Re: nuclear power

[Bernard Cleyet <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET>]

I presume the Na cooled (high temp) reactor proved impractical.

bc  who, vaguely, remembers a movie describing an experimental air cooled carbon
moderated reactor intended for high thermo. efficiency.  I have no idea how they
intended to generate electricity from it.

bc  who once lived in a country whose gas was mainly H2 & CO, hence the favo.
method of murder and suicide was ....

P.s.  I've heard that recovery from CO exposure is NOT complete.  Wayne State
Med. School appears to confirm this.

"Chronic CO Poisoning:

This site is devoted to issues of chronic carbon monoxide poisoning. It is one of
the webmaster's current specialty areas of interest and one he has written on
extensively recently. Whereas at one time it was thought that people chronically
exposed to CO recovered completely as soon as the CO was "washed" out of the
body, it is now clear that chronic CO poisoning frequently causes serious health
harm and leaves a Pentad of Symptoms which he has recently characterized as the
CO Syndrome.

It is also clear that this area is an emerging one in terms of the public's
awareness and the medical communities skills in diagnosing and treating it.
Current CO alarm technology and prevailing standards will protect people from
high-level acute CO poisoning, harm and death. This cannot be said about
lower-level chronic CO poisoning, and this is a major concern to many experts in
the field.

Review these pages frequently for the latest approaches to preventing,
recognizing and understanding chronic CO poisoning. Please let me know if you
find the material interesting and useful, and if you believe I may have missed an
important aspect.

Thank you.

D.G.P."


http://www.phymac.med.wayne.edu/FacultyProfile/penney/COHQ/co1.htm


"John S. Denker" wrote:

> "Dr. Paul O. Johnson" wrote:
> > I remember 50 years ago or so, at the dawn of the nuclear age, someone
> > published a paper in some journal about the hazards of coal-fired reactors.
> > It was written from the perspective of living in a society in which safe,
> > clean, efficient fission reactors supplied all of mankind's energy needs.
>
> An amusing approach.  Let's see where it leads.
>
> > It pointed out half-dozen or so major problems with the "recently
> > discovered" coal-fired reactor:
> > It was based on combustion which depleted the available oxygen,
> > If the combustion was incomplete (a fairly frequent occurrence) it gave off
> > highly toxic and insidious (odorless) CO,
>
> Ummm, our ancestors lived in caves near imperfect fires
> for 4,000 generations.  We are pretty well equipped to
> handle chronic exposure to moderate levels of CO.
>
> > The fuel usually contained contaminants such as sulfur that made the gaseous
> > waste products even more hazardous,
>
> That's why scrubbers were invented.
>
> > Combustion occurred at a fairly low
> > temperature which made the reactor inefficient,
>
> Nice try, but diametrically wrong.  Although the
> laws of physics _theoretically_ permit nuclear reactors
> to operate at very high temperatures, in practice they
> operate at _lower_ temperatures than coal-fired plants.
> So the latter are thermodynamically _more_ efficient.
> Ever notice those humonnnnngous cooling towers at the
> local nuclear plant?