Well, with basic GPS and a plane ID, we would know at least where the plane went down, and when. This losing airplanes gag is not acceptable. It is outrageous that there is no solution. As I say above, it does not have to be expensive, or integrate into current systems, just a couple of extra bits of info.

Those old Nokia phones lasted for weeks at a time. Though, getting a signal from 15,000 feet to the negative is likely problematic.

Heh.

"The sound is garbled".

The element that bothers me is the anyone who owns a GM car can call On Star to find out where the heck am I? Or where is my damn car? "Well Mr GM owner, you evidently parked on the other side of the Mall. It is beside the blue Subaru with all the bumper stickers on it"

But we can't find an airplane? Nobody has mentioned this, asked about it, never mind demanded it. This in the context of this multi trillion dollar War Over Buildings that Got Crashed Into by Airplanes.

I have clicked into Fox/CNN/MSNBC, none of them ask this. Equal opportunity stupid.

Why is it still not part of any conversation? Why aren't there some demands for someone's head? Really, trillions on this thing, and nobody thought of it? How about now, lets do that? Call GM. They could use the business.

I suspect Musk's plan for Tesla's battery gigafactory killer app is a home storage solution. Folks with solar panels and wind gadgets, and a Model S, Artizona, Nevada, Texas, etc. Exactly where he wants to plant the plant. Once the mainstream see it works? He would be in again ahead of the masses, his factory cranking em out while the competition wonders wtf just happened? What do ytou mean I can't buy batteries? Some very wishful thinking on my part, as I have zero evidence. Except for the part where he looks to me like Smartest Dewd, World Class right now. And it sounds good, 'aight?

2003 MIT study stated than two new reactors would have to start operating somewhere in the world every month over next 50 years to displace a significant amount of carbon-emitting fossil-fuel generation.pdf: http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpowe...

Not happening, becasue it is a bad business deal. Jeremy Rifkin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... 1. 6% of world energy, needs to be 20%. So replace existing 400, build 1600. 1 every 10 days for 40 years. 2. Waste? No solution 3. uranium deficits by 2025-2035 4. recycle to Plutonium, big risk 5. Water. 40% of French water goes to cooling nukes. Technology moving to distributed, collaborative and lateral scaling. Out: Siemans, Germany, Italy, Japan, Not a good business deal.

Already running gadgets at San Onfre, Crystal River and Now Vermont Yankees are shut/shutting down, for economic reasons.

Jarik, that is exactly what is needed. The "somewhere" appears to be at issue. NPPs want it somewhere else, handing off costs, liability, responsibility. NRC is dragging, saying the stuff can sit for 60 more years. Or 100. Can kicked down the road again. So the vulnerable spent fuel pools have become the defacto storage solution. Ludicrous amounts of radioactivity under no containment.

As at Fuku, loss of coolant, station blackout means explosions/fire. This is the real risk I am bitching about. Put the crap in the casks. It will likely require a Price Anderson type solution. Right now it is checkmate, the stuff piles up in the SFPs. How much we talking about? Indian Point has 4 times the amount from Fuku #4. The latter had the radioactivity of 14,000 Hiroashima. This is not a dope infused, screechy, conspiritard rant. The risk is real. Fuku was proof of concept.

100 enviro groups have been quietly pressuring for this for ten years. But promoting the vulnerability promotes the vulnerability, increases the risk. Now, post Fuku, due to widespread coverage, the cat is out of the bag. NRC wisely fibs about the risks for this reason, but they are wrong to not be quietly pushing to get it done.

Reality is, no need to steal the crap to make your own. SFPs are everywhere. Snipers taking out a substation on the West Coast exists as proof of concept of step one. Whoever did that is still unknown. It doesn't matter. The vulnerability is the issue.

I am not arguing against reprocessing, or other efforts. The problem is the stuff currently already just sits and waits in a vulnerable setup. Casks would lower the risks, and later provide a proper container for shipping to a future reprocessing effort, or storage site. The money is already there for this, from surcharges on electric bills.

The big holdup seems to be the industry has no confidence there will be somewhere else to put it, for good reason. By making a move to on site cask storage, the NPP site becomes the storage solution, and they are stuck with the responsibility, liability and costs.

That is why I mention Texas. Perhaps if they could be convinced of the wisdom of reprocessing? They could charge to take the stuff, charge to store it, then create more income from reprocessing? It seems, if the tech is there, answer should be found. If there is money in it really, someone would be interested?

A clarification was added to that article: ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage. The comparison is to radioactivity released to the environment, not the total amount created, nor the amount in nuclear waste.

The issue is what to do with the waste in the fuel pools. Not how much gets into the environment from day to day operations.

Right now used NPP fuel is piling up in the spent fuel pools. Indian point is effectively full. These are vulnerable, under no containment, an unnecessary risk.They contain ridiculous amounts of radioactivity. They want it gone, not in the parking lot. But it needs to get into casks for now. Casks would be needed to move the stuff later, it would be available for any later reprocessing efforts. This is a minimum first step. For now it is stymied, waiting for the mythical long term site, everyone blaming someone else, and the can gets kicked down the road. It has been 72 years since Fermi's magic trick, still, no long term solution. It is time for plan B.

The plants had some place to ship it once in casks. The prospect of the local NPP becoming a waste storage site would of course cause screaming and yelling, even though that is exactly what they already are, but less safe. West Texas seems gung ho about it, now accepting "temporarily" the Los Alamos stuff that was headed to WIPP for now.

Read whats left of my mind there, kemo sabe. Japanese best be very careful, is what I get from this story. 10 day old story about Tepco suspecting sabotage: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld... TFA finishes with a reference to Japan. Tepco is of course hiring the homeless, hundreds of unknowns floating around. Using the mob to find/coerce people to do the work. Not to mention extreme PTSD, people have been messed up.

The SFPs are vulnerable. Here too. They are by far the riskiest aspect of the whole show. Not some little bit that some idiot might try and steal. 20,000 Hiroshioma, ready to burn baby. In everyone's backyard, everywhere. And many more people know about them, due to Fuku. Stanford fellow isn't going to broadcast this, but the men doing the dance know, and they better sweat about it.

US plants need to get that stuff into cask storage. Yesterday.

They won't, just like we still don't have some form of On Star in airplanes. One would have logically thought that would have been the first step after 9/11? Nah.

Incoming:

turning math class into a medium for theorizing about social justice as a group process to reach consensus

“mathematics educators must be pushed to grapple with the complexity and particularities of race, marginalized status, and differential treatment by providing a lens for examining social, institutional, and structural inequities that contribute to differentials in the opportunities to learn mathematics.”

http://www.invisibleserfscolla...

Prius batteries have held up well too.

I suspect Elon is also quietly thinking about home setups. Store the juice from solar/wind arrays. Combine this with efficient choices in everything, from refrigeration, lighting, etc. It would be very hip and trendy, pricey at first, like the Model S.

The tech would enable a trend of folks moving to undeveloped areas, no grid needed. Even at $30,000, someone looking to build in isolated spots where running poles, wires would cost that. I think that is the number for even long, spiffy driveways?

This in turn could combine with building desire to have the Fed Gov't loosen its hold on the half of the US land it is currently sitting on. 21st century homesteading. Hideouts for the 1%ers at first. Then spread to the mainstream as costs fall, and folks see that it works. Huge social costs of the grid, centralized power plants etc are saved. Save the world from CO2, live on your own private Idaho.

Pre- existing conditons are long term storage and handling of the existing radioactive stockpile, and the vulnerable Spent Fuel Pools, earthquake resistance in the coolant subsystems, and Fukushima..

Want more? Fine.

1) Agree to move the waste from the vulnerable storage pools to proper on site cask storage.

2) Do earthquake resistance improvements instead of studies.

3) Fukushima. Get an International plan in place to wall, corral, and cap it.

Then talk about more nuclear waste producing power plants to make the world safe from carbon dioxide.

Aerojet? Safe? This is not settled science. In the meantime, while we await further developments... Is there any reason to not follow these 3 steps?

1) Agree to move the stuff from the NPP's vulnerable storage pools to on site cask storage.

2) Do actual earthquake resistance NPP improvements instead of studies.

3) Fukushima. Get an International plan in place to wall, corral, and cap it.

The casks can eventually be moved to the safe nuclear waste burning place, of course.

A reason to proceed promptly to step one? Until step one is done, one explosive projectile gadget could force the permanent evacuation of NYC

New York, New York was a random example. One of a lot. Every western City, pretty much. There are currently around 430 NPP's in the world. Got one within 50 miles of you? Lucky you, you the good reader is included in this acceptable risk set, The smartest guys in the room have deemed it probabilistically not probable. Plus, a trillion or three dollars rides on this. It is important! repeat after me to be happy healthy and terriffic: Nuclear Waste producing plants are needed to make us safe from the ravages of carbon dioxide

Problems are storage, handling of existing radioactive stockpile, Spent Fuel Pools. Many hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive waste already piled up, in SFPs in the Nukes.

Existing Spent Fuel Pools are filled, vulnerable. No containment. GE BWR Mk I design has them on the fifth floor of the building. Unit 4 at Fukushima SFP has radioactivity of 14,000 Hiroshima. (Low by US standards, Indian Point has five times that) ((24 miles from NYC)) Unit four SFP is the one TEPCO is emptying, moving to cask storage. It is not possible to enter units 1, 2 and 3. Issue? Another quake drops building, fuel is scattered, not cooled, uncontrollable spontaneous combustion of radioactive fire.

72 years since Fermi, there is no "long term" storage solution. 24,000 to 2 million years. 72 years since Fermi's magic trick, 72 years for the smartest guys in the room to think of something, and there is no answer. So I am not the smartest guy even in this room, but I have to conclude there will be no answer. Water, earthquakes, human error. 24,000 - 2 million years? Not Possible. Time to accept that all solutions are temporary, this is our single eternal legacy.

The Industry's "permanent solution" is getting it off their property, relief from liability.

Deal?

1) Agree to move the stuff from the vulnerable storage pools to on site cask storage.

2) Do actual earthquake resistance improvements instead of studies.

3) Fukushima. Get an International plan in place to wall, corral, and cap it.

72 years since Fermi's trick, 60 years since the smartest guys in the room told us this was all good. Do the three steps above. Show you are in fact serious, that you can be trusted. Take responsibility, show accountability, prove that it is not just about your cash flow. *** Then build some more nuclear waste producing power plants to make us safe from carbon dioxide.

This is the answer. Open or fail.

Slashdot shares a place with instapundit, drudge, reddit, google's search page. Simple, functional, not broken. very influential. I cannot think of any more in this class? Slashdot is alone in that it is driven by the comments. The people who come here are the site, the people who comment here are the draw.

Dice crew perhaps needs a timeout to spend the weekend researching Digg to fully understand the emotions of the people, to not write off the aggressive anger as trolling. Digg is I believe, the highest profile failure. There are too many others, a theme fro m AOL, Yahoo and scattered to the Gizmodo's of the web. So we are familiar with the drill.There is always some corporate agenda that takes away what we love, so the anger. But none I would argue none ever had the status, importance of this site.

That Dice seems entirely unconscious of the culture here does not lend confidence. The threat of this may be enough to generate a clone site and a mass migration. Certainly the need for this is demonstrated.

But for now, Open or fail. Maybe Monday, a thread on What next?

Open, or fail.