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The fast breeder reactor at Monju
Mar. 15th, 2011 11:37 amAFAIK, the Monju reactor has been in no danger at all from the earthquake. It's on the other side of the island, facing away from the tsunami. But the political scandal underlying its shutdown, and its controversial re-start after 15 years of damage control, make for some fascinating reading.
http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sc=2059044
I'm still trying to track down the English language pamphlet mentioned in the article, "For the safety of Monju - how do we respond to the potential accidents and troubles?" it promises to be some interesting reading. But the JAEA web site is being hammered right now, it's not hard to understand why.
I've also been browsing the nuclear reactor diagrams being posted over on 4chan: [warning: some NSFW content!]
http://boards.4chan.org/hr/res/1272072
...and the thought that keeps coming back to me, is to ask myself how well we are using the electricity that's being produced? How much of that juice is being used to make life really, truly better for people, and how much of it is being wasted?
Of course that's a value judgment for which there can be no objective answer. But I think about how much electricity gets wasted in my household, and how market capitalism can't distinguish between the electric demand I put on the grid that's just wastage, versus the demand I put on the grid that's really helping me. It's all just one big number that tells politicians and engineers that we *must* have more capacity in line in the next few decades, or people are going to shiver in the dark and cold.
I've also never experienced deliberate brown-outs the way they're doing in Japan right now. But I have thought a lot about off-grid architecture, and I wonder what it would be like to build a house that was designed to receive outside power only part of the day.
On a deep, almost subconscious level, I have a sense that my society is DOING IT WRONG. I sure wish there were a way to have a conversation about this sort of thing, without inviting the market forces into the discussion. It's almost like having a board meeting in which commercial spam has to be read into the official record at regular intervals.
http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sc=2059044
I'm still trying to track down the English language pamphlet mentioned in the article, "For the safety of Monju - how do we respond to the potential accidents and troubles?" it promises to be some interesting reading. But the JAEA web site is being hammered right now, it's not hard to understand why.
I've also been browsing the nuclear reactor diagrams being posted over on 4chan: [warning: some NSFW content!]
http://boards.4chan.org/hr/res/1272072
...and the thought that keeps coming back to me, is to ask myself how well we are using the electricity that's being produced? How much of that juice is being used to make life really, truly better for people, and how much of it is being wasted?
Of course that's a value judgment for which there can be no objective answer. But I think about how much electricity gets wasted in my household, and how market capitalism can't distinguish between the electric demand I put on the grid that's just wastage, versus the demand I put on the grid that's really helping me. It's all just one big number that tells politicians and engineers that we *must* have more capacity in line in the next few decades, or people are going to shiver in the dark and cold.
I've also never experienced deliberate brown-outs the way they're doing in Japan right now. But I have thought a lot about off-grid architecture, and I wonder what it would be like to build a house that was designed to receive outside power only part of the day.
On a deep, almost subconscious level, I have a sense that my society is DOING IT WRONG. I sure wish there were a way to have a conversation about this sort of thing, without inviting the market forces into the discussion. It's almost like having a board meeting in which commercial spam has to be read into the official record at regular intervals.
