Recent content by mheslep

Does "isolated reactor" refer to a loss of station grid power, or a loss of all power including emergency site power? The isolation condenser (IC) apparently requires pump power (or is it also gravity fed)? If the latter, then in the case of the Fukushima accident, it seems the IC is no...

At the same time, increasing the demand for student loans against the available loan capital (currently about $1T in the US) and increasing the number of those marginally likely to pay back the loans will tend to increase rates.

What applies for the "average" by definition does not apply to "anyone", i.e everyone. Moreover, those average results are skewed upwards by outcomes based on degrees in the sciences and the better schools. A degree in pseudo humanities studies from lower ranked schools, is a much diffetent...

Remember Musk has a BS Physics, and was accepted to Stanford's Phd program. Maybe Musk succeeds with PayPal without a physics degree, but I doubt he builds SpaceX from scratch without one.

Definitive science is not based on scientists, but on what they publish in the scientific literature. JET has has published results, orders of magnitude better than anything else, include laser implosion at NIF. The currently ongoing alternative projects like Lockheed's have published...

In the failed attempts leading up to powered flight, jumping off the roof with a cape was still whacko because of a lack of a sound scientific basis. Roof jumping is not made otherwise, i.e. sound, because mainstream attempts failed. The failure of mainstream fusion is nonetheless based on...

Fusors are indeed spherical, but they are electrostatic devices that do work on the plasma to (futilely) focus it in the center. Lockheed's device as the patent states is magnetic confinement of a thermal plasma.

Cowley's talk is here, and the comments on alternative fusion approaches like Lockheeds begin at 1:11. Note that though Cowley calls these particular startup American approaches 'whacko', he's very pro American mainstream research earlier in the talk.

According the UK AEA chief and fusion expert Steven Cowley, the Lockheed fusion project and its lead researcher McGuire have placed themselves in a bit of a scandal. Apparently Lockheed released some promising preliminary results on their reactor, prompting some immediate but unsurprising...

Double the payload and a quarter the cost of Delta IV ($400M Delta IV per wiki vs $90M FH per Musk).

What's loony?

@anorlunda, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission now has post 911 requirements in place like 50.150 Aircraft impact assessment for new reactors, a major regulatory change applied after the start of construction of new reactors in the southeast US, and which significantly impacted the cost of...

Not from US consumption. But if they mine coal in China, or in Australia where Japan gets its coal ...

I don't think so. The Chernobyl reactor spiked to 30 GW before it destroyed itself. No amount of C4 can reproduce the nuclear power level delivered inside that reactor. The Fukushima accident involved three destroyed reactors. Also, the wide geographic distribution of Cs 137 comes about not...

For about three months, the time for I 131 (half life 8 days) to decay out. Afterwards, the received dose is about that of an extra CT scan (10 mSv) spread over years, hardly uninhabitable.