Tri-Alpha Rumor

Solo · Post by **Solo** » Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:15 pm

To get back on topic: I found this abstract for a 2005 article describing the FRC and beam stuff that UC Irvine was doing with Tri-Alpha before everything went quiet. I don't know if this is the most recent document available, but I hadn't seen this before. Does anyone have acces to that journal?

Edit: silly me,

I forgot the link:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/dgv6844t17n54750/

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Tue Dec 22, 2009 9:32 pm

Axil, I totally agree with you on the Chernobyl incident. It was a human error and a provoqued accident. Still it was an accident that could under some circumstances (be they extreme or not) happen again. There is no point in denying that and doing so could cause doubts about the credibility of us nuclear power supporters.
However the chances of this happening again are very slim and as I mentioned earlier easily as many people are killed by health- and other issues that are directly or indirectly caused by other power generating methods.

Since people talk about nuclear batteries.
A few years ago, I stumbled over an article on NewScientist.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13545
Careful the site has gone nuts recently and they think they can ask money for that now...
Anyway, the article that you might be able to read or not (I cant right now, since I refuse to sign up to that place) was about a new type of nanomaterial that supposedly is rather efficient at directly converting radiation (of unfortunately unspecified kind) into electricity. Unfortunately it was somewhat vague.
Generally something like this should be interesting. Even though it is (from what I remember) still much more inefficient than a hot water steam turbine, it has advantages. One advantage is that a reactor like this would not have any moving parts. It does not need any piping either, especially no piping that leaves the inner reactor shell. All that would "break" through that shell are the power cables putting the electricity into the grid.
Now maybe someone here knows a bit more about this material?
How can I imagine this to work? Would it work with a Thorium reactor?

pennywise · Post by **pennywise** » Thu Dec 24, 2009 9:03 pm

Hi everybody! My first post here.

Skipjack wrote:Anyway, the article that you might be able to read or not (I cant right now, since I refuse to sign up to that place) was about a new type of nanomaterial that supposedly is rather efficient at directly converting radiation (of unfortunately unspecified kind) into electricity. Unfortunately it was somewhat vague.
Generally something like this should be interesting. Even though it is (from what I remember) still much more inefficient than a hot water steam turbine, it has advantages. One advantage is that a reactor like this would not have any moving parts. It does not need any piping either, especially no piping that leaves the inner reactor shell. All that would "break" through that shell are the power cables putting the electricity into the grid.
Now maybe someone here knows a bit more about this material?
How can I imagine this to work? Would it work with a Thorium reactor?

Why a complicated nanomaterial? Why not just use a Peltier–Seebeck converter, that worked fine in RTGs?

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Thu Dec 24, 2009 10:24 pm

pennywise wrote:Hi everybody! My first post here.
Why a complicated nanomaterial? Why not just use a Peltier–Seebeck converter, that worked fine in RTGs?

Because the efficiencies are abysmally low.

While not a direct statement of the efficiency of a generator, the following is indicative of the RELATIVE merit of thermoelectric generators vice thermo-mechanical devices.

wikipedia wrote:The COP of current commercial thermoelectric refrigerators ranges from 0.3 to 0.6, only about one-sixth the value of traditional vapor-compression refrigerators.[9]

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Thu Dec 24, 2009 11:31 pm

KitemanSA wrote:Because the efficiencies are abysmally low.

Exactly!
Now the question is how much better that Nanomaterial is (if it says it somewhere in that article, I cant read it anymore...grrrr).
And then the question is how much lower an efficiency pays off when you consider the increased simplicity of the reactor in return.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:59 am

Where utter simplicity and EXTREME reliability are paramount (think spacecraft half a billion miles from home), thermo-electric generators are almost a must. But in other cases, efficiency has its benefits!

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 4:55 am

A politician's job is to distribute inadequate resources in the fairest possible way.

Whereas the function of a market is to distribute resources in the most useful way.

I think that pretty much encapsulates the reason for the under performance of socialist economies.

And yes. Given equal starting points a socialist economy is probably fairer. After only fifty years of 1% growth differential that is no longer true.

I believe the lowest performing group in the American economy - blacks - now have an average income equal to the average Swede. On a purchasing power parity basis.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

Or look at it this way: in another 50 years the average black will be twice as rich as the average Swede (if the trajectories don't change).

That is what allocating resources according to productivity gets you.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 12:57 pm

I believe the lowest performing group in the American economy - blacks - now have an average income equal to the average Swede. On a purchasing power parity basis.

Hmm, not so sure, which one of these you are basing your assumption on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... per_capita

or:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... per_capita

Or:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... per_capita

At least one of them has them on top of the US...
I think it is always a matter of how you measure certain things.
I do generally agree with you though, people in the US dow own more.

Edit, aaargh it does not like these links. Well just follow one and that go on to the correct page from there (are listed there).

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:04 pm

Where utter simplicity and EXTREME reliability are paramount (think spacecraft half a billion miles from home), thermo-electric generators are almost a must. But in other cases, efficiency has its benefits!

Yes, but depending on how much small the difference due to this nanomaterial is, it might affect the operating cost of the reactor to a sufficient extent that it becomes economic. Then you should also factor in all the other things that were discussed here such as savety and proliferaton concerns (all of which cost money at some point, somehow).
How does the picture look then? As I said, I dont know, but I am wondering what the equation looks like if you are doing a "nuclear battery" model that way. A thing like that would require almost no maintenance and very basic security. I am also wondering how much of waste this reactor will produce compared to a "normal" reactor, as I dont quite get the term "radiation" in this context. I mean, what kind of radiation?

deane · Post by **deane** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:17 pm

MSimon wrote:I believe the lowest performing group in the American economy - blacks - now have an average income equal to the average Swede. On a purchasing power parity basis.

The lowest economic performers in the US are either young black males or Latino women. I don't have the figures for the former handy but the average income of the latter was $20,133 in 2005, which is about 14% of US per capita GDP. The average Swede makes SKr 217,600 which is about 64% of Sweden's per capita GDP. In PPP terms Sweden's per capita GDP is about 80% that of the US, which puts the average Swede's income at about 51% of US per capita GDP, making them about 3.6 times as well off as Latino women in the US.

So your numbers are not even close.

There's also more to life than money: the average Swede will live nine years longer than the average black man in America.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:31 pm

The lowest economic performers in the US are either young black males

Young white males don't do so hot either.

Of course if you pick the right demographic I'm sure you could find some doing better.

But take blacks as a whole (as I did in my statement) and I think you will find some validity to my statement.

And of course young blacks are handicapped by not wanting to "act white" i.e. get an education.

deane · Post by **deane** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:32 pm

MSimon wrote:A rising tide lifts all boats.

Only if there's enough slack in the lines to allow it to do so. Otherwise the boat is engulfed and destroyed.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:34 pm

There's also more to life than money: the average Swede will live nine years longer than the average black man in America.

Yes. Blacks like to kill each other.

The US Government provides special incentives to maintain the killing. Similar to the incentives once provided in the 20s for other ethnic groups.

Prohibition.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:59 pm

Prohibition.

Alcohol is legal here, but yet there are still plenty of crmes comitted here with alcohol in the mix. Same with cigarettes (illegal smuggling of cheaper, untaxed cigarettes, e.g.).
Oh well, we will never get anywhere with that discussion. I dont think either one of us can be convinced.

Helius · Post by **Helius** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:54 pm

Skipjack wrote:
Prohibition.
Alcohol is legal here, but yet there are still plenty of crmes comitted here with alcohol in the mix. Same with cigarettes (illegal smuggling of cheaper, untaxed cigarettes, e.g.).
Oh well, we will never get anywhere with that discussion. I dont think either one of us can be convinced.

Correct. There is a flaw-in-logic that since prohibition for Alcohol didn't work under one social mechanism, that there is no social mechanism for which it can work. "All implementations will fail". "There is no implementation..." Null hypothesis.

If we recognize that drugs and alcohol are a real problem for individuals and families we can recognize these problems as "leaf node" problems where prohibitive sanctions directed at the individual behaviors *work*.

Drunk & stoned driving relative to miles traveled, Network provision of intoxicating substance to minors have been prohibitively addressed to social and individual advantage.