> *induced* fission

Engineers commonly use fission to refer to induced fission and decay to refer to spontaneous decay. I was merely commenting because AK Marc is (self-admittedly) using dictionary definitions and not the definitions that engineers use. The goal of my comment to was clarify what engineers mean when the say fission.

Nuclear Engineering (student) here.

>The decay was an atom splitting into two smaller atoms and energy, which is fission.

Fission in the context of engineering refers to the use of neutrons to force atoms to split, not to naturally decaying isotopes.

>The question was of why would fukishima need active cooling when passive cooling is so "easy" to do.

Because it wasn't designed to use passive cooling. Passive cooling requires your reactor to be designed to facilitate it (all gen 3+ are designed like thisâ"I believe the NRC refuses to certify anything that is nonpassive). Passive cooling refers to not requiring power to run the coolant pumps or anything. The AP1000 is designed to using convection of steam inside the containment building to cool the reactor.

I do like FORTRAN77.

That analogy makes no sense.

If you are limiting the owner's bandwidth it is stealing. The "stealing" analogy only applies to everything beyond to router. Which if the owner pays by the (giga)byte does remove resources he paid for.

If you get a way to search through the ssids, yes. Think of the free internet possibilities. No longer does there need to be one technologically challenged person on your street, no you just need one in the city.

Joking obviously. Don't steal wifi; it messes up the owner's ability to stream porn.

Joke all you want. But a group in one of my engineering classes did this and we were received better than the group that did: .00something watts.

I guess marketing is easy.

The Shimane Nuclear Power Plant is a Boiling water reactor. This means it has two water loops in it. One is boiled by the reactor and turns a turbine. A second (probably from the sea in this case) is used to condense that steam and recycle it through the reactor. For any heat based power generation you need a final heat sink, usually the atmosphere (cooling towers) or a body of water for nuclear power plants; coal plants usually have an entirely open system and just go water source to air.

Most of Japan uses BWRs. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Boiling_Water_Reactor

(I am a Nuclear Engineering Student)