article: Plug-in Hybrid

it really depends. here, we don't "handle" it, we just store it. if we
dealt with it properly, like everyone else, we'd reprocess it. so if it
were reprocessed, no problem. if it were properly stored, sure.
improper storage is your real concern, but again, a lot of fear is based
on misinformation.

technically, you get more radiation from coal power station fly ash.
which is used for cinder block. which builds homes. and from granite.
which is used in homes. there are many sources of background
ratiation, and many parts of the country, where humans happily live
where background is much higher than any emissions from your friendly
local storage facility.

it's nuts to freak without the full facts. sure, there's a lot of
misinformation around, on both sides, but the facts are plain: radiation
is part of our existance on this planet. we cannot avoid it. it makes
no sense to freak about the local power or storage facility if we're
getting higher doses from our basement that is full of radon & from the
cosmic rays that soak us every day of our lives. check out a bubble
chamber some time. it's just a foaming cauldron of vapor trails left by
the background radiation that is with us constantly.

 

Neutreno's actually. extremely weakly interacting particles of unknown
mass or size, that barely react or interact with anything. . one of
the big projects going on in europe right now is the Neutreno factory
-which aims to fire a stream from the uk to china, direct.
http://hepunx.rl.ac.uk/uknf/

Good link to plug the only large-scale distributed computing project
out there... (and which is a part of the above project)

Muon1 - www.stephenbrooks.org/muon1

 

1) generally not mounted by amateurs.
2) you have a fixed quantity of fuel, which is a liquid with flamable
vapours. drain the liquid, move it away, no problem. a series of
batteries is both producing its own combustion fuel as it goes along,
PLUS lithium burns itself.

Puncturing a petrol tank does not automatically lead to fire.
puncturing a lithium based battery can. I don't have bond energy's to
hand, so i'm not sure if it'd be preferable to have it hydrogenate, or
combust. maybe both happens - i've yet to see it happen under
controlled conditions.

 

Brian wrote
snip

Good lord. High level radioactive waste still results from reprocessing
spent nuclear fuel from power plants.

High level radioactive waste that is not spent fuel and so cannot be
reprocessed is still an outcome of nuclear power plant operations.

Lower level waste simply cannot be reprocessed and is of course still a
hazard.

I doubt it's only the U.S. who does not reprocess. Regardless, the reason
the U.S. does not reprocess (by federal law) is, for one, because of
concerns about plutonium proliferation: If this product of reprocessing gets
in the wrong hands, the production of nuclear weapons is facilitated.

Reprocessing is also expensive. Mining/enrichment of uranium remains far
cheaper than reprocessing.

You can't beef about how the high purchase cost of hybrid cars makes them
unsuitable and then disregard how the high cost of reprocessing makes it
unsuitable, all in the same thread. Or you can, but you'll be logically
inconsistent.

The fear is rationally based on misinformation like that you wrote above.

The only one freaking here is you: You felt you had to dump an emotional
truckload of incorrect information on someone who whose concerts are
perfectly valid .

I do not oppose per se further construction and operation of commercial
nuclear power plants. I do resent the irrational religious fervor of many of
its advocates, resulting in the transmission of highly inaccurate
information which hinders, rather than helps, the reduction of U.S.
dependence on foreign oil.

 

Not relevant;one selects the storage site based on sound engineering and
environmental principles.

Yucca Mountain,where it's not going to affect anyone,and it's secure.

 

Wouldn't it be better to clean up the chemical plant?

 

If you noticed,the poster asked simplistic questions to frame the matter so
that it SEEMS common-sense to be anti-nuclear.
While avoiding common sense completely.
How ironic.

 

Nonsense;gas,hydrogen,and electric vehicles all have specific hazards,and
one is not necessarily worse than the others.
And emergency workers are already practicing tactics to handle hybrids,and
toxic chemical spills from other sources.

And how often do you thiink these cells are going to be -punctured-?

 

Hello,
You may be too young to remember the news stories related to the gas tanks
of Pintos exploding. I believe they were made by Ford. When other vehicles
crashed into the back of Pintos--the gas tanks would explode. Many people
were killed. You should do a google search for Pinto and you may be able
to find a some reports about this subject. They quit making Pintos due to
the explosions.
Jason

 

In the county where I live, there is a nuclear power plant that stores
nuclear waste above ground in pools of water. I visited the plant several
years ago. I saw what looked like 4 huge swimming pools. Our guide told us
the nuclear waste was stored in the bottom of each of those pools of
water. They would prefer to store it in other areas but environmentalists
won't let them move it due to security and safety concerns. I should note
that no people have ever died as a result of the nuclear waste stored in
our county.
Jason

 

Some people say the same things about Crown vic Interceptors.

Its not that i'm 'too young' its that 'i'm not american'.

howeve, the relevence is valid. rear-based lithium batteries end up
with a crash situation similar to that of the pinto. The problem,
however, is that the battries are an electrical medium, a spark i
likely - a lot moreso that a mechanically generated spark around a gas
tank.

 

They are quantifyable by risk, likelyhood, ability to contain, size,
quantity of fuel, combustion level, etc.

If one type scores significantly worse than the others in these
'ratings' then its clear they're worse. Thats common sense.

Yes, emergency workers are practiced at toxic chemical spills -
they're called 'hazmat workers'. I got some time in with a unit based
in the Bay area a few years back. Their training and equipment is a
long way from your common or garden variety firefighter.

I live in a medium-size town in rural Georgia. Theres a US highway or
two here, an interstate not far away, the Atlanta Motor Speedway is
just up the road, and yet i gave a friend of mine a call about 5
minutes ago over at the fire department - They can deal with nickle
and lead based hybrids, but not lithium. That would require equipment
from either Atlanta, Macon or Columbus. This is after its discovered
of course, and as you well know, water based extinguishants can not,
and should not be used.

By contrast, hydrogen fires tend to be very quick, and explosive IF
ignited, the quickest, and easiest way to deal with a hydrogen fire is
dispursement, dissipating it so that it doesn't ahve the ability to
make a sustained combustion (I'm sure you all remmeber about filling
test tubes with hydrogen at school, then lighting them for their
'squeaky pop' and also that if you didn't contain it right, it'd not
fire as it would have spread)

Besides, going back to the point of the article, someone retrofitted.
Since the vehicle is not instantly identifyable, or recognisable as
cominaing lithium based batteries(of whatever condition) whats
stopping the local responding tender using a water, or water-based
extinguishant to dampen down, and attempt to reduce the probability of
a conflagration. Hell, if the accident happens in the rain, or with
snow around.
water + lithium (or any group 1 metal for that matter) = BAD

Let me also regale a little story, of an old chemistry teacher i once
had, and how she was fired. It explains this very point.

She was working, preparing an experiment for what would in the US be a
first or second year college class. She was making some magnesium
oxide for analysis by the class. A piece of the ribbon she was burning
fell off her tongs, and near the other pieces she'd prepped (the big
jar was locked back up in the storeroom) and in her 'panic' she swiped
them, with her gloved hand, into the sink, and started the water. The
resulting back destroyed half the bench (benches in those classrooms
had sinks every 4 ft). Thaknfully, it was pre-lesson prep, but the
classroom was out of action for 3 months. Magnesium is a lot less
reactive than lithium is, and that was maybe 2oz of mag strips. She
got fired for not only leaving the mag out, but for tossing it in the
sink, with the water instead of using a piece of aluminium foil to
smother it (Magnesium burns in strips, only because it doesn't have
the heat taken away, something like a dinnerplate isn't flamable, as
it would never stay hot enough to continue combustion)
Think about it.

about as often as a gas tank does. They can rupture sometimes due to
their own heat, or from impact/shock damage. A lot of the model
aircraft that have caught fire or exploded had few metal parts, and
impacted the flat, penetrative-object free rgound. A car is not shaped
like a brick wall, with uniform density.

 

Chemical or other types of plants are MORE dangerous to people than nuclear
power plants. More people die from petro or coal production than from
nuclear power generation.

 

Of course. The point is people are so fearful of nuclear plants and waste
that we know exactly how to detect and secure while they wallow in toxics of
all natures and hardly complain at all. You try to clean up the mess of
chemicals in Lousiana, Houston and dozens of other areas that are highly
industrialized and let us know how far you get. Also, see if you can build
a cheap detector to identify the presence of any of the hundreds of
hazardous compounds the plants emit. You don't even know what to look for.
With nuclear we know exactly what to look for and how to secure it. I'd
rather deal with a known than an unknown.

By comparison to fossil fuel plants, nuclear is exceptionally clean and
safe.

Leonard

 

Those at either extreme of most issues lack common sense and intelectual
honesty.

Leonard

 

(Jason) wrote in

Those are less than the same concerns for on-site storage.
More sites that have better chances of being attacked or burgled.

The "environmentalists" and NIMBY's actually are decreasing the country's
security by opposing Yucca Mtn.They also harm the environment more by
opposing nuclear power generation,thus using more carbon-based fuels that
have far worse effects on the environment.

Yes,environmentalists would rather more people die from mining coal or
producing petroleum,along with the negative health effects on citizens in
using those products all across the country.

 

no, not neutrinos. they are notoriously hard to detect - you'd have to
sit there and stare through billions of all the other alpha, beta &
gamma traces that you /can/ see before you had any chance of seeing a
neutrino reaction.

which is true, and directly contradictory with your previous statement!

 

Leonard,
I agree with you. The environionmentalists (sp??) in California are
preventing loggers from thinning out the forests by cutting down the
largest trees and brush and leaving behind the smaller trees. The end
result are forest fires that destroy the entire forest. They won't even
allow the forest service workers to build fire roads into the forests. I
care about the environment but I agree with the loggers and forest
service. It's better to manage the forests instead of waiting for the
forests to be destroyed by forest fires. I also agree that nuclear power
plants are safer for the environment than power plants that burn fossil
fuels. I feel sorry for anyone that lives near one of those power plants.
Jason

 

Not true, they BARELY interact. but there's a huge number of them
passing through us every second. Bubble chambers are heavily shielded,
sealed high pressure water chambers. The aim is neutrenos sometimes
'interact' and on a body of water, but which has no flash point, to
produce the bubbles. when a neutreno enters the chamber, and
'interacts' it produces a point for bubbles to form. (like the rough
surfaces on the bottom of a pan produce the spots for bubbles to forum
when the water approaches boiling.

 

and the proportion of neutrino reactions to alpha, beta & gamma is???

some research facilities may be, but not many of us get to press our
noses against that kind of glass. normal mortals get to see the science
museum bubble chamber of low pressure alcohol, which is not shielded
specially so you /can/ see just how many of the other reactions there are.

flash point????????????

the pressure of the fluid is critically low in comparison to boiling
point so any [reacting] passing particle leaves a "vapor trail" of local
phase transition. but again, this talk in relation to the number of
neutrino reactions you'll ever see is just nuts, because you'll probably
never see one!