I dunno, without pirated copies of Eva and Trigun I would never have gotten into anime. I've purchased a few box sets that I would otherwise have not known about. Same is true with music. Without MP3s I would never have gotten interested in music. I dunno if I'm the norm or the exception, but in my own life pirating things has directly led to purchases that otherwise would not take place.

Some steam engines did refill by scoop. There was a long water trough that the engine would go by with its scoop out and pick up what it needed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_locomotive#Condensers_and_water_re-supply There were also engines that could only refill at water towers.

Condensing steam engines didn't catch on because there was already and infrastructure for refilling water, condensing locomotives were more expensive, and there was also the potential problem of oil in the condensate (which leads to boiler fouling). By the time the benefits started outweighing the costs we had diesel locomotives. Look at Stanley Steamers if you want more information on steam powered cars, at least one of the models was condensing.

Name one thing you know firsthand is connected to the Internet and could result in casualties if attacked. Sure banks computers could crash, sure amazon could go down, but ICBMs are not going to launch and the power grid wont go down. If anything that could actually cause casualties is connected to the Internet then it shouldn't be.

MWe = Megawatt electric

Actually when you factor the cost of both the new uranium and the old fuel disposal, reprocessing comes out way ahead.

Depending on depth it would be incredibly secure. Who is going to dive to 500ft to somehow hurt a big metal tube? How would you hurt it anyway, explosives? So we need an EOD diver/Navy seal who has extreme deepwater training, proper equipment and can find the damn thing. Yup, still secure. Also, what do you think nuclear proliferation means?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation

Nice troll though.

Great plot for a Michael Bay film, but pretty boring reality. In the unlikely (very unlikely considering the whole thing is a pressure vessel and heat sink) event of a leak to the environment the actual fallout would be minimal. Nuclear submarines have been lost before under bad circumstances and you don't see huge amounts of wildlife killed or huge amounts of contamination. Some contamination would settle out within a couple hundred feet of the leak and the rest would be diluted so quickly it would be undetectable a quarter mile away. But hey, truth never stopped a good movie plot.

Ahem. You are looking at the electrical production of submarines, not the thermal output of the reactor. Electrical production is around 10% and the main engine takes the other 90%, if you remove the main engine and substitute a huge generator set a couple hundred megawatts should be easy.

The biggest thing that can be done to reduce the bad nuclear waste is fuel reprocessing. Take spent fuel refine it and remove the poisons then re-burn it. We'd be doing it today but Carter was afraid of terrorist attacks on recycling plants, so we still recycle fuel domestically just not fuel from the US.

Not every location that needs power has a body of water that can be used as a heat sink. Some power plants have cooling lakes built just for them. Some have cooling towers for the same reason. The most efficient is to be able to use the water of a running river or ocean, but they aren't always availible. Note that this is not just nuclear power plants but fossil fuel as well.

Well there are some benefits. It's inherently secure against nuclear proliferation or terrorist attack. It is likely to be much safer in an nuclear accident because it is surrounded by a almost limitless heatsink, also because it's surrounded by water it doesn't need anywhere near as much shielding. That's where the benefits end though. It will be completely automated which has been a disaster before in the nuclear industry, it will need to be removed for any maintenance, and it will be transmitting power underwater for extended distances which leads to high losses. Might be cost effective, but it's doubtful. The navy doesn't use nuclear reactors on aircraft carriers and subs because it's cheaper they do it because those ships don't have to refuel or use air for the engines. This looks like a similar pipe dream to the buried reactor design that's supposed to supply neighborhoods with electricity.

Here's the reality:

Spend as much as you can. People love it when you spend on new programs.

When the stupid people want you to cut spending cut to police and fire first so they will think twice about asking for cuts the next time.

Pay down debts?! Debts show your development! Every successful government is in debt. The more debt the more successful!

Always underestimate the cost of programs to make them look appealing, then overestimate the revenues from anything you do! It makes you look good!

More like vaporized in the atmosphere. Not really a big deal.

Ahem. Freedom is also having the right to sell or not sell what you please. I may not agree with Apple or Walmart in regards to what they won't sell, but I do respect their right to choose what they won't sell. You always have other alternatives and always will unless the government bans them. Self censorship is and should always be allowed, without it we may as well have the government force a christian book store to sell playboy or a doughnut shop to sell salads.