Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Big_Bird]

This is a very interesting interview with a recently deseased expert (and researcher) on radiation: John Gofman. He argues that there isn't a safe level of radiation.

John Gofman vs. the Nuclear Cowboys

It's a long article, but well worth the time taken to read it. For those of you less inclined, I've selected a few tasty morsels as follows:

[OneWayTraffic]

Well speaking as someone who studied physics at university, there is background radiation pretty much anywhere. And radiation isn't equal. Some types are more hazardous than others.

Aside from that, you have to keep in mind that coal plants release more radiation into the environment than nuclear plants. You do know that coal kills thousands of people per year don't you? (Not just miners either-there's premature deaths due to pollution as well.)

But yes, I guess one dose of radiation might give you cancer. And one cigarette might give you cancer, and one trip in a car might get you killed. The risk is proportional to the dosage, that much is quite clear. It's a question of risks vs rewards. without nuclear or coal right now, we'd be up shit creek without a paddle or gumboots.

I'm not actually in support of nuclear per se. But it's not good enough to say "I don't like that." You need to offer a better solution. And right now, as it stands now, we don't have one.

[Justin Hale]

Big Bird, simple question here, do you fear medical treatment? You don't, right? Why on earth not, given "nuclear operations are responsible for only a tiny part of the radioactivity or radiation we experience in our daily lives � and up to 140 times less than is created by medical treatments"? (link)

I have an analogy for you: which is more dangerous, which would you tell your kid to not touch, the drug Ecstacy, or peanuts? Peanuts are more dangerous, god damn it!

So, peanuts are more dangerous than ecstacy and medical treatment is more dangerous than nuclear energy.

Your beliefs - and the dead fellow's beliefs - are based on fundamental misconceptions about radiation that I haven't the patience to detail further

[Big_Bird]

[Big_Bird]

[mindmetoo]

[Justin Hale]

The point stands. Medical treatment produces 140-times more radiation than nuclear power. Clueless lefties and environmentalists, who are no less of a threat to civilization than Muslims, zionists and carbon dioxide, should get a clue.

[ED209]

[Gopher]

To whom would you address this advice, Big_Bird: nuclear-power advocates like the Iranian, Venezuelan, and other Third-World govts? Or only Western, industrialized nuclear-power advocates? Or both?

Finally, please clarify. Do you oppose the Iranian govt's current endeavors?

[JMO]

[OneWayTraffic]

[OneWayTraffic]

Tell you what BigBird. I'll give you the website addresses of some companies researching alternative energy, and you can invest your own personal dollars into it.

www.emc2fusion.org is a good start. Founded by Dr Robert Bussard (of the Startrek Bussard collector fame) it's a novel modification of the Farnsworth fusor (a device that actually works and can be built for a school science project-its been done.) The original Farnsworth fusor couldn't make breakeven but was valuble as a neutron source. This device, if it works will.

Bussard was funded by the Navy and poured the last years of his life into this, as he was dying of cancer. He's had impeccable credentials, and he thought it could work. A google search will give you a tech talk that he gave google before the Navy continued funding last year. It's 90minutes long but worth it as he gives a rather entertaining speech, if you can handle the physics.

He's gone through several iterations of his design, starting with solid state magnets as a proof of concept and coming up with sucessively better configurations of electromagnets. The idea is that the electromagnets confine electrons, which then confine a plasma of nucleii. Boron atoms are injected into this electron bottle, where they will stay shooting around at high speeds near the center of the well (where occasional collisions will cause fusion) and then spending time at the outskirts of the well in the low potential energy area. It's a non Maxwellian plasma, so some people think that Bremstralung will be a problem, absorbing 1.2 times the fusion output, while others calculate that due to the small amount of time the Boron atoms spend at the high velocities needed for fusion, there won't be sufficient thermalisation for Bremstralung to be a problem.

He claims to have this cracked, and many people who've looked into it agree. Only way to find out for sure is to build WB6 (wiffleball 6) and find out. The previous WB6 gave results many orders of magnitude higher than similar systems (at the same well depth and drive power) though the time it ran before self destruction was too short to be absolutely clear. The Navy has continued funding and I guess the next WB6 will be ready next year. He's received a lot of attention in certain circles and if it works the world will change.

The power of these reactors scales as the seventh power of the radius so a reactor a couple of meters across will make significant power. They should be able to burn Boron with protons or Helium 3 releasing primarily high energy alpha particles as output, no high energy neutrons inducing radiation in the reactor. The aneutronic nature of these reactions allows direct energy transfer by decelerating the products in a charged grid. No thermal powerplant needed. Efficiencies may approach 80% or more theorectically.

No waste, very little radioactivity. No heavy metals poisoning the environment for thousands of years. Now go and make a donation.



If nothing else this should convince you that I spend more time looking at alternatives than you ever have. I wrote that from memory, though most of it's on wiki.

[contrarian]

All the hype, moaning, whining and scare tactics aside; the known death toll from chernobyl is less than 100 and the US accident at Three Mile Island is zero/

[mindmetoo]

[moosehead]