you aren't even remotely serious about cold fusion, are you?

Fusion was mentioned a couple years ago, but sceptic. It is still dangerous. Remember chernoble and 3 mile island.

3 mile il. and chernyoble were fission plants. Fusion plants don't melt-down or otherwise cause a nuclear explosion. The worst that can happen is the reactor flying apart from crap construction or something.









.........last I heard anyway...

that would be funny to see actually....especially if the entire structure is being watched by a camera that takes pics every so often. one pic u will see a buiding or something. the next there would be rubble

Fusion is one of the safest theoretical energy sources in existance, with only two possible meltdown scenarios:

1) pressure level low, (1-100 atmospheres), magnetic containmet fails, plasma hits the walls of the reactor and rapidly cools, abruptly ceasing the reaction
2) pressure level high, (BIG), magnetic containment fails, plasma rapidly expands and rips apart the reactor, the plasma cools rapidly, most of the damage is caused by the rapidly expanding gases.

That is unless they manage to REALLY superheat the plasma, thats when we get the 'big-smoking-crater' scenario.

I am personally interested in when they get energy converters that run at higher than 99.99% efficiency, like a minuature nuclear reactor in the home that goes straight from heat to electricity, like a nuclear battery.

I'm a paranoid sceptic, since I think that all the scientific breakthroughs that are announced to the public are behind the date. In addition to that, this requires a lot of investment, and I believe that military purposes go before the civil ones. My point is: what if whe're worrying aboout the wrong thing - it's not accidents, but the intentional use that must be of most concern. Same goes for Taw's link: I, for instance, would first think about total surveilance (and, ergo, control) of population, and only then about convenience for simple users.

An idea came to my head and is now desperately searching for brain

Fusion or fission, either involve radiation, which if safety in construction is not strickly followed, is still dangerous. Earthquakes can shake apart almost anything. But the worst thing in terms of safety, is worker incompitance and lack of training.

I hate all things Nuclear, scares the living piss out of me. I've had a minor panic attack everytime I've been within a 50km radius a reactor. Still all things considered they are quite safe providing that they have sound systems and fully qualified personnel at the helm, as fd said. When you think about it there have only been two notable reactor accidents and 3 mile island didn't have any provable casualties. Chernobyl was caused through basic stupidity and the lack of proper safety measures that always seemed so common with Soviets, I guess K-19 could be another example.

@Taw,

That was my reaction to the news but back about three months, there was new speculation on it... with "cold" being relative. The new cold fusion involves hot temperatures but not super hot as currently needed.

*mumbles to self.... now where was that blurb?*

3 mile island almost did become a chenoble(sp). The water level was low and if it had not been caught, there would have been a meltdown. It was only hours away. They did a TV special not very long ago on it and it was scary.

Edited by - Finalday on 5/27/2004 3:37:55 AM

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The did a TV special not very long ago on it and it was scary.

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Yeah, the radiation might have made your beard fall out.

Edited by - Mustang on 5/26/2004 8:21:27 PM

Mustang - I am incined to agree. The problem with nuclear power is that if things are not taken care of properly, you have BIG problems (obviously ). Keeping that in mind, can we really trust companies to maintain their facilities as best they are able, especially if it means saving a few bucks by hiring cheaper (and less experienced) contractors?

That is the real pickle isn't it, we've already seen shoddy outsourced maintenence contracts mentioned in the investigations of airline disasters. I wonder how many private companies are directly in control of nuclear reactors?

Probably more companies than we'd like to think, Mustang. Especially here in Aus. with our luck; I mean, the public *did* elect Howard after all .