That's one of the benefits of a LFTR reactor; they don't HAVE to be giant plants that costs billions to build. They are far more scalable, so you can build more, smaller plants and put them where you need them to support the grid. That also has the benefit of not having to completely overhaul our woefully insufficient power grid. We could easily build massive solar plants in the desert out west to generate all the power we'd need.. but how the hell do you get it where you need it? The further you have to send power down a line, the more losses you get.

Umm, wrong there skippy. You do NOT need huge amounts of water cooling. No cooling towers needed at all. The whole system runs at a much higher temp altogether, that's part of the design issues we have to address when building a LFTR. Current steam generators use a very 'low quality' steam to extract energy to convert to electricity. A LFTR runs bets several times hotter than a LWR. The turbines for a LFTR would be immensely smaller and more efficient than the ones used in current reactor generators and you don't have the need to use that water as cooling for the core. One of the primary advantages of a LFTR is the efficiency of the design and the extreme hot temps it runs at. A 'byproduct' of LFTR would be the ability to use all that heat to do interesting things like make clean water from salt water, making fuel from captured CO2 in the air etc etc. A LFTR plant could at one location make electricity, butanol (for cars) and a methanol alternative for diesel vehicles (both of which are practically drop in replacements for gasoline and diesel btw, no blending or other issues like alcohol) AND make clean water.

Wow man, chicken little much? Yes a liquid sodium reactor would react in a very violent way to a water intrusion... but the whole system isn't PRESSURIZED. The byproducts of a LFTR reactor are orders of magnitude LESS radioactive than the byproducts of a LWR, and ALL the fuel is used. None of it is left to lanquish in your vaunted zirconium steel (which by the way, are cracked and fissured by end of life due to the temp and flux in the core). The whole concept of the LFTR is it's 'safe mode' is to freeze like you intimate. You simply heat it back up to unplug the channels. The chemical separation portion of the reactor is a fairly simple and non-complex affair, unlike the current enrichment facilities for uranium processing and could easily be managed by a small group of chemists at about the level of complexity used to make freaking beer. There's also NO possibility of a 'china syndrome', and it can't go BOOM no matter what you do. If Fukishima had been an LFTR reactor we would never have even heard about it, because when the power went out, the freeze plug would melt and the entire contents of the core would have drained into the safety tank and cooled into a solid. When they were ready, you just heat it back up and start pumping again. Hell, even the quantity of reactants in the core at any one time is miniscule compared to a LWR, so even if there WERE a catastrophic event and the fissionables were released they effect would be marginal compared to the radioactive MESS you have with a plant like Fukishima. Bottom line man.. they freaking guy that owned the patent (read that as the acclaimed inventor of) nuclear power said LFTR was far better, both in efficiency and safety. And that was with 1950's tech. I imagine we could do a bit better now.

The fine imposed after all this, including court fees is so out of scope she really didn't have any choice but to take all the way to SCOTUS. Regardless of which side you land on the argument of her guilt you have to admit the damages in this case are usurious and ridiculous. It's time 'our' government stood up and actually represented the people, not the faceless corporate entities. I say faceless in this case specifically since RIAA was formed specifically to prosecute cases like this w/out bleeding bad publicity directly onto the recording industry giants it represents. It's interesting isn't it? The corporations have the same legal rights as a person (huge mistake IMO) and then do EVERYTHING possible to obfuscate their actions. Meanwhile people fighting back against their tyranny form groups with a public face (like ANONYMOUS) to shield their identities and are branded criminals for it. Makes you wonder who the real bad guys are.....

clip from online article regarding this intercooler:
But its success depends on the Sabre engine's ability to manage the very hot air entering its intakes at high speed.
These gases have to be cooled prior to being compressed and burnt with the onboard hydrogen.

Skylon would do the job of a big rocket but operate like an airliner from a conventional runway
REL's solution is a module containing arrays of extremely fine piping that can extract the heat and plunge the inrushing air to about -140C in just 1/100th of a second.

Ordinarily, the moisture in the air would be expected to freeze out rapidly, covering the piping in a blanket of frost and dislocating their operation.

But the company's engineers have also devised a means to control the frosting, permitting the Sabre engine to run in jet mode for as long as is needed before making the transition to full rocket mode to take the Skylon spaceplane into orbit.

It is the innovative helium cooling loop with its pre-cooler heat-exchanger that REL has been validating on an experimental rig.

"We completed the programme by getting down to -150C, running for 10 minutes," said Mr Bond. "We've demonstrated that the pre-cooler is behaving absolutely as predicted."

Ahh, don't worry about it. First time you pull the nerdy arrogance around 'norms' and get your butt kicked or stuffed into a trash can you'll figure it out. Either that, or you'll spend a lot of time walking around with pre-torn underpants to prevent atomic wedgies.

Actually, I agree with his statement to a degree. Recently I had a Jehova's Witness bang on my door trying to peddle her wares. When I politely told her that I was Atheist she took that statement w/out a beat and immediately came out with a pamphlet SPECIFICALLY for self-professed atheists. She also had an entire set of pre-arranged arguments regarding atheism and morality. I was a bit taken aback. I think that the religions of the world are taking notice to their shrinking congregations and are going on the attack to stem the loss of money in their coffers. Even 30 or 40 years ago, although you wouldn't immediately be stoned for professing your lack of religion 'we' were most definitely a backwater. Now Reasoning people are far more numerous and far more vocal about their views. 30 years ago I could NOT have told my parents I was atheist; now we have rather heated discussions on the topic, when we aren't smart enough to avoid the subject. :)

I had no idea we had any senators left that could think for themselves.. unless of course this is another 'I need more money to keep quiet' kind of thing. You can be sure MAFIAA has 'contacted' his office with all the noise he's making that sure to cost them billions. Regardless I find it heartening to see something actually being done FOR us in gov't instead of TO us, or AGAINST us. Us being 'those of them that are not on a BOD raping profits from individuals'.

Diablo was the game I introduced my son to computer games, and he's a huge fan of the series. He's 20 now, but he and I still like to get together and play games once in a while. He's 20 now but still living at home so he can finish his degree and I was looking forward to playing this OFFLINE with him, together. Neither of us ever really got into the online BS. Sure, there are some games we play online but invariably we both find the part we dislike the most is having to deal with the e-p33n jackasses online. I really don't feel the need to stroke someones ego because they completed the game 27 times before it hit retail and can do most of the levels while pulling their pud and watching kiddie pr0n. My son might very well buy it, but if I have to be connected to play, I may very well pass until it's cracked/hacked etc. the game devs have every right to screw up their product any way they see fit.. and I have every right to not buy their crap if I don't like it.

It's absurdly simple people. They care about tethering because it's another 'service' they can charge for. If you're doing it for free, they can't make a big deal out of it and charge 30, 40 or even 50 bucks a person to DO it. Your average Joe doesn't understand the 'magic smoke' in the phone that lets them surf the internet from their phone. That ignorance allows the carriers to act like it's a big deal and charge extra for it. Same thing with text messaging. There was never a financial or technical burden to provide the service; it was simply another way they could make money from the ignorance of their customers. I don't blame the cell phone carriers, not really. Any corporation is a completely amoral entity. It's like blaming a bee for stinging. They are DESIGNED and CREATED to make money and any way they can do that is justified. Oversight, regulation and protecting the citizens is the job of Government. Too bad we've allowed our government (in the US) to be bought and sold by the corporations so they have no interest in doing the job they were elected to do....

I saw it yesterday and thought it was pretty good overall, regardless of my 'room temperature IQ' as some posted. The only really 'BAD' guy in the film is the one ape handler, and I didn't think he was really over the top either. The next door neighbor I kind of felt sorry for; poor bastard reacted pretty much the way most people would I think. The one thing that irritated me a A LOT was the typical Hollywood 'I want a really cool shot where apes are flying through the air!' so they did... chimpanzees flying through plate glass windows stories above the ground and acting like it was nothing. That, and the inconsistency with the size of the chimps. Golly, I didn't know that if a chimp stood up like a MAN it would auto-magically grow about a foot... aka Cesar looking eye to eye with his 'father'. That, and the aerobatics Cesar was able to perform while running through the house. Unnecessarily over the top. Oh, and in typical fashion once the miracle drug was administered to the apes at large, they were all able to organize and become a cohesive fighting unit instantaneously and be able to communicate perfectly.... all within a day.

I know I got ticketed last year in TN by the lovely racketeering machine known as the Tennessee State Police while I was riding down The Dragon. He pulled me over for speeding (which I was guilty of, but they had it set up like a speed trap, 25 mph on a road in the middle of nowhere..) but he gave me a lecture about my helmet and told me 'we don't like that language down here boy' when he read my helmet sticker. It says 'Fuck all Ya'll" in rather bold letters. I would not have put a sticker like that on my helmet of my own volition, but a very pretty girl bought it for me because I played bodyguard for her while she went skinny dipping. What's a guy to do? Anyways, she thought 'ya'll' was humorous, since she's from Mass. I almost smarted off the the gestapp... I mean TSP and said' hell, I thought YA'LL invented it!"

Absolutely beautifully stated sir! I was trying to frame a retort to this obvious pandering to the politically correct when I read your post and saw that you addressed it masterfully. Well done. Ugly things have happened in the formation of our country. They happened. If you aren't aware of those things, then you can't own up to them and prevent them from ever happening again. I thing the teachers should explain that some of the content in the book is inappropriate for use in todays society, but in THAT time period it was not only acceptable it was expected. That alone should bring home the fact that we ARE better today than we were then, discounting the 'Sons of the South' that still act and speak as if slavery had never been repealed.

I just don't get why the Brits aren't more upset at the establishment 'keeping any eye' on them 24/7. Its already been proven that given the # of laws on the books NO-ONE can avoid committing an infraction against the law. A camera system that extensive means the gov't has the ability or at least the means to prosecute just about everyone in the country. Not to mention that treating everyone in the country as lawbreakers would do nothing more than enforce bad behavior, or at least anti-social behavior. I would think everyone would be walking around with Anonymous masks in public just to keep the illusion of privacy... or is anonymity illegal too?

This is so outrageous I can't even begin to enumerate why. Cops have cameras in their cars for traffic stops.. I damn sure didn't agree to THAT video being taken....I live in Lancaster county, and all of downtown is now under video surveillance, and I DAMN sure didn't agree to that. By this screwed up interpretation, every single day thousands of 'violations' occur, every time someone shoots a frame of film with a police officer in it. I do feel for the officers on duty, they have an almost impossible job to perform, but that does not exempt them from the same rules that govern the rest of us. This is just one more way a perfectly law-abiding citizen can end up in trouble with the law by doing absolutely nothing wrong. I would imagine the paparazzi are shaking in their boots, I don't think ANY of the shots they take were done w/ the permission of the celebrities they hound. The possible abuses of this kind of interpretation are endless....