02-21-2003, 11:57 PM
Hi,
Better that they don't absentmindedly use the power of the atom, as politicians are fond of doing.
I don't understand. Are you implying that politicians shouldn't be using nuclear WEAPONS? If so I agree. But politicians shouldn't be using nuclear power? In what sense? They don't design or operate the reactors, they just use the power generated there like anyone else. So your statement leaves me confused.
Reactors are simply not any easy way of making power.
Reactors are not as simple as hydro plants. They not much more complex than gas turbine plants. And they are, in many ways, simpler than oil and coal fired plants. Most of the "complexity" of nuclear plants has less to do with controlling nuclear breakdown than with the process of making electrical power from that breakdown. All thermal-electric plants are very similar. Of course, hydro plants aren't heat plants at all which makes them especially simple. In the gas turbines, the source of heat is the fluid that drives the turbines and that makes those relatively simple. All the others require a source of heat, a medium to move that heat to a turbine, and then the turbines themselves. Nuclear plants are simpler than oil and coal because a continuous supply of fuel is not needed.
Worse that those who lobbied didn't lobby for responsible usage, just outright removal.
If those who lobbied understood nuclear power, they would have realized that the plants were designed for "responsible usage" from the start. Thus, they would have had no reason to lobby at all. The fact that they did indicates that they were completely ignorant of the whole process.
Shame, really. Ignorance stabs at us more ways than one likes to consider.
Yep.
--Pete
Better that they don't absentmindedly use the power of the atom, as politicians are fond of doing.
I don't understand. Are you implying that politicians shouldn't be using nuclear WEAPONS? If so I agree. But politicians shouldn't be using nuclear power? In what sense? They don't design or operate the reactors, they just use the power generated there like anyone else. So your statement leaves me confused.
Reactors are simply not any easy way of making power.
Reactors are not as simple as hydro plants. They not much more complex than gas turbine plants. And they are, in many ways, simpler than oil and coal fired plants. Most of the "complexity" of nuclear plants has less to do with controlling nuclear breakdown than with the process of making electrical power from that breakdown. All thermal-electric plants are very similar. Of course, hydro plants aren't heat plants at all which makes them especially simple. In the gas turbines, the source of heat is the fluid that drives the turbines and that makes those relatively simple. All the others require a source of heat, a medium to move that heat to a turbine, and then the turbines themselves. Nuclear plants are simpler than oil and coal because a continuous supply of fuel is not needed.
Worse that those who lobbied didn't lobby for responsible usage, just outright removal.
If those who lobbied understood nuclear power, they would have realized that the plants were designed for "responsible usage" from the start. Thus, they would have had no reason to lobby at all. The fact that they did indicates that they were completely ignorant of the whole process.
Shame, really. Ignorance stabs at us more ways than one likes to consider.
Yep.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?