The Bomb That Fell On Niagara: The Sphere

Feel like reading something really, really stupid? This seems appropriate.

It’s pretty obvious that if it looks like an ammonia gas tank, quacks like a gas tank, and they say it’s a gas tank, then it’s probably a gas tank.

It certainly doesn’t look like any early prototype of any nuclear reactor design I’ve ever heard of.

Almost 4,000 tons of radioactive radium-226, the largest repository in the western hemisphere, representing a staggering quantity of radiation.

4000 tons of radium!? In 1937, radium cost $25,000 per gram. That’s, uh, 91 trillion dollars, in 1937 US dollars, anyway.

There is also polonium-210 on site. According to Bob Nichols, a San Francisco-based researcher and writer who reviewed the same documents as Weyman, polonium was used as a trigger in nuclear weapons. Its presence in quantities sufficient to detect all these years and half-lives later is not easily explained by the KAPL wastes.

It ought to be obvious where any Po-210 comes from – it’s a daughter product of radium, and it’s present in secular equilibrium where ever there is radium present. In fact, given the quite short 138-day half-life of Po-210, the decay of radium is indeed the only possible source of any Po-210 detectable on the site today.

Anti-nuclear quote of the week.

“The reuse of spent fuel is catastrophically dangerous. It means separating plutonium from the radioactive waste, fabricating it into fuel rods and fueling a reactor with 5 to 15 tons of plutonium, which is cooled by liquid sodium, a highly reactive explosive material.

As 10 pounds of plutonium is critical mass, and as less than one millionth of a gram is carcinogenic, a loss of the volatile coolant could induce a massive nuclear explosion which could be seen from the moon, scattering deadly plutonium to the four winds.”

There are no prizes for guessing who this is from. You can stop over on that page and post comments, if you feel so inclined.

We seem to just keep hearing claims that move further and further from reality, and further into the realm of just Making Stuff Up.

There was one simple sentence delivered by Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World that Caldicott, and her followers, might do well to take heed of: Try science.

Please just try the scientific method, just for once.

Genepax “Water Energy System”: Redux

An update on the latest “breakthrough car that runs on water!”:

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080616/153301/

Kiyoshi Hirasawa, president of Genepax Co Ltd, unveiled part of the reaction mechanism of the company’s new fuel cell system called “Water Energy System” in an interview with Nikkei Electronics.

The system, which is capable of generating power with water and air, was first presented June 12, 2008. As reported in our previous article, the system produces hydrogen through a chemical reaction between water and a metal (or a metal compound) on the fuel electrode side (See related article).

Genepax uses a metal or a metal compound that can cause an oxidation reaction with water at room temperature, the company said. Metals that react with water include lithium, sodium, magnesium, potassium and calcium. The main feature of the Water Energy System is that it can be operated for a longer period of time by controlling the reaction of the metal or the metal compound, the company said.

According to Genepax, the metal or the metal compound is supported by a porous body such as zeolite inside the fuel electrode of the membrane electrode assembly (MEA). The products of the hydrogen generation reaction dissolves in water, and the water containing them will be discharged with water inside the system. Upon the completion of the reaction, the generation of hydrogen and power stops.

There is nothing revolutionary here – nothing that violates the laws of physics. Rather than “running on water” the device if fuelled with chemical potential energy in the form of a reactive chemical – such as lithium metal – that will spontaneously reduce water to hydrogen gas on contact, consuming the lithium. Energy is “stored” in such a material, which requires considerable energy input to create, and does not occur in the free metallic form in nature.

This is essentially nothing more than a non-rechargeable chemical battery. When its chemical “fuel” is depleted, it doesn’t work, and the chemical material must be replenished.

Depleted uranium… for dinner!

 This isn’t about nuclear energy, strictly speaking – but I still think it’s worth spreading.

“Dr. Buzzo”, the blogger behind the “Bad Science” blog Depleted Cranium – has recently published a great little video on YouTube:

“Not long ago I noticed that during some flaming and name-calling on the the anti-depleted uranium crowed stated that “If you love depleted uranium so much why don’t you have it for dinner.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk9vHQrKMdk

The YouTube video is pretty self explanatory – go check it out!