Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Quoting calusakat:


Folks, I suggest that you all go out onto the net and read about what France is doing.

It aint near what Master X is saying, not by a long shot.

The potential might be there, yet, even they admit that there are many hurdles to overcome.

Like I said, check it out for yourself and you decide.

I know who I'm talking to so I won't get my hopes up, but could you be a bit more specific? A link perhaps?

Because just putting in "France Nuclear Energy" doesn't turn up anything that would indicate I'm off the mark, nor negative. In fact, with the introduction of their underwater nuclear plants, I'd say things in France are moving right along.

In fact, they're so good at what they do we outsource some of OUR nuclear waste to them. They have an energy surplus which they sell to surrounding nations. In fact, almost all the fossil fuels they do use are for transportation.

Their "accidents" for their entire operating history come out to a fraction of what the Gulf Oil Spill cost. And their plants produce less radioactive wastes than what a coal fired plant spews into the air.

The only issues I found were dealing with how they produce too much power so the plants weren't being optimally utilized (they actually have to shut some plants down every now and then so they don't overpower the grid), and how ultra cheap electricity has led people to be more lax about energy conservation.

Other than Wikipedia and French sites about their nuclear energy program, most of the other links that were returned were stories and press releases about new nuclear initiatives and the successes of the French nuclear program.

So if you could kindly post a link or links showing how I am incorrect, I would appreciate it because all the official sites seem to indicate that things are pretty good over there in regards to their nuclear energy.

Quoting Xyrus2000:


However, you still have Big Energy Co. out there waiting to scare the death out of Joe Sixpack and Jane SoccerMom with TeH eVal n00kleears.

Uh... I work for a big energy company and our corporate position is "all of the above" (except for coal) wrt energy.

Quoting KrippleCreekFerry:
I am all for the Breeder Reactor.Unfortunately
in 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order that banned the reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the United States. The rationale was that the Plutonium could possibly be stolen, and terrorists might be able to use it to make atomic bombs. This decision has stopped us from further developing this technology while other countries use it successfully.

I know. We send some of our nuclear waste to France, who enjoy buying nuclear fuel for dirt cheap prices.

Quoting MichaelSTL:


Indeed, the reason why conventional reactors produce so much waste is because they only use about 0.1% of the available energy from fission:



Also, since safety is concern:

Integral Fast Reactor

In traditional light water reactors (LWRs) the core must be maintained at a high pressure to keep the water liquid at high temperatures. In contrast, since the IFR is a liquid metal cooled reactor, the core could operate at close to ambient pressure, dramatically reducing the danger of a loss of coolant accident. The entire reactor core, heat exchangers and primary cooling pumps are immersed in a pool of liquid sodium, making a loss of primary coolant extremely unlikely. The coolant loops are designed to allow for cooling through natural convection, meaning that in the case of a power loss or unexpected reactor shutdown, the heat from the reactor core would be sufficient to keep the coolant circulating even if the primary cooling pumps were to fail.

The IFR also has passive safety advantages as compared with conventional LWRs. The fuel and cladding are designed such that when they expand due to increased temperatures, more neutrons would be able to escape the core, thus reducing the rate of the fission chain reaction. In other words, an increase in the core temperature will act as a feedback mechanism that decreases the core power. This attribute is known as a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity. Most LWRs also have negative reactivity coefficients; however, in an IFR, this effect is strong enough to stop the reactor from reaching core damage without external action from operators or safety systems. This was demonstrated in a series of safety tests on the prototype.

Liquid sodium presents safety problems because it ignites spontaneously on contact with air and can cause explosions on contact with water. To reduce the risk of explosions following a leak of water from the steam turbines, the IFR design (as with other sodium-cooled fast reactors) includes an intermediate liquid-metal coolant loop between the reactor and the steam turbines. The purpose of this loop is to ensure that any explosion following accidental mixing of sodium and turbine water would be limited to the secondary heat exchanger and not pose a risk to the reactor itself.

The available fuel metals were never separated from the plutonium, and therefore there was no direct way to use the fuel metals in nuclear weapons. Also, plutonium never had to leave the site, and thus was far less open to unauthorized diversion.

Another important benefit of removing the long half-life transuranics from the waste cycle is that the remaining waste becomes a much shorter-term hazard. After the actinides (reprocessed uranium, plutonium, and minor actinides) are recycled, the remaining radioactive waste isotopes are fission products, with half-life of 90 years (Sm-151) or less or 211,100 years (Tc-99) and more; plus any activation products from the non-fuel reactor components. (Tc-99 and Iodine-129 are also candidates for nuclear transmutation to stable isotopes by neutron capture.)

The result is that within 200 years, such wastes are no more radioactive than the ores of natural radioactive elements.

Goodness me I've given you 2 "+"s today :)

Hundreds of South Dakota dead birds poisoned by USDA

(Reuters) - The deaths of 200 starlings in Yankton, South Dakota this week is no mystery -- they died as the result of poison set out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an official said on Thursday.

Quoting Xyrus2000:


I know who I'm talking to so I won't get my hopes up, but could you be a bit more specific? A link perhaps?

Because just putting in "France Nuclear Energy" doesn't turn up anything that would indicate I'm off the mark, nor negative. In fact, with the introduction of their underwater nuclear plants, I'd say things in France are moving right along.

In fact, they're so good at what they do we outsource some of OUR nuclear waste to them. They have an energy surplus which they sell to surrounding nations. In fact, almost all the fossil fuels they do use are for transportation.

Their "accidents" for their entire operating history come out to a fraction of what the Gulf Oil Spill cost. And their plants produce less radioactive wastes than what a coal fired plant spews into the air.

The only issues I found were dealing with how they produce too much power so the plants weren't being utilized optimally utilized (they actually have to shut some plants down every now and then so they don't overpower the grid), and how ultra cheap electricity has led people to be more lax about energy conservation.

Other than Wikipedia and French sites about their nuclear energy program, most of the other links that were returned were stories and press releases about new nuclear initiatives and the successes of the French nuclear program.

So if you could kindly post a link or links showing how I am incorrect, I would appreciate it because all the official sites seem to indicate that things are pretty good over there in regards to their nuclear energy.

Umm Master X I wasn't talking to you in that post, I was addressing my post to fellow bloggers.

All they have to do, is go out onto the internet and read about it for themselves.

Since you believe that they , most of the populace, are all quite ignorant, it is probably impossible for you to understand that most of the bloggers here are quite intelligent and capable of reading and understanding where France claims to be today.

Which isn't anywhere near where you claim them to be regarding that issue.

I will let them decide for themselves.

More Energy, Less Carbon Dioxide

The big energy bashing accomplishes nothing. Exxon is still a bit in denial and Chevron has officially no set position but...

things must change...

things must change...

Now, I did meet somebody tonight who got a new car and thought 20 miles per gallon was great....

THEY ARE STILL SELLING JUNK LIKE THIS?

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scientist are trying to make a mini star at the recently completed National Ignition Facility for a energy source. They recently started giving tours.

Quoting EnergyMoron:


Uh... I work for a big energy company and our corporate position is "all of the above" (except for coal) wrt energy.

Sorry. I was generalizing and dredging up ghosts of history past. I remember the ridiculous FUD flying around about how bad nuclear energy was. And then the fossil fuel companies got a gift from the gods: Chernobyl. It didn't matter that the reason why Chernobyl went up was because they deliberately disabled the safety protocols and then deliberately put it into a meltdown condition. It didn't matter that it was using unsafe reactor designs that hadn't been used in the rest of the world for 30 years. All that mattered was that it was nuclear and that it exploded.

These days we do indeed have energy companies that are into renewable and nuclear energy. So I apologize if you took offense.

something wonderful will happen

Quoting Xyrus2000:


Hey, remember when this blog consisted of people who weren't passive aggressive and didn't insult people for correcting misinformation and lies?

It is not egotistical correct someone when they're wrong. Nor is it egotistical to correct FUD, misinformation, distortions, and outright lies.

How many times have you had to correct wishcasters, doomcasters, wobblecasters, etc.? Does that make you egotistical?

Some of the people on here don't even understand the fundamentals of physics, let alone weather or climate. Yet they think they know more than the combined scientific community and can claim dismissively that all the decades worth of research, data, and observations are nothing more than BS.

If that doesn't scream egotistical arrogance I don't know what does.

lol, I love how people like you own yourselves in trying to cut others down, that's a key characteristic of an over sized ego :)

Quoting EnergyMoron:
More Energy, Less Carbon Dioxide...Now, I did meet somebody tonight who got a new car and thought 20 miles per gallon was great....

THEY ARE STILL SELLING JUNK LIKE THIS?

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you serious? 20 mpg? A V-8 Studebaker land cruiser got better mileage than that!

Quoting Xyrus2000:


Sorry. I was generalizing and dredging up ghosts of history past. I remember the ridiculous FUD flying around about how bad nuclear energy was. And then the fossil fuel companies got a gift from the gods: Chernobyl. It didn't matter that the reason why Chernobyl went up was because they deliberately disabled the safety protocols and then deliberately put it into a meltdown condition. It didn't matter that it was using unsafe reactor designs that hadn't been used in the rest of the world for 30 years. All that mattered was that it was nuclear and that it exploded.

These days we do indeed have energy companies that are into renewable and nuclear energy. So I apologize if you took offense.

Thank you.

It is always a sign of maturity to admit when you are wrong.

As a moron that happens to me often :).

Quoting JFLORIDA:
It would be an incredible event - looking for confirmation:



Two Suns? Twin Stars Could Be Visible From Earth By 2012

Earth could be getting a second sun, at least temporarily.

Dr. Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland, outlined the scenario to news.com.au. Betelgeuse, one of the night sky's brightest stars, is losing mass, indicating it is collapsing. It could run out of fuel and go super-nova at any time.

When that happens, for at least a few weeks, we'd see a second sun, Carter says. There may also be no night during that timeframe.

The Star Wars-esque scenario could happen by 2012, Carter says... or it could take longer. The explosion could also cause a neutron star or result in the formation of a black hole 1300 light years from Earth,



Betelgeuse, also known by its Bayer designation Alpha Orionis, is the ninth brightest star in the night sky and second brightest star in the constellation of Orion, outshining its neighbour Rigel (Beta Orionis) only rarely. Distinctly reddish-tinted, it is a semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude varies between 0.2 and 1.2, the widest range of any first magnitude star. The star marks the upper right vertex of the Winter Triangle and center of the Winter Hexagon.

Nobody else will comment on it I will. Sounds like something that I can't wait for! If it really does happen but I'll be hoping it does.

Quoting JFLORIDA:
A supernova this close to earth would be bizarre. To say the absolute least.

Has anyone heard of this? This is the first for me for such a close star.

Check this out. While going through my papers and stuff, this popped up on a Super Nova.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40908913/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Quoting JFLORIDA:
Obviously I dont think those here realize the implications of such an event. But thats not surprising considering their understandings of natural science here.

I would like to see some info on this quickly.

See you poke jabs at people even talking about this c'mon man.

sorry! ya lo habias puesto

es facil de ver... es una de las estrellas mas brillantes
si miran al cielo esta al lado de la constelacion de orion

Quoting calusakat:


Umm Master X I wasn't talking to you in that post, I was addressing my post to fellow bloggers.

All they have to do, is go out onto the internet and read about it for themselves.

Since you believe that they , most of the populace, are all quite ignorant, it is probably impossible for you to understand that most of the bloggers here are quite intelligent and capable of reading and understanding where France claims to be today.

Which isn't anywhere near where you claim them to be regarding that issue.

I will let them decide for themselves.

You are quite the artful troll, aren't you? Deflecting the question without providing so much as a URL. I applaud you, and give you a tip of my hat sir.

However, I do take offense for you claiming things I never said. At no time did I state that all the bloggers here are ignorant. I didn't even use the word ignorant, which has significantly different connotations. I said the general populace is not as well educated when compared to other developed nations, which is true according to PISA.

The general populace does not come onto blogs such as this to discuss the weather dynamics of cyclonic systems, nor the merits of scientific research in regards to meteorology and climatology. The general populace is on Facebook discussing contestants on American Idol, not on weather sites discussing temperature records and extreme weather phenomena induced by La Nina/El Nino.

As I stated, searching for the terms "French Nuclear Power" in Google does not turn up anything to discredit what I said. In fact, the number one link takes you here, which gives a very detailed of France's nuclear power. Or you can go to the second link from that search here, which provides a more concise overview.

Once again I ask, can you site a source for your information? But we both know the answer to that question.

Quoting MichaelSTL:
Earthlike planet Zarmina's bizarre climate makes it look like a giant eyeball



Gliese 581g is the first planet other than Earth to exist within its star's habitable zone, meaning it could support human life. Now we've got an idea of what it looks like...and it's seriously spooky.

I don't care what anyone says, Zarmina's climate is not bizarre. It just goes through its normal cycles as it has for billions of years. j/k

Quoting JFLORIDA:
A supernova this close to earth would be bizarre. To say the absolute least.

Has anyone heard of this? This is the first for me for such a close star.

Nah, this has been speculated about for decades now. What's recently piqued interest is the recent "possible" deformation they've detected in the star's signature.

The effects from the supernova would be visibly dramatic. It would be quite bright for a while, brighter than the full moon and visible during daylight hours. It would look really cool while it lasted, but would start dimming within a few weeks.

And that's about all the effect it would have.

This wouldn't be the first time for a relatively close star to go supernova. The Crab Nebula was star that exploded back in the 11th century and had a similar effect. Although it freaked the heck out of people when it happened back then.

Quoting Grothar:


I don't care what anyone says, Zarmina's climate is not bizarre. It just goes through its normal cycles as it has for billions of years. j/k

Hey Gro the night shift ain't misbehaving.

Day shift... ummmm....

Quoting EnergyMoron:


Hey Gro the night shift ain't misbehaving.

Day shift... ummmm....

Much nicer now than it was today. I was afraid to come on. At my age, all that excitement in not good. I was shocked!!!!

Quoting Grothar:


Much nicer now than it was today. I was afraid to come on. At my age, all that excitement in not good. I was shocked!!!!

shocked just wait you have seen nothing yet

Quoting JFLORIDA:
Thats what im thinking - with all the 2012 idiocy and hysteria they just picked that date arbitrary.

But I had not heard it was potentially such a close event.

If Alpha Centauri (just over 4 light years away) was threatening to go super nova, then we'd have a serious problem. But given that it is yellow dwarf main sequencer like our sun it's something we won't need to worry about.

Actually, following the links others provided (I actually read them), I did find a good link on "Beetle Juice" as I call it

Real Science

Huffington Post Drudge Report read them both and move on...

For those interested in a 5 BC event noticed in Asia found the following:

5 BC

Quoting JFLORIDA:
with distance estimates in the last century that have ranged anywhere from 180 to 1,300 light years from Earth, calculating its diameter, luminosity and mass have proven difficult. Betelgeuse is currently thought to lie around 640 light years away, yielding a mean absolute magnitude of about -6.05.

from the wiki. Thats also important for the supernova, in the article it quoted 1300. I would like to see this confirmed by US astronomers.

Betelgeuse will, one day, go supernova. In fact, in astronomical terms, it's pretty damn close. That said, it's very unlikely to go bang this week, this month, or this year. Most discussions I've seen of it suggest that the supernova event will occur at some point in the next million years or so... it'll probably be sooner than that, but given that the stars move, relative to one another, it'll probably be significantly further from the Earth by the time it does go pop than it is now.

To give you a first-order estimate of the lifetime of a given star (from birth to death), then you can work it out fairly easily as follows. The luminosity of a star is, roughly proportional to the fourth power of its mass (that varies a bit, dependent on which fusion process is going on in the core, which is why the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram's main sequence is curved, rather than straight, but it's a reasonable assumption). The material fused by the star, its fuel, is the material that makes it up. Hydrogen burning takes up the great, great, great majority of the stars life (with helium, carbon, etc. phases, in the post-main-sequence life being really short by comparison). The amount of fuel that a star has, then, is directly proportional to its mass -- increase the mass, increase the amount of fuel (though if I remember right, most stars only burn ~10% of their hydrogen before they come to the end of their life).

So, the amount of energy given out by a star, its luminosity, is proportional to mass to the fourth power. This is basically the rate at which it burns its fuel -- fusing more hydrogen per second --> more energy given out...

The amount of fuel available is proportional to the mass

So, then, the lifetime of the star is determined by the amount of fuel it has, divided by the rate at which it burns them -- i.e. Mass / Mass^4
or
Lifetime proportional to 1 / M^3

So, if you increase the mass of a star by a factor of ten, you reduce its lifetime by a factor of 10^3 = 1000. Betelgeuse's mass is fairly well established, for a star, because it has a faint binary companion. We know it is around 19 times the mass of the Sun, so it'll live, roughly, 1/6900th as long. The estimated lifetime of the Sun is between 10 and 14 thousand million years -- so that means Betelgeuse, at first glance, should live for a couple of million years.

It's almost at the end of that time, as we can tell by the fact it's already a red giant. Even if we say that it is remarkably close to death (within 10,000 years of dying), the odds of it dying this year are pretty minimal...

Crap, you all made me look at this stuff and I found it quite interesting, and entertainng :P

Just sharin, take it as you may, but gotta love Carl ! gnight>>>>

Technological Singularity Explained

Quoting KEEPEROFTHEGATE:
shocked just wait you have seen nothing yet

Saw you got in a few good shots today. Glad were talking astronomy. Been my hobby since way back when. Some interesting posts and so far pretty darn accurate. Somebody is doing their homework. Nice to watch.

Some people were talking about this song this morning, so i'll post it:

Quoting JFLORIDA:


Thanks.

Miracles do happen "(+)"

Eep -- sorry about that, got interrupted writing it by a student here looking for CV advice :D

Anyways -- I think Betelgeuse is a bit too far away to cause catastrophic disruption of things here on Earth -- but it is far, far closer than the start that exploded to make the Crab Nebula (Betelgeuse is about 200 parsecs away, compared to about 2000 for the Crab). Assuming the two supernovae were the same intrinsic brightness, and no interference between us and them, then the fact it is 10 times closer would make it 100 times brighter (light intensity falling as the square of the distance to the source - inverse square law). That'd be 5 magnitudes brighter (magnitudes are a logarithmic scale measuring observed flux). The supernova that was seen at the birth of the Crab is estimated to have been about mag. -5 or -6 at brightest, brighter than Venus, fainter than the moon -- so Betelgeuse would be about as bright as the full moon (a little fainter, maybe).

As for the age equation I gave above, a bit of a caveat -- depending on where you are in the HR diagram, the luminosity varies as between M cubed and M^4... so assuming it all using the L prop. M^4th relationship gives a minimum estimate for the lifetime :D

And KrippleCreekFerry - I'm fine, thanks :) Floods are all either way up north, or way south-west of us -- Sydney has actually had slightly less rain than the average over the last month or so. It's my first year here, though, so I don't know whether the weather here has been particularly odd!

I vaguely remember reading a paper that was interested in the possibilities for supernovae to cause mass extinctions, a while back. I'm sure it said that a star would have to be much nearer than Betelgeuse to cause that kind of trouble -- maybe by another factor of ten or so? Don't quote me on that, though -- it's a hazy memory of a paper I read a few years back :D

Quoting JFLORIDA:
Well I went back and looked at the astronomer's comments and they basically say it could hap[pen before 2012 or 10,000 years. So the story is kinda fake If you ask me.

No new information on this topic is out there.

Doesn't surprise me to be honest - it's the kind of answer I've given at outreach talks before when asked when the next big impact could come on Earth. The astronomer was probably trying to make the point that the explosion happening next year is incredibly unlikely even given their observations (10,000 years is a blink of an eye, in the lifetime of a star), but the risk of making statements like those is that they give people something to twist around to make a really alarmist story :)

Always got to be very careful what you say, and how you say it, is I think the moral of the story :D