WERE YOU THERE

Slowhand wrote:Scientists Just Unveiled The First-Ever Photo of Quantum Entanglement

In an incredible first, scientists have captured the world's first actual photo of quantum entanglement - a phenomenon so strange Einstein famously described it as 'spooky action at a distance'.

Pretty sure I saw that on Pornhub last week

Anyone familiar with developments in the nuclear industry?

It seems there is increased momentum in the molten salt reactor space, which is a very promising area. MSRs are inherently safer than the current generation of fission reactors; as their fuel is already melted in normal operations, a "meltdown" is not a concern, and they typically use another molten salt as the coolant/heat transfer medium which means that since the salt has a higher boiling point than the hottest the fuel can get, the coolant is always at atmospheric pressure and steam explosions in an overheating scenario are impossible. Another huge benefit is that they can recycle their own fuel, burning it until less than one percent of the original mass remains as waste, vs. about 96% for traditional reactors, and as a result can also be designed to burn nuclear waste from traditional reactors. Furthermore the remaining 1% waste from these reactors is much more stable than traditional reactors; 83% of it is safe within 10 years and the remainder within 350 years, unlike the waste from traditional reactors which has to be stored away from humans for up to 10,000 years. Additionally these reactors can be designed to use thorium as their primary fuel which is both four times more abundant in the Earth's crust than uranium, and thus should be cheaper and less wasteful to mine and refine, and is nearly impossible to use to breed weapons-grade radioactive material. Finally they can be potentially be designed and manufactured as modular units, possibly small enough to fit in a shipping container.

I used to think that fusion power was the only realistic chance to avert the coming climate crisis as it will require clean energy on a simply astonishing scale to remove CO2 from the atmosphere faster than we add it, and I didn't think that traditional nuclear was a viable option politically or even absent political considerations. Now I'm thinking MSRs can be a near-term solution and possible a long-term one as well, even if fusion ever gets off the ground, as I'm not sure fusion will ever be able to deployed locally and/or modularly.

I was reading about the same thing a month or so ago. I think I was watching something about up and coming scientists and this stuff came up...sent me down a rabbit hole for a while. I think it's an old technology that wasn't used the first time around for some reason that's not a problem anymore. I think most of the big energy people agree that we should be turning to nuclear, but the downsides have some horrific examples that taint the whole idea. But it's probably the way to go. It will be hard to get past public opinion. Germany and switzerland are moving away from nuclear, I believe, as are a few other big countries. Maybe the new reactors will change public opinion, but I imagine that will take time.

i don't think i was ever a nuclear energy fan.

1. storage of waste
2. accidents
3. weaponization

so i've always just glossed over anything nuclear out there, but this sounds interesting. i've hopped on solar because of it being clean, relatively abundant and decentralized. even with advancements in efficiency, it still lags and there is the issue with storage.

i would love to hear more about it. is there a good site or link to more information on this? something between novice and professional.

azrider wrote:i would love to hear more about it. is there a good site or link to more information on this? something between novice and professional.

https://liquidfluoridethoriumreactor.glerner.com/

This site is pretty hard on the eyes but seems to have pretty good information that's not terribly technical. It is clearly written by a big-time thorium enthusiast so it slants that direction but I can't find any problems with it. This page contains links to a number of other pages which go into more detail on specific topics.

Monkeyboy wrote:I was reading about the same thing a month or so ago. I think I was watching something about up and coming scientists and this stuff came up...sent me down a rabbit hole for a while. I think it's an old technology that wasn't used the first time around for some reason that's not a problem anymore. I think most of the big energy people agree that we should be turning to nuclear, but the downsides have some horrific examples that taint the whole idea. But it's probably the way to go. It will be hard to get past public opinion. Germany and switzerland are moving away from nuclear, I believe, as are a few other big countries. Maybe the new reactors will change public opinion, but I imagine that will take time.

An experimental molten salt reactor was operated at Oak Ridge for several years back in the 60s. I think it was not pursued further at the time because the push was towards breeder reactors that could make fuel for nuclear weapons.

the three of us should go in and by some land in quartzsite.

the story is amazing. it was like we were at the crossroads with our nuclear technology and had basically a choice between vhs and beta, but we went with the inferior vhs because of the porn.

Full Beaver Moon on Tuesday. Hope we get a clear look.

Mercury is transiting the Sun today. Next chance to see it is in 13 years. Bust out those eclipse glasses and have a look. It’s dead center at 1019. You can get a better view live-streaming NASA’s feed.

Transit timeline

Show starts about 0735 and last ~ 5 hours

Also a Space X Starlink launch just before 10.

https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-s ... -2019.html

some cool videos out there of a meteor over missouri last night.

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[url=https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/22/world/fifth-force-of-nature-scn-trnd/index.html/] Hungarian physicist observed a 5th force of nature when splitting a helium atom. They are calling this previously unknown partical x17 [url]

Space X can’t pass these cryogenic tests. They lost Starship SN1 last night

if you're going to fail, fail big.

The implosion of the main body of the rocket is pretty crazy. It looks like a giant invisible hand crushes it like a soda can.

Remember that today @~430 is the return of manned launches from the US and the first ever commercial launch.

https://www.spacex.com/launches/

thephan wrote:Remember that today @~430 is the return of manned launches from the US and the first ever crewed commercial launch.

https://www.spacex.com/launches/

fyp

Weather looks rough...might not go down today.

Errrr...go up today.