Get rid of the far right and left, and fund new reactors. And yes, it is the far right that is blocking this as well.

lets get mPower from B&W, TransAtomic, and Flibe funded and building new reactors.
In particular, mPower can have their first reactor ready in under 5 years. We should provide them a contract for 10 reactors which are then put in place in CA for water distillation, along with electricity.
Then Transatomic and Flibe will take a while to get ready, but they are IDEAL for putting on-site at the old reactors, and burning up the 'waste' fuel. And it would allow the old reactors to be taken down slowly, with the profits from the new reactors.

By all means do not remove the old 'waste'. Leave it there. Instead, ship a unit on a grain that is designed to reprocess the waste into fuel for transatomic and flibe.

Also graphite lubricated tubes - not a good idea, as graphite is a moderator, and mess ups in slight thickness may throw the whole reactor into uncertain territory, where moderation speeds up the nondepleted U235 reaction - a good idea would be to have only depleted uranium and thorium, and no U235 fuel.

So an ideal high temperature lubricant then is obviously MoS2, molybdenum disulfide, which does not moderate, from that standpoint, but at 1500C high temperature might be too much and might degrade, compared to graphite that only absorbs into the metal as carbide, but then it might glue and cement the rods to the tube walls via cementation. If both the fuel rods and the tube material have a lot of molybdenum content, MoS2 might be stable and not degrade to monosulfide, unless that one has lubrication properties too. It's very important to be able to slide long fuel rods in and out easily without them being stuck from thermal expansion and distortion and the like, for SCRAM shutdown purposes.

So maybe gallium on the other side could be the "heat sink thermal grease" to conduct heat between the fuel rod and the metal wall, assuming the structural material is already designed to resist gallium metal corrosion anyway on the other side. Also with liquid gallium you could have a huge gap between the tube wall and the actual fuel rod, also encapsulated into the structural material, to where huge thermal expansions and deformations can be tolerated, and the fuel rod does not get stuck, or even if it does, the other ones don't get stuck, and meltdown runaways are easy to shut down by fast removal of fuel to widely spaced distnaces - i.e. remove one rod just outside the reactor, remove another 10 yards away, etc. spread them all over the plant floor and air space widely separated from each other, preferably in a silicon or silicate like concrete neutron shield between them. This wide separation if left in free air mandatory, so critical mass is not attained, as inside the reactor the 2.9x cross section of liquid gallium does kill a lot of neutrons compared to free air, and if there is a total gallium loss, it should be replaced by having enough inventory of (cadmium no good because it's vapor at 1500C), or silicon(no good, it melts at 1410 leaving only) or boron (mp 2300C) control rods with maybe gadolinium as option (no good, melts at 1310, but might be a good option suddenly flood and kill the reactor with gadolinum balls (in case temp under 1310 melting point) shortstop, while the fuel rods get wiggled out, giving plenty of time to think, even weeks, then have the electric oven heat the reactor to above melting of 1310 and the gadolinium pumped out.) In case there is a leak that caused the gallium loss, and would cause a similar loss in gadolinium liquid, boron balls might not leak so fast, unless the gaping hole is too huge, in which case gaseous cadmium or halogens might help, but it's better if there is a way to insert iridium plates between sections of fuel rods, which does not melt at very high temperature, it's safe in air oxygen at high temperature, and has a decently high neutron cross section of 425, compared to 2450 for Cd and 755 for boron, as even boron might ignite and melt as boron oxide. Some kind of standard way or suddenly ripping apart the whole reactor assembly under total loss of gallum coolant, and separating it into say 3 or 4 or more guaranteed subcritical sections suspended in mid air with iridium plates inserted between them, or if in open air anyway, thick (silicon neutron absorbent containing) concrete plates might be a good idea, as inserting anything into a half meltdown reactor, such as a control rod, when the path and hole for it is deformed from the thermal meltdown, is not guaranteed to work, but if it has engineered weak spots for sudden ripping apart and separating the whole thing into small pieces, that might be easier to guarantee to work.
Of course nothing beats proper containment, and you're talking huge containment backing up huge containment, box in a box in a box, with cooling and neutron absorption capacity available to where seawater or lake water or river does not have to be used close to the radiactive zones, but the containment heat conducting buffer is able to take the heat away, without boiling off. A gallium pool shines again, as it's highly thermally conductive being a metal, but tin is cheaper, and lead might be a cheap option too, but lead boils lower than tin. Adding cadmium to the pool might be an option even if it boils off, as by boiling it cools, and it does not travel far away from the site to pollute the environment, but precipitates back out as metal, or oxide. Having a controlled meltdown that's able to sit at say 1000C and efficiently transfer heat through a gallium pool conduction, even directly to the atmosphere under such 1000C-room temperature gradients, would allow not having to use ocean water as a coolant like they had to at Fukushima. I just thought of it though, the issue with gallium is that it oxidizes in air to gallium oxide, and you cannot guarantee a nitrogen blanket atmosphere under conditions of a catastrophe, where things are blown away, whether from a tsunami or whatever reason. So the high conducting liquid cannot be a material that reacts with air, and then the cheapest option is silver micro-balls mixed in different particle sizes so better space filling and contact, as the other options - gold being too expensive as a coolant pool, and platinum palladium and the like too high a melting point, also expensive - that react with oxygen air and stay as metallic heat conductors, are too expensive.

"and also the note, the picture on how U235 cross section" is at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... half down the page with the image so titled.

The issue with gas coolant is the low thermal capacity and conductivity and requiring fast flows - just think of your car radiator, what it looks like, and why it needs a fan. And with fast flows you can get uneven velocity distribution, and pockets of local overheating or local meltdown - something that does not happen in a car radiator because you have a maximum highest incoming temperature, but in a gas cooled reactor, such as stacked balls, temperatures can get locally very high to where the whole stack shifts and moves and makes flow distribution even worse. Such a shift in an advanced gas reactor was what prompted the Germans to completely cancel their nuclear research. Now there might be ways to help the issue, I just thought of it yesterday. Instead of a pyramid of stack balls dependent on all others to be in place, and not move, you could have heat exchanger like tube-banks or fuel rod banks that are securely fastened at the two ends, fighting any kind of shift of the whole mass, even if one bar individually overheats a lot, it does not push the other ones out of their position, even if it melts, because of the clearance gap between them being large enough to allow a lot of flexure. Now as something overheats locally, because of uneven flow and heat exhcange rate, it should have lower density, but when you're dealing with light helium (which is not an idea coolant for breeder or fast neutron reactors because it moderates), the variation in density, and buoyant force from that density is very low. So you need something that's very high molecular weight yet has good neutron cross section, for both non-moderation reasons and for buoyancy reasons. For the available options on neutron cross section, see
http://periodictable.com/Prope...
http://periodictable.com/Prope...
and also the note, the picture on how U235 cross section varies with neutron temperature or velocity, and fast neutronss are not as effective at splitting it as moderated slow neutrons, cross section depends on velocity, for reasons that we do not understand, or at least I don't. These cross section numbers are all experimental because we don't have a good understanding of the atomic nucleus, for instance there is probably no theory of the atomic nucleus that would explain why (gadolinium, promethium, samarium) cadmium, boron, silicon and hafnium would have a high cross section, but oxygen, beryllium, magnesium, bismuth, lead, zirconium(best construction material if hafnium free), aluminum and iron have low or decent cross section.
In this respect CO2 looks like an ideal candidate, however it's a molecule, a combination of elemental atoms, not just atoms, and when you get a fast neutron coming at it at high velocity, it may form CO + O, and C + O2, and it may char, however if the temperature is high enough, say over 800C in the reaction zone, this would automatically combust back to CO2, so it might take the beating. However the C at 12 molecular weight is still a moderator, somewhat, not as good as helium 4 or water with hydrogen at 1, but better than sodium coolant for instance. For a fast neutron breeder reactor you want a really bad moderator, that keeps the neutrons unmoderated, and fast, able to attack and breed from fertile but otherwise nonfissile materials, like depleted U238, or thorium(which is realtively abundant and cheap.) Not too many things are gaseous at high temperature, yet have a huge molecular weight, and noble gases pretty much top the cake at gaseousness, inertness, and high molecular or atomic weight and nonmoderation. But the heavier gases like Krypton and Xenon, also have a bad high cross section, but Argon, silimar in molecular weight to sodium, is similar to cross section to sodium, and it's relatively abundant and cheap. Sulfur hexafluoride might be even better, as the sulfur is about the same as sodium and argon, but the fluoride is really awesome, however you get the moderation from fluorine then, not the sulfur or sulfur hexafluoride. In a sense what is the lowest atomic weight element in your coolant gas that you can afford that's still a gas in the compound at operating temperature, but does not have a high neutron cross section. So oxides and fluorides are preferably out, but sulfur might be OK, as long as the fuel rods are sulfides(with mechanical strength and integrity issues there), and it may be preferable to phosphorous, which is hell like sodium when it leaks, and highly toxic in the solid white form. None of the higher halogens are usable, neither is mercury vapor, but zinc vapor might be OK. Not that these boiling points of sulfur 445C, (phosphorous 280C), and zinc 907 are extremely high, there would have to be a secondary circuit heat exchanger and heat engine maintained at that very high temperature so that the stuff does not solidify and plug up, before a bottoming cycle based on say sodium or mercury (which is OK outside the high neutron density reactor), which also have a bottoming cycle with steam. You would basically create a nuclear pile of sulfide rods fastened at the end with sufficient gap between them to allow for thermal flexing and expansion, filled with solid or glassy amorphous sulfur, and wait for the sulfur to boil off at 445C throughout the mix, and start up your "sulfur gas steam" going to your high temperature heat engine piston, or turbine. Localized melt down would not affect the whole pile - hopefully :) - if your rods are fastened well, are mechanically strong, and the molten sulfur+gas sulfur is sufficiently conductive. Zinc might be too high a boiling point for available material strength and corrosion resistance to zinc, at 900C, but would get awesome thermal conductivity in the solid and molten phase, to kill local meltdowns.
In case we talk about a non-gas reactor, just regular fast neutron coolant liquid, I think the russians, with their lead-bismuth eutectic missed out on gallium big time, also on tin, and gallium-tin eutectics, each of which have decent cross section, bad, but not that bad, and safety concerns that beat liquid sodium, and melting points and toxicity safety concerns that beat lead and bismuth (I don't really know gallium toxicity, if there is any.) Gallium has a melting point under the temperature of a human body, room temperature, and it stays liquid to 2400 C, so it seems like a super-ideal material in fast neutron breeder type nuclear applications, because it can be used to keep the fastened at both ends nuclear fuel rods safely from localized meltdown at super high temperatures, it's easy to thaw frozen lines, if it spills on the operators as a room temperature liquid they can just shake it off, it's not that toxic, and its neutron absorption probably gives germanium, which is also good on cross section - but the actual isotopes created may not be, and gallium that does absorb neutrons might create some germanium and arsenic isotopes that are actually neutron poisons, even if both germanium and arsenic natural isotopes are not. I wonder if this area has been researched. But to look for available options on coolant, go to http://www.science.co.il/PTele... sort the table by melting point, scroll down to near the area of mercury, gallium, potassium and sodium, and scroll up from there, while checking the candidates at http://periodictable.com/Prope.... It is important to have a low melting point of any coolant, that in worst case scenario has to be heated with an external torch in sections where there is no nuclear heat generated. So here is an idea of a thorium/uranium238/plutonium breeder/fast neutron combustor:

Make long fuel rods similar to heat exchanger tube banks, that are fastened at ends, and also have intermediate pillar fasteners that let the rods slide a bit, just like it's common in heat exchanger design, except you're dealing with solid rods not tubes that leak.

Find vessel materials able with high mechanical strength, low neutron cross section, able to withstand liquid gallium+zinc eutectic at above boiling point, say at say 1500 C zinc vapor temperature. Zirconium is pretty much the only option, with the exception of zirconium/magnesium oxide, zirconium/zirconium oxide, zirconium/zirconium carbide, zirconium/zirconium fluoride composites and surface coatings left behind after the etch that might help not dissolve zirconium into the gallium as an alloy. This nuclear metal steam boiler structural material constraint is the strongest, zirconium being the main choice at x0.184 cross section, and 1852C melting which is low, as none of the other hight temperature good stuff, like rhenium(x90), or tungsten(x18.4), able to take high neutron doses, with the exception of Niobium x1.15/2468C, Molybdenum x2.6/2617C, Ruthenium x2.6/2250C, which probably should be used, as carbide, oxide, fluoride cermets that are able to withstand corrosion from liquid gallium and zinc vapor at 1500C and high "metal steam" pressure.

Have a high 1500C temperature Carnot cycle heat engine (piston or turbine) enclosed in an electric oven that guarantees that temperatures never fall under the boiling point of zinc 907C, but definitely not under the 420C melting point, the heat engine materials made out of gallium/zinc corrosion resistant materials, and if you're away from the high neutron flux regions, your options of structural materials for pistons and turbine blades widen, including tungsten, rhenium, tantalum and osmium and the like, carbides, etc. The choice for zinc is that it is low boiling metal with a low neutron cross section, better than sodium, potassium and magnesium (each of which boil lower) when it comes to safety of explosions and leaks onto the backs of operators (of course you can still have zinc fires, and molten zinc can kill too, but once things settle down and you have a puddle of solid zinc and zinc oxide after a catastrophy, you can pick it up with bare hands, unlike sodium and potassium, hydroxide, magnesium is also good (especially on the neutron cross section aspect), touch the metal and the oxide it with bare hands, but it's an extreme fire hazard even in a solid block form compared to zinc, so as long as you can afford a huge reactor with acceptable neutron economics due the the zinc cross section absorption, zinc is preferable to magnesium on safety, melting point and boiling point, but if your neutron economics dictate you might have to switch to magnesium vapor instead (639C mp, 1090C bp), which however is very corrosive to things like molybdenum oxide or fluoride cermets, compared to zinc(420C mp/907C bp), but it would leave the carbides alone. Once you have to deal with magnesium vapor though, you might as well put up with sodium and potassium, which beat even zinc on melting point and boiling point, but leaks are hell, including the cleanup of caustic leftovers after a catastrophe.

This high temperature cycle should bottom out with another high boiling stuff, able to "raise steam" under 907 C, and this includes choices like mercury -39C mp/357C bp (toxic and not very abundant so very expensive, and you cannot afford leaks and explosions, though safety wise during an accident it beats a liquid sodium or potassium spray), sulfur 113C mp/445C bp, which with the 113 mp that's close to steam, might be a good choice, but the bp difference between 445 and 907 requires huge "sulfur-steam" boiler operating pressures, and something like potassium might be a lot milder on material constraints. Note that no organic materials like liquids or gases are usable above 600C in any application as they universally char to graphite, except methane, and the like, which however don't have a decent near room temperature liquid phase, as room temperature is the lowest available heat rejection temperature to the environment, and your final bottoming cycle working fluid, like steam, has to be liquid at room temperature, and all the other topping cycles have to be liquid at room temperature to very well above it, near the top of their cycle where they are performing a bottoming to another even higher temperature cycle, the closer the boiling point the lower the required operating pressure.

So as a summary, a good nuclear reactor design able to do breeding/fast neutrons by absence of moderators:
:
1. Molybdenum/Niobium metal+carbide/oxide/fluoride cermet structural material reactor.

2. Suitable nuclear fuel rods (metal with carbide, oxide or fluoride cermets as rods might work, or individual encapsulation into the structural material - in fact you could have graphite lubricated tubes where you can insert and pull the fuel, and the structural material holds back the working fluid, so direct contact may not be necessary, also allowing for SCRAM shutdowns by quick removal of the fuel rods) of great length fastened and suspended in a tube-bank heat exchanger fashion, with pillars in between, able to take localized thermal meltdown and deformation without affecting the whole nuclear pile and it's heat exchanging abilities - unlike a pebble bed reactor that shifts and collapses and melts in localized zones.

3. Use a gallium liquid drench for all the fuel rods, out of which boils the top temperature working fluid, zinc being preferred, but magnesium and sodium considered as options.

4. Enclose top cycle heat engine (piston or turbine) in an electric oven that can be guaranteed to keep everything at above 907 for zinc. (Sort of like an external torch that does work, unlike the jerry-rigged portable ones the russians are stuck using on their submarines.) Use a bottoming fluid like sulfur or potassium for the 2nd stage.

5. Enclose 2nd stage in a similar electric box guaranteeing 445C for sulfur, or 100C for potassium.

6. Use ultra high pressure steam raising at 445C as 3rd and final stage, or insert yet another working fluid for 4 stages between steam and sulfur (and the options, including organic materials become greater.)

Under such circumstances, the theoretical Carnot cycle efficiency numbers would be 1-T2/T1, in Kelvins, so for 1500C zinc vapor pressures that would be 1- (100C+273C steam)/(1500C+273C zinc)=1-373/1773=1-0.21=0.79%, compared to the present 10% with steam only, using less than 1% of the total uranium 235, and throwing away the 99% usable U238 waste, that a huge scale breeder reactor would be able to burn and utilize. Of course that 80% is theoretical, and you may end up with 45% which would be an amazingly good number, but the higher the efficiency, the less the waste cooling capacity required also, and if you could get 100% efficiency, you could not tell a nuclear power plant from a distance because there would be no external heat exchange, and no cloud plume rising into the sky. Every time you see that cloud plume from a nuclear power plant, that's waste heat, and the higher you are able to push your top operating temperature though material selection like molybdenum and niobium cermets, the less the waste heat.

Yeah.

Dandelions, or Taraxacum officinale, has a white sap, and it taste bitter, but it's not that toxic. They have a modification, a breed, where they make rubber out of the milky latex, as the regular wild type has low latex content. They are gonna make tires of it, just like from the white sap that exudes from rubber trees, natural rubber latex. Natural rubber is mostly inert, it passes through you, not that toxic - just chew and swallow a latex glove which is processed natural latex into a solid form - though some people are allergic to it. I bet there are tons of things where the sap is clear and are toxic, as clarity is dependent on the suspension of insolubles, mostly latex-like rubber particles, and if the toxin is soluble, then it can be deadly yet the sap clear. True that a lot of toxins in nature are extremely complex, and mostly insoluble in water - snake poison for instance is white too. But it all depends on the makeup, and if it has enough hydrophilic groups, it may be soluble at very high molecular weight.

Forsooth, art Thou an employee, or out
      unhired; Fie! dost Thou be management?

Whatever. His conduct and his statements were not that of a reasonable person. It's one thing to argue against violence in video games but his tirades includes personal attacks on everyone. For example when Thompson reneged on a $10,000 donation to charity, Penny Arcade emailed him about it and called him out on his hypocrisy. So they donated the money themselves as Thompson said he wouldn't do it. Thompson then sent a complaint to the Seattle police to arrest the members for "extortion".

Actually, Jack Thompson is the worst person that the movement could use as a spokesperson.

Yes, it is far better to be like Europe where they simply pay the terrorists a ransom, ignoring the fact that it continues to rise and fund the terrorism.

That's some revisionist history there. Jack Thompson wasn't run out of town because he opposed violent games. He was run out of the legal profession because his conduct was unprofessional, uncivil, and harassing towards opposing counsel and judges. He made unsubstantiated claims against others, outright lies, and never responded to questions asked by courts.

For example, in Strickland v Sony, he was granted temporary permission to practice law (pro hac vice) in Alabama as his licensed state is Florida. Normally this is a procedural formality when a lawyer wants to take on a case in another state. Part of the pro hac vice application to the Alabama Bar specifically asks if the lawyer has had any disbarment proceedings (question 8) and any suspension proceedings (question 9) and to list them. Thompson responded "None, but please see the attached letter" to both. In the attached letter, Thompson described how he had been reprimanded 13 years earlier. Thompson however failed to mention that the case 13 years ago involved disbarment and suspension proceedings. Because of this and Thompson violated a gag order, Judge Moore revoked Thompson's pro hac vice status; he was no longer on the case. Despite being thrown off the case, Thompson continue to send emails and faxes to the court about the case for at least 2 years afterwards.

During that same case, Thompson harassed the lawyers of Blank Rome, the law firm representing Sony. Now it's one thing to oppose counsel in court but he attacked the lawyers including the gender of one of the attorneys. He also accused the law firm of participating in pornography and killing of police officers.

In an unrelated case, Thompson went after Al Cardenas, a partner in Tew Cardenas by accusing him of pornography, racketeering, and other criminal activity. What was the relationship between Cardenas and Thompson? As crazy as it sounds, almost none. Beasley Broadcasting Group owned a number of radio stations, and Thompson had issues with their programming. Normally their lawyer Norman Kent dealt with Thompson, and his dealings led to the point where Kent sued and won $50,000 from Thompson for defamation. Beasley also had Tew Cardenas on their retainer for other legal matters. Kent and Tew Cardenas had no relationship other than they represented the same company on different legal matters. Al Cardenas was a partner in Tew Cardenas but did not work the Beasley account. The attacks on Al Cardenas started one week when Norman Kent was out of town and did not respond to Thompson's letters and demands immediately.

These are the reason why Thompson was run out of the legal profession; not his stand, but his conduct.

Putin is pushing, because the West is pulling back. Some blame can be laid at Obama's feet, though I don't think anyone would want a President who went around making threats of open warfare. A lot of blame can be laid at the EU's feet, for inspiring the revolution, and then getting weak-kneed when the Russians became belligerent.

One thing is awfully clear. If you're an Eastern European nation with even a handful of ethnic Russians in your territory, you have a serious problem.

Are you an employee, unemployed or in management?

That does not matter. Threatening someone because you find their points silly or a sham is never acceptable. You missed the point.

These days the instruction set matters less than the underlying chip architecture than customization. With this, ARM has an advantage in that their business model allows for higher degree of customization. While some companies can work with Intel or AMD on their designs, for the most part, ARM allows them to change the design as much as they need depending on the licensing.