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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (386694)	5/27/2008 12:20:10 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574333

"why any nation that is sitting on mountains of coal demand nuclear energy." The same reasons we did?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (386694)	5/27/2008 6:16:13 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574333

"The same atomic process that powers turbine generators can be taken one step further to power an atomic blast." It is more than one step. And how would they get the data? It isn't like a LWR monitors things like nuclear cross section or particle density. Pressures and temps. are what is measured. Unless you think we were giving them research reactors. Which are totally different beasts. "The methods to refine atomic fuel, transport it, control its reactions, calibrate the controls, etc. can be applied to weapons research." Fuel refining wasn't going to be done by them. We were going to control the fuel cycle. The rest of the stuff was also going to be done for them. They were going to get a commercial reactor. The controls are minimal and a commercial plant is designed to be operated by not particularly well trained technicians. Just look at the events that led up to 3 Mile Island. That was in the 1970s, and it was pretty obvious those guys didn't have a clue as to how the reactor operated. They were trained to push a particular button when a certain event happened. Or twist a knob. So, if 30 years ago, LWR were designed to be run by cookbook procedures, that certainly hasn't changed. They are even more of a black box now. There are only a few people in the control room at any given time. Maybe 3 or 4. And they aren't nuclear scientists. Which is not to say they are dumb. But dealing with the reactions themselves is left to the computers. If it ever gets to the point where the operators had to know about that level of detail, the reactor is best shutdown. Which is what happens. "Now before you tell me that it's all different, please tell me why any nation that is sitting on mountains of coal demand nuclear energy." Well, you yourself have talked about how their rail system can't reliably transport the stuff. Coal takes a large and functioning infrastructure. Which isn't something NK is known for.