Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[bitcool]

My dog then made some of this..

Pardon my ignorance, what's its number in the periodic table?

[benjamindees]

http://www.google.com/search?q=uranium&btnI=true

[bitcool]

http://www.google.com/search?q=uranium&btnI=true

Wow, that's hot.
I wonder how many years this disc (3kg?) can power the Bitcoin network.

[VVS dump]

http://www.google.com/search?q=uranium&btnI=true

Wow, that's hot.
I wonder how many years this disc (3kg?) can power the Bitcoin network.

not too long, I guess. According to wikipedia, 1kg u235 can be converted into up to 52MwH usable energy, which means we have about 150MWh here.
the btc network is currently at almost 13 TH/s, and given an average efficiency of 2 MH/watt, the bitcoin network is using about 6.5 GWh.

[Global BTC]

You mean 6.5GW right? That would mean the bitcoin network can be powered for almost 24 hours by a 3kg disc of uranium.

[gewure]

...i thought we finally be over the dirty nuclear energy, as culture..

[notme]

...i thought we finally be over the dirty nuclear energy, as culture..

I hope we're done building uranium reactors.  Thorium otoh is much safer and only requires a tiny amount of uranium/plutonium as a neutron source.  They are fail safe and you can cut the power and walk away without releasing any radiation.

[piotr_n]

...i thought we finally be over the dirty nuclear energy, as culture..

I hope we're done building uranium reactors.  Thorium otoh is much safer and only requires a tiny amount of uranium/plutonium as a neutron source.  They are fail safe and you can cut the power and walk away without releasing any radiation.

personally, I wouldn't be that much concerned about power plants.
http://www.cdi.org/nuclear/database/nukestab.html

[notme]

...i thought we finally be over the dirty nuclear energy, as culture..

I hope we're done building uranium reactors.  Thorium otoh is much safer and only requires a tiny amount of uranium/plutonium as a neutron source.  They are fail safe and you can cut the power and walk away without releasing any radiation.

personally, I wouldn't be that much concerned about power plants.
http://www.cdi.org/nuclear/database/nukestab.html

Hey, at least we quit flying them around all the time.  Now most just sit underground.

[tvbcof]

...i thought we finally be over the dirty nuclear energy, as culture..

I hope we're done building uranium reactors.  Thorium otoh is much safer and only requires a tiny amount of uranium/plutonium as a neutron source.  They are fail safe and you can cut the power and walk away without releasing any radiation.

personally, I wouldn't be that much concerned about power plants.
http://www.cdi.org/nuclear/database/nukestab.html

I'm not so sure.  Nuclear weapons have, by necessity of delivery, a relatively small amount of nuclear material.  Nuclear power plants have,  on the other hand, many many tons of the stuff.  In lots of cases, several loads of spent fuel sit outside of any hardened containment on the roof of the plants.  And these tend to be pretty close to industrial and populated areas since that is where the power is needed.

One thing that Fukushima opened my eyes to and which I did not know was that the GE Mark-I reactors, at least, are certain to melt down and explode if somehow they are without power for a certain number of hours.  So if a somewhat capable adversary can figure out how to sabotage a few diesel generators and can drop a few high-tension power lines, we can kiss bit parts of our Eastern US goodbye (or more likely, plan on high rates of poor health among the 99%ers who will remain in the area.)

Thorium reactors sound nice, but there is full court press to extend the life of our GE Mark-I's out an extra 20 years.  Another thing I learned thanks to Fukushima is that if a nuclear expert says that something is 'impossible', what that actually means that said thing is either inevitable or has already happened.  So, it will take some convincing to get me to believe in the miracle of thorium reactor safety.

[notme]

...i thought we finally be over the dirty nuclear energy, as culture..

I hope we're done building uranium reactors.  Thorium otoh is much safer and only requires a tiny amount of uranium/plutonium as a neutron source.  They are fail safe and you can cut the power and walk away without releasing any radiation.

personally, I wouldn't be that much concerned about power plants.
http://www.cdi.org/nuclear/database/nukestab.html

I'm not so sure.  Nuclear weapons have, by necessity of delivery, a relatively small amount of nuclear material.  Nuclear power plants have,  on the other hand, many many tons of the stuff.  In lots of cases, several loads of spent fuel sit outside of any hardened containment on the roof of the plants.  And these tend to be pretty close to industrial and populated areas since that is where the power is needed.

One thing that Fukushima opened my eyes to and which I did not know was that the GE Mark-I reactors, at least, are certain to melt down and explode if somehow they are without power for a certain number of hours.  So if a somewhat capable adversary can figure out how to sabotage a few diesel generators and can drop a few high-tension power lines, we can kiss bit parts of our Eastern US goodbye (or more likely, plan on high rates of poor health among the 99%ers who will remain in the area.)

Thorium reactors sound nice, but there is full court press to extend the life of our GE Mark-I's out an extra 20 years.  Another thing I learned thanks to Fukushima is that if a nuclear expert says that something is 'impossible', what that actually means that said thing is either inevitable or has already happened.  So, it will take some convincing to get me to believe in the miracle of thorium reactor safety.

Below the reaction vessel is a cooling system that freezes a plug in place.  If the power fails, the molten thorium will melt the plug and drain into containment vessels, where it will cool since it is now away from your neutron source.  All that remains is the neutron source, which is a very small amount of uranium.  Far from enough to cause a melt down.

I won't say it's perfect, or completely safe, but the fact that it has been proven to be safer than popular designs makes it hard to accept the fact that those same old designs are still being pushed while Thorium is being thrown under the bus.  Oh well, maybe when India gets a third of its power from Thorium by 2050 as they are projecting we might sit up and take notice.  Hopefully we don't have a catastrophe before then.

[benjamindees]

the btc network is currently at almost 13 TH/s, and given an average efficiency of 2 MH/watt, the bitcoin network is using about 6.5 GWh.

That's off by three orders of magnitude, and the units are wrong.

http://www.google.com/search?q=(13000000000000+unit+%2F+second)+%2F+(2000000+unit+%2F+second+%2F+watt)+in+megawatt

6.5 Gigawatt would be the entire output of a large nuclear power plant.  Bitcoin uses nowhere near that much power.

According to wikipedia, 1kg u235 can be converted into up to 52MwH usable energy,

This is also wrong by nearly an order of magnitude.  Though this is debatable since the disc in question is highly-enriched rather than reactor grade.

http://www.google.com/search?q=80+terajoule+%2F+kilogram+*+3+percent+*+33+percent+in+MWh+%2F+kg

[bitcool]

the btc network is currently at almost 13 TH/s, and given an average efficiency of 2 MH/watt, the bitcoin network is using about 6.5 GWh.

That's off by three orders of magnitude, and the units are wrong.

http://www.google.com/search?q=(13000000000000+unit+%2F+second)+%2F+(2000000+unit+%2F+second+%2F+watt)+in+megawatt

6.5 Gigawatt would be the entire output of a large nuclear power plant.  Bitcoin uses nowhere near that much power.

According to wikipedia, 1kg u235 can be converted into up to 52MwH usable energy,

This is also wrong by nearly an order of magnitude.  Though this is debatable since the disc in question is highly-enriched rather than reactor grade.

http://www.google.com/search?q=80+terajoule+%2F+kilogram+*+3+percent+*+33+percent+in+MWh+%2F+kg

220 MWh / 6.5 MW, that's 34 hours/kg. The Bitcoin network is eating 0.7kg uranium every day.

[benjamindees]

220 MWh / 6.5 MW, that's 34 hours/kg. The Bitcoin network is eating 0.7kg uranium every day.

And this is less than 3% of the power used by all the standby electronics in the world.  So, basically, nothing.

http://www.google.com/search?q=(6.5+megawatts)+%2F+(200+TWh+%2F+year)+in+percent

[realnowhereman]

I can't find the link now; but I read that the only reason the world's nuclear scientists went with a uranium design instead of thorium (and continue to do so today, despite it being common knowledge that thorium would be safer/better) is because you don't get any weapons grade byproducts out of a thorium reactor.

I can't speak to the truth of that; but it doesn't sound outside the realms of possibility.

[tvbcof]

I can't find the link now; but I read that the only reason the world's nuclear scientists went with a uranium design instead of thorium (and continue to do so today, despite it being common knowledge that thorium would be safer/better) is because you don't get any weapons grade byproducts out of a thorium reactor.

I can't speak to the truth of that; but it doesn't sound outside the realms of possibility.

Indeed, a majority of 'nuclear energy' programs seem to be designed with the requirements of building a nuclear weapons capability as well.  I've heard it conjectured that we in the US have such a darn difficult time burying our spent nuclear waste for this reason.  Also that the graphite core reactors of the USSR were particularly good at generating plutonium.

I've also heard it said that Japan was burning MOX fuel in Diachi #3 primarily as an excuse to be extracting and generally dealing with plutonium.  Since they are, in theory, a non-nuclear weapons holding country, they needed an excuse to be extracting and refining Pu.  Even the US won't use MOX due to the hazards (so I understand.)  Diachi #3 is the one which had the impressively big bang and spread fuel rods all over the place, and now Japan has plutonium all over a fair fraction of their territory including some of the most productive farm land.  It is not clear to me yet whether those rods came from the reactor core of from the spent fuel pools (or both), but both had MOX fuel rods.

Japan even sent me on the West Coast USA a little gift of some plutonium fuel fleas.  Thanks a bunch!  See you in hell Tepco and the lying, corrupt Japanese government.

[silverbox]

Gold Climbing ($1665), Market climbing(DOW 13250), AAPL (598) climbing...

Where is the Collapse??? 

My Dog is wagging his tail..

[proudhon]

Gold Climbing ($1665), Market climbing(DOW 13250), AAPL (598) climbing...

Where is the Collapse??? 

My Dog is wagging his tail..

Everything up, bitcoin down?

[S3052]

We still have a very fractured market after the weak close of the stock market. At least a sharp short term decline is going to happen very soon.

[cypherdoc]

http://financialriskanalytics.weebly.com/daily-blog.html