Rereading OBS in context of...

Fox2! wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

Careful. You will start a Flame War of epic proportions, that is if any of these people figure out who you are quoting.

Are you referring to a certain self-proclaimed dog-eater?

I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it might incriminate me.

Daryl wrote:Richard Branson said in a TV interview I saw, words to the effect of "I have one particular skill, that of picking competent and trustworthy experts in a multitude of fields to work for me".
No one can be an expert in the fine detail across many disciplines, but the should be able pick good people, and to personally know these disciplines sufficiently to apply them in a macro sense.

An excellent point.

However; a good leader needs to have a firm understanding of the basics to be able to recognize who the competent experts are and who are the pretentious imbeciles. A leader who can draw a reasonably accurrate schematic of a Pressurized Water Reactor is more likely to select a competent nuclear engineer than one who can not.

This of course reminds me of President Jimmy "peanut brain" Carter. In spite of his training as a nuclear reactor operator for the USN (he was NOT a nuclear engineer) made the imbecilic decision to cancel the United States' nuclear waste reprocessing program and launched the Quixotic quest to build a National Nuclear Waste Suppository that could keep nuclear wastes sequestered for millions of years. Carter was obsessed with the alleged dangers of Plutonium in the wastes. He refused to understand the difference between reactor waste grade Plutonium verses bomb grade Plutonium. The secret is in the isotope ratios.

Carter ignored the reality that every Uranium fueled reactor ever built derives some fraction of its energy from fissioning Plutonium which is created by U-238 being transmuted by neutron absorbtions. Most commercial, Uranium fueled reactors get about half their energy from Plutonium. US reactors have in fact been happilly consuming mixed oxide fuels made from bomb grade Plutonium from Russia's nuclear stock pile.

Of more profound importance is Carter ignored the reality that the radioactivity of any isotope is inversely proportional to its half-life. The claim that Plutonium remains highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years is a semantic contradiction. Almost all the radioactivity from nuclear wastes is from shorter lived fission products that need to be sequestered for only a few centuries. The longer lived Actenides like Plutonium-239 are not highly radioactive and they can be consumed as reactor fuel.

As a result of Carter's abject stupidity, the US has spent fuel assemblies piling up at reactors across the country where they pose an extremely lethal radiological hazard.

I have met one rather well known US political figure who could understand most of this because in part her father was a science teacher. Her critics seem to presume that her IQ must be inversely proportional to her bra size.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:An excellent point.

However; a good leader needs to have a firm understanding of the basics to be able to recognize who the competent experts are and who are the pretentious imbeciles. A leader who can draw a reasonably accurrate schematic of a Pressurized Water Reactor is more likely to select a competent nuclear engineer than one who can not.

This of course reminds me of President Jimmy "peanut brain" Carter. In spite of his training as a nuclear reactor operator for the USN (he was NOT a nuclear engineer) made the imbecilic decision to cancel the United States' nuclear waste reprocessing program and launched the Quixotic quest to build a National Nuclear Waste Suppository that could keep nuclear wastes sequestered for millions of years. Carter was obsessed with the alleged dangers of Plutonium in the wastes. He refused to understand the difference between reactor waste grade Plutonium verses bomb grade Plutonium. The secret is in the isotope ratios.

Carter ignored the reality that every Uranium fueled reactor ever built derives some fraction of its energy from fissioning Plutonium which is created by U-238 being transmuted by neutron absorbtions. Most commercial, Uranium fueled reactors get about half their energy from Plutonium. US reactors have in fact been happilly consuming mixed oxide fuels made from bomb grade Plutonium from Russia's nuclear stock pile.

Of more profound importance is Carter ignored the reality that the radioactivity of any isotope is inversely proportional to its half-life. The claim that Plutonium remains highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years is a semantic contradiction. Almost all the radioactivity from nuclear wastes is from shorter lived fission products that need to be sequestered for only a few centuries. The longer lived Actenides like Plutonium-239 are not highly radioactive and they can be consumed as reactor fuel.

As a result of Carter's abject stupidity, the US has spent fuel assemblies piling up at reactors across the country where they pose an extremely lethal radiological hazard.

I have met one rather well known US political figure who could understand most of this because in part her father was a science teacher. Her critics seem to presume that her IQ must be inversely proportional to her bra size.

I suspect that Carter was over influenced by his experience getting detailed to help clean up the reactor accident with the NRX Reactor up in Chalk River Canada (among many other things that reactor was used to produce Pu-239 for bomb making by cycling the reactor fuel through quickly before too much contaminating Pu-240 could be formed)

As you said, in most reactors while some of the uranium fuel become plutonium, that plutonium isn't really suitable for bomb making. In reactors not designed to make bomb materials the fuel is used long enough for the Pu-239 (useful for weapons making) to pick up up an extra neutron turning into Pu-240 (which is not good for weapons). And separating Pu-240 from Pu-239 is really difficult.

Reprocessing facilities have their own risks (I'm not sure there's been one that hasn't had at least one criticality accident) but reprocessing most commercial reactor fuel does not lead to easy bomb making material. And the US forgoing that technology didn't stop countries who really wanted a bomb from designing reactors and plutonium separate processes to get the necessary materials.

Jonathan_S wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:An excellent point.

However; a good leader needs to have a firm understanding of the basics to be able to recognize who the competent experts are and who are the pretentious imbeciles. A leader who can draw a reasonably accurrate schematic of a Pressurized Water Reactor is more likely to select a competent nuclear engineer than one who can not.

This of course reminds me of President Jimmy "peanut brain" Carter. In spite of his training as a nuclear reactor operator for the USN (he was NOT a nuclear engineer) made the imbecilic decision to cancel the United States' nuclear waste reprocessing program and launched the Quixotic quest to build a National Nuclear Waste Suppository that could keep nuclear wastes sequestered for millions of years. Carter was obsessed with the alleged dangers of Plutonium in the wastes. He refused to understand the difference between reactor waste grade Plutonium verses bomb grade Plutonium. The secret is in the isotope ratios.

Carter ignored the reality that every Uranium fueled reactor ever built derives some fraction of its energy from fissioning Plutonium which is created by U-238 being transmuted by neutron absorbtions. Most commercial, Uranium fueled reactors get about half their energy from Plutonium. US reactors have in fact been happilly consuming mixed oxide fuels made from bomb grade Plutonium from Russia's nuclear stock pile.

Of more profound importance is Carter ignored the reality that the radioactivity of any isotope is inversely proportional to its half-life. The claim that Plutonium remains highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years is a semantic contradiction. Almost all the radioactivity from nuclear wastes is from shorter lived fission products that need to be sequestered for only a few centuries. The longer lived Actenides like Plutonium-239 are not highly radioactive and they can be consumed as reactor fuel.

As a result of Carter's abject stupidity, the US has spent fuel assemblies piling up at reactors across the country where they pose an extremely lethal radiological hazard.

I have met one rather well known US political figure who could understand most of this because in part her father was a science teacher. Her critics seem to presume that her IQ must be inversely proportional to her bra size.

I suspect that Carter was over influenced by his experience getting detailed to help clean up the reactor accident with the NRX Reactor up in Chalk River Canada (among many other things that reactor was used to produce Pu-239 for bomb making by cycling the reactor fuel through quickly before too much contaminating Pu-240 could be formed)

As you said, in most reactors while some of the uranium fuel become plutonium, that plutonium isn't really suitable for bomb making. In reactors not designed to make bomb materials the fuel is used long enough for the Pu-239 (useful for weapons making) to pick up up an extra neutron turning into Pu-240 (which is not good for weapons). And separating Pu-240 from Pu-239 is really difficult.

Reprocessing facilities have their own risks (I'm not sure there's been one that hasn't had at least one criticality accident) but reprocessing most commercial reactor fuel does not lead to easy bomb making material. And the US forgoing that technology didn't stop countries who really wanted a bomb from designing reactors and plutonium separate processes to get the necessary materials.

I am very pleased that someone else on this forum understands what I am talking about.

Gas centrifuge technology has made Uranium enrichment so easy that the issue of diverting Plutonium from reactor wastes is no longer relevant. A centrifuge cascade is easier to build, cheaper, far more covert and less dangerous to operate. While Pu-239 in isolation is not highly radioactive, even low concentrations of Pu-240 which undergoes spontaneous fission to emit neutrons which induce fission in the Pu-239 can cause the criticality accidents you refer to. Pu-238 is rather radioactive which causes its own problems. Of course if anyone ever runs Plutonium through an isotope seperation plant to get nearly pure Plutonium-239, we will be facing the specter of thermonuclear hand grenades.

I believe that it was a young Jimmy Carter who is the idiot who opened the pneumatic valves that withdrew the control rods from the core.

This reactor accident demonstrates why Edward Teller decreed "though shalt not build a positive void reactor."

TFLYTSNBN wrote:However; a good leader needs to have a firm understanding of the basics to be able to recognize who the competent experts are and who are the pretentious imbeciles. A leader who can draw a reasonably accurate schematic of a Pressurized Water Reactor is more likely to select a competent nuclear engineer than one who can not.

Well, as long as we don't forget the numerous ways an imbecile can end up in a position. Take Pavel Young and Elvis Santino for instance. If you want more closer to home, try our current Presiden— err strike that from the record please. You get the idea. Sometimes the good olé boy network can fail you miserably before you can get a handle on it.

How does Eloise stack up against her? She's no novice in the ways of the navy either. Nor is Benjamin, I suppose, but by certain passages I don't think Benjamin is as hands on or anywhere near the league of women rulers in that regard.

Not sure how navy savvy Gustav might be, but he seems to be too much of a recluse to ever see the navy. He doesn't show up much in storyline either, other than references to him that I can recall. Anyone recollect any passages where Gustav shows up? There must be and I just can't recall.

And we all know that none of the Mandarins had any idea what a navy is. Conclusion? The Honorverse is a woman's world. LOL

cthia wrote:

Not sure how navy savvy Gustav might be, but he seems to be too much of a recluse to ever see the navy. He doesn't show up much in storyline either, other than references to him that I can recall. Anyone recollect any passages where Gustav shows up? There must be and I just can't recall.

His cousin the Admiral seems to be the only senior Andy to make an appearance in-story, starting with HAE.

TFLYTSNBN wrote: SNIP

I believe that it was a young Jimmy Carter who is the idiot who opened the pneumatic valves that withdrew the control rods from the core.

This reactor accident demonstrates why Edward Teller decreed "though shalt not build a positive void reactor."

I've just looked this up, as I'd not heard of it
This looks like an official review..
https://www.cns-snc.ca/media/history/nrx.html

do you have any actual evidence that Carter was either the superintendant or the operator in this Canadian facility at the time of the incident?

isaac_newton wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote: SNIP

I believe that it was a young Jimmy Carter who is the idiot who opened the pneumatic valves that withdrew the control rods from the core.

This reactor accident demonstrates why Edward Teller decreed "though shalt not build a positive void reactor."

I've just looked this up, as I'd not heard of it
This looks like an official review..
https://www.cns-snc.ca/media/history/nrx.html

do you have any actual evidence that Carter was either the superintendant or the operator in this Canadian facility at the time of the incident?

I have no evidence to support the suggsstion that a young Carter was responsible for that disaster. Betraying the Shaw of Iran who was transforming Persia into an educated, moderate almost secular society and surrendering Iran to the tyranny of some 12th Century Ayotollahs, which in turn inspired Islamic radicals to wage a civil war in Lebanon that transformed Beiruit which had been "the Paris of the Middle East" into a warzone, compelled the US to support a dictator in Iraq to counterbalance Iran, inspired the Saudis to support radical Wahabism, motivated the USSR to invade Afghanistan which inflamed tensions beteeen Pakistan and India to the point of a nuclear arms race, compelled Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait to pay for being everyone's proxy in the war against islamic Iran, obliged the United States to wage war to protect Saudi Arabia, which provoked the 9-11 attacks by Jihadists who had been radicalized by fighting the Soviets in Afghsnistan, which in turn compelled Bush and Cheney to invade Afghanistan to get Bin Laden and hopefully deradicalize nuclear armed Pakistan, invade Iraq because they misoverestimated the WMD which in turn resulted in the US notinvsding Iran and North Korea so as to ensure that the world is now safe for nuclear prolifferation, is quite enough thank you.

The possibility that a young Jimmy Carter blew up a nuclear reactor would be inconsequential compared to the damage that peanut brained imbecile did to the world during his four years in the White House.

TFLYTSNBN wrote: SNIP

I believe that it was a young Jimmy Carter who is the idiot who opened the pneumatic valves that withdrew the control rods from the core.

This reactor accident demonstrates why Edward Teller decreed "though shalt not build a positive void reactor."

isaac_newton wrote:I've just looked this up, as I'd not heard of it
This looks like an official review..
https://www.cns-snc.ca/media/history/nrx.html

do you have any actual evidence that Carter was either the superintendant or the operator in this Canadian facility at the time of the incident?

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I have no evidence to support the suggsstion that a young Carter was responsible for that disaster. Betraying the Shaw of Iran who was transforming Persia into an educated, moderate almost secular society and surrendering Iran to the tyranny of some 12th Century Ayotollahs, which in turn inspired Islamic radicals to wage a civil war in Lebanon that transformed Beiruit which had been "the Paris of the Middle East" into a warzone, compelled the US to support a dictator in Iraq to counterbalance Iran, inspired the Saudis to support radical Wahabism, motivated the USSR to invade Afghanistan which inflamed tensions beteeen Pakistan and India to the point of a nuclear arms race, compelled Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait to pay for being everyone's proxy in the war against islamic Iran, obliged the United States to wage war to protect Saudi Arabia, which provoked the 9-11 attacks by Jihadists who had been radicalized by fighting the Soviets in Afghsnistan, which in turn compelled Bush and Cheney to invade Afghanistan to get Bin Laden and hopefully deradicalize nuclear armed Pakistan, invade Iraq because they misoverestimated the WMD which in turn resulted in the US notinvsding Iran and North Korea so as to ensure that the world is now safe for nuclear prolifferation, is quite enough thank you.

The possibility that a young Jimmy Carter blew up a nuclear reactor would be inconsequential compared to the damage that peanut brained imbecile did to the world during his four years in the White House.

If you want us to take your larger rants seriously, don't you think it might be worth not spreading such easily detected porkies, just out of some excess of bile?