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Hey there, folks. On Tuesday’s show we got to the matter at hand in terms of Japan’s current nuclear reactor scenario that continues to unfold. We’re not a news show, we do try and explain things in simple terms when a particular event has gripped the world. We can all thank Jeri in these cases for turning these shows around so quickly for release when the clock is ticking. Our goal with this episode was to do what we always try and do — explain what in the heck is going on with something without the mainstream media bells and whistles that some might refer to as sensationalism. Especially in a case like this, where fear is very real and not to be manipulated.
The nuclear situation in Japan grows worse with each passing day. Back on Monday there was a very small amount of radioactive material being vented in Japan. There was not much concern of danger even in Japan itself. A few days later there is concern that a plume of radioactive material might make it all [...]
The earthquake and tsunami in Japan is an immense natural disaster. Engineering practices in Japan to a great extent prevented any major building damage from the quake itself, but the subsequent tsunami wreaked havoc. And the biggest havoc it wreaked, by far, was on Japan’s nuclear reactors. If you live outside Japan, you may be [...]
Let’s imagine that you own a nuclear power plant. You are in a pretty good position these days because, compared to a coal-fired power plant, your operation is very green. You are producing lots of reliable electricity without releasing any carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. You don’t release any other pollutants, like sulfur or mercury, [...]
Chernobyl Tourism: Not for the Faint of Heart
by Deblina Chakraborty | December 17, 2010
The Ukrainian government announced this week that they’ll open Chernobyl — the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster — to tourists next year. Would you risk a little radiation to check it out?
Project Orion: Nuking Our Way to Mars
by Robert Lamb | October 4, 2010
Have you ever watched an action hero fly through the air, propelled in slow motion by the massive explosion erupting behind them? This slice of cinematic cheese gives you a decent taste of how NASA considered propelling spacecraft in the 1950s and 1960s.
Dubbed Project Orion (not to be confused with NASA’s more recent Orion spaceship project), this crazy-sounding propulsion system depended on nuclear warheads. You read that right, not mere nuclear power but actual nuclear detonations.
Currently there are two different “Big Science” approaches to fusion power. There is the laser approach, best represented by the National Ignition Facility, where more than a hundred high power laser beams hit a tiny pellet to create fusion in its core. There is also the magnetic confinement approach, best prepresented by the Tokamak approach.
Focus Fusion is a “little science” approach to fusion and is described here…
In the United States, light water reactors have dominated the nuclear power landscape for decades. You can learn how they work here:
These reactors are not perfect and have the potential risk (although slight) of getting out of control. Therefore, construction of new nuclear power plants has stalled in the United States.
But because nuclear reactors do not produce carbon emissions, they may be about to experience a resurgence…
Humans have a tendency to sprawl. You’ve seen it on the bus or train when your neighbor spills over into your narrow seat. With the help of an orbiting satellite, you can see it on a larger scale, with urban areas sprawling out for miles in every direction. Sprawl has entered the energy lexicon as well, and not everyone’s happy about it.
There are dozens of new things that we have learned from the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. We have learned about blowout preventers, methane hydrates, oil booms, etc.
Two facts have been especially intriguing if you are interested in green technologies. First, the deep water in the Gulf is very cold. This page provides a nice graph that shows how temperature decreases with increasing depth in the ocean. The second thing we have learned is that it is pretty easy to put pipelines in the Gulf – there are already hundreds of them.
What could we do with all of this cold water? There are two technologies that could take advantage of it. The first is air conditioning, as described in this video…
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