Recent content by cockpitvisit

Hello, assume I have an air condition unit which is not very strong and thus always runs at full power. If I let water evaporate in the room without adding heat (e.g. by hanging lots of wet towels), will this improve the heat removal by the aircon unit and thus lower the room temperature, or...

Was there a corresponding gamma ray burst? Aren't events that produce gravitational waves (collisions of black holes and neutron stars) also supposed to produce GRBs?

Is TEPCO still pumping water into any of the reactors? We are now 4.5 years away from the accident, so the residual heat should be very low now (IIRC, spent fuel can be put into dry casks after 5 years).

I think it is just 4 kg of Caesium. The total Cs-137 release was estimated at 13,600 TBq, and one kg of Cs-137 has 3,215 TBq. And I thought Kr-85 and tritium are always being released into the atmosphere by reprocessing plants, or am I wrong here?

According to the EX-SKF blog, this research is flawed and it is normal for these butterflies to have genetic defects in colder climates (the natural habitat is Okinawa): http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/08/butterfly-mutations-caused-by-fukushima.html

Wouldn't the water then start flowing in the opposite direction through the penetration? The water level in all adjacent buildings would have to be lowered too. This could be very difficult due to the constant influx of groundwater in the turbine building basement.

But you need an EMP covering the whole country, not just one area, to achieve that. So you shouldn't compare it with nuking just one city. It's more like nuking every large city in the country.

Speaking of dangers, how dangerous is contaminated food in the long term? The present limit is 500Bq/kg, soon to be lowered to 100Bq/kg. Rice crops are affected, and with rice being staple food in Japan, we will probably see a significant increase in radiation intake from food compared to...

What's the point of measuring alpha and beta radiation in Sievert? As I understand it, one Sievert is an equivalent of 1 Joule absorbed by 1kg of body mass. But since alpha and beta radiation barely penetrate the human skin, most of the body mass isn't irradiated at all. So the dose in...

What happened ist that instead of exporting power, Germany started importing it from neighboring countries (mostly France) during peak demand times. I doubt the same is possible in the US, since a neighboring country with a huge supply of energy would be required. Abolishing nuclear power by...

I understand that the water is highly contaminated. What is unclear, is how these products make it from the liquid water into the steam. Isn't the water being distilled during the evaporation? Can chemicals be dissolved in steam at all? When I boil water containing NaCl at home, the water...

Just another layman question, as I keep reading about the radioactive steam. Why is the steam radioactive at all? Since the original water from the reactor has evaporated or leaked long ago, the steam should not contain any tritium. Are there any other radiactive elements or compounds with...