Neutron embrittlement causes the metal casing of the core to lose it's strength. Also, they're old as shit.

Why not just add more modern cores next to the existing old ones? Prolonged profit from the same site ensures that the old cores will be looked after. Cores really aren't that large, much of the room is the cooling and power grid connections. Those could be re-purposed.

We should seriously start attempting to achieve cores that do not need refueling for decades. The toshiba 4s is the farthest along in testing. It is designed to work continuously for 30 years.

With the benefit of increasingly available super computers needed to model complex interactions of fuel alloys we could bring fission technology to hundreds, if not 1000s of years of running without need of refueling. Though at that point I suppose it'd be more like 'before wearing out'.

Science fiction? Yeah, now....nothing in what I just wrote violates any of the laws of thermodynamics...so I say possible.

We landed on the moon, didn't we?

nuclear-fusion-simulation-high-gain-energy

How likely is this approach to pan out in testing? It seems to me that plasma control would be paramount to success. I've read elsewhere that there have been advances is plasma control for tokamak reactors using supercomputers. Could these advances also be applied to this technique?

~Scott

such as?

You were right on about everything, except that now it's 7 billion :-(

uh, arduino?

It obviously depends on your definition of safety, but nobody has died from Fukushima, and since then I can assure you there have been some coal miner deaths.

From JUST West Virginia: http://www.wvminesafety.org/fatal97.htm

I've been trying my hardest to start conversations at the Occupy Chapel Hill site about this very topic. Unfortunately, many seem to want to go back to an agrarian society devoid of "technology". Ah well.

So basically you're cool with shitting in people's mouths and calling it a sunday, because it's better than no food at all?

Pardon me, I'll try to be polite...but FUCK YOU for saying that a living wage isn't a right. Go live in a slum since you're obviously A-OK with them existing.

Your arguments are flawed due to these two problems: productivity per worker is way up, and population of the country is way up. When a chicken processing plant can put out several million packaged chickens (raised from eggs) with only 17 employees in a town of 50k, your argument begins to break down.

I agree that Moore has given the entire movement a taint that will be hard to shake off. That said, if you go to their website occupywallst.org, your solution sounds similar to theirs. Maybe there appears to be no real purpose or real agenda because they aren't forcing themselves into a "Left" or "Right" ideology. They are trying to find a solution by listening to everybody.

The website talks about how this is not the worn out distracting battle between Conservative vs Liberal but rather one between the top 1% and the other 99% and how the top 1% has completely and thoroughly corrupted our government.

You and many others may belittle the movement and paint it as a bunch of 'hipsters', 'topless hippies', or whatever, but their message is pretty clear (if you listen). The country is being fisted by the top 1% and BOTH sides of the political system is owned by them.

Here's an example I just pulled out of my ass of the corruption this movement is trying to wake people up to: The government, through corn subsidies, gives you 7 free twinkies (through taxes you've paid) for every 1/3 of an apple.

Need I remind you of the scam that is healthcare? For me, what really showed me that both sides were bought and paid for was when Obama 'fixed' the healthcare system by forcing people to buy private for profit health insurance.

I could go on, but I'm depressing myself.

Inferring that nuclear waste has to be refined, transported, and stored safely are all unchangeable facts due to the laws of physics is garbage. Traveling wave reactors refine as they go, eliminating the need for transportation and refinement, and when the reaction is done the reactor vessel becomes the storage vessel.

If Google+ had an analog of the Events feature, all my friends would have jumped ship months ago. It's about the only useful thing on Facebook.

Seriously?

If they could enrich the uranium as well, that'd be quite a feat. Somehow I doubt that the bacterium would make their own tiny centrifuges though...