erm terrorists don't need things like nucular power plants to make nasty wepons! take erm, didcot power station, it has a coal heap next to it. now whats to stop somoene burning that. Some well place explosive in this heap (very difficult to have good security on something like that... but they do). would be an intresting attack, would polute the air a lot, piss off the countries power supply. GOO + Roto thanks for the background stuff on Chernobyl, esp Roto's nice little summery.
1 - fusion cant escape the chamber, the minute it gets outside its designated magnetic field its likely to hit something it isnt meant to and cool down, thus everything halts. 2 - There can be no fireball as everything would cool so rapidly. 3 - There would be no "radioactive cloud" from fusion, just alot of helium (alpha radiation.. next to no concern), lithium (slightly radioactive iirc) and hydrogen isotopes flying around Fusion is almost failsafe by default, thats what makes it so good. The only way it could become dangerous if there was too much Deuterium and Tritium in the reaction, then it would become so dense that too many reactions happen at once and thus an explosion occurs (fusion (or hydrogen) bomb). There is radioactive material produces over a long long time, the equipment does become dangerously radioactive, but only a few years half life, so its not bad at all TheAnimus - I dont think bombing heaps of coal is high on the priorities of terrorists these days By the way - apart from cost, what is stopping us sending nuclear waste into space ? I see no reason why it shouldnt be, but my flatmate suggests there may be some kind of laws in place to stop countries doing so (though tbh im sceptical! Seems with the vastness of space, a bit of radioactive material floating around is likely to do as much damage to anybody EVER as a dead llama is of singlehandedly crafting a scale replica of the HMS pinafore, scene by scene, in a collection of 1867 vintage wine bottles).
You sarcastic, cynical ******* Surely the million odd degrees of energy you need to achieve fusion must go somewhere?? edit: fair enough, so it's about as much energy as a lightening bolt. Tritium isnt nice and there are some serious restrictions on it's production but at least it's only 13 years halflife.
no, but last time i checked the sun was ****ing hot and pretty bright. And if they could produce enough energy to get it running we'd already have it running.
Hehe, I aim to please I don't know why we're wasting time discussing fusion. We need an alternate to fossil fuels and we need it NOW. Fusion will not be a reliable source of energy for decades. By that time it may well be too late. Carbon Dioxide and Methane are at unprecedented levels in the atmosphere and will keep increasing unless we do something about it quick. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not particularly happy about condemning my kids and their kids, and their offspring to skin cancer, flooding, and food shortages due to crop failure. I know I was kind of playing Devil's advocate earlier, but either we build more nuclear power plants or we put up a hell of a lot of wind farms. Sam
wasnt there a plan to build a shitload of off-shore windfarms, where they'd a) be more effective b) not be in anyone's view (except fishermen, but who cares about them ) they were going to build hundreds of them off the west coast of scotland iirc
iirc, reading the BBC a while back offshore windfarms are still 5-10 years away from proper implementation..
