of them, of different types, under construction around the world at the present time, mostly in China and India, and probably all sorts of cost cutting going on, and corners being cut.

Also bear in mind that countries draw on each others power supplies in times of need. The UK 'borrows' electricity from France (with their agreement) on a daily basis when our own levels dip so i don't think it's a question of blaming one country over another.

France is one of the few countries in the world with an active nuclear reprocessing program, with the COGEMA La Hague site, which is as close to the English channel as it gets and is probably closer to you guys that to us here in the Limousin.
Enrichment work, some MOX fuel fabrication, and other activities take place at the Tricastin Nuclear Power Centre. Enrichment is completely domestic and is powered by 2/3 of the output of the nuclear plant at Tricastin. Reprocessing of fuel from other countries has been done for the United States and Japan, who have expressed the desire to develop a more closed fuel cycle similar to what France has achieved. MOX fuel fabrication services have also been sold to other countries, notably to the USA for the Megatons to Megawatts Program, using Plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons.

While France does not mine Uranium (any more) for the front end of the fuel cycle domestically, French companies have various holdings in the Uranium market....and don't get me started on that.

Final disposal of the high level nuclear waste is planned to be done at the Meuse/Haute Marne Underground Research Laboratory deep geological repository.

it's not a question of blame, rather than a question of why locate such dangerous reactors in areas of high seismic risk....how on earth did the French win the ITER contract when the proposed building site at Cadarache is over the Aix-Durance fault which caused France's worst recorded earthquake in 1909...and by the way France only just pipped Japan to the post. How could anyone in their right mind believe that nuclear power or reprocessing plants can ever be designed, engineered or constructed to withstand the immense seismic activity accompanied by the tsunamis that Japan is prone to.
Only a couple of months back Italy was all up for starting it's reactor building programme before it got rattled by some rather severe earthquakes...how could anyone consider Italy as a safe location!