If anyone would like to work on a startup focused on Nuclear Propulsion, please reach out.
interesting to hear what you're working on!
The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)
41–50 of 52 posts
Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)
#42Oh, I thought a real nuclear lightbulb. The New York Central Railroad once developed one.[1], at 8:20.
[1] https://archive.org/details/0221_Big_Train_The_00_25_39_00
Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)
#43Could very small wires of uranium be used to power electronics? How much plutonium would be necessary to get a 3v thermoelectric generator?
Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)
#44"For those of us of a certain age, there was a toy that was quite popular: the Easy-Bake Oven...Rather than having a more normal resistive heating element as you find in a normal oven, though, a special light bulb was mounted in the oven, and the waste heat from the bulb would heat the oven enough to cook the food." I can't find any evidence that the Easy Bake oven used a "special" light bulb. It just used 2 normal 1…
I have this Panasonic toaster oven that has the usual element, plus this super intense bulb. When it fires on it's as bright as the sun, and all the other lights dim slightly in my apartment. I've never had a better toaster oven.
Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)
#45I just want a nuclear car...
Ford actually envisioned nuclear cars in the 1950s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon
Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)
#46Things like this make me wonder how cheap a truly commoditized nuclear industry could be. What kind of lifestyle are we giving up by requiring orders of magnitude fewer deaths-per-megawatt-hour of nuclear compared to fossil fuels? What if we were civilized enough you didn't have to worry about anyone building their own atom bomb?
There is a lot of very complex, and very real human psychology and sociology at play in those decisions. A lot of it centers around who accrues the benefits of a given energy source, vs. who pays the consequences.
On the other hand, the consequences have already been paid. There are plenty of highly irradiated places on earth already that could be used for future nuclear projects.
Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)
#47Things like this make me wonder how cheap a truly commoditized nuclear industry could be. What kind of lifestyle are we giving up by requiring orders of magnitude fewer deaths-per-megawatt-hour of nuclear compared to fossil fuels? What if we were civilized enough you didn't have to worry about anyone building their own atom bomb?
As you are asking open ended questions. What do you think is an appropriate level of deaths per MWh? Can you put a number on it? And how do you engineer a reactor to accurately and repeatedly achieve a certain risk level?
Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)
#48If anyone would like to work on a startup focused on Nuclear Propulsion, please reach out.
I’m interested.
Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)
#49Things like this make me wonder how cheap a truly commoditized nuclear industry could be. What kind of lifestyle are we giving up by requiring orders of magnitude fewer deaths-per-megawatt-hour of nuclear compared to fossil fuels? What if we were civilized enough you didn't have to worry about anyone building their own atom bomb?
As you are asking open ended questions. What do you think is an appropriate level of deaths per MWh? Can you put a number on it? And how do you engineer a reactor to accurately and repeatedly achieve a certain risk level?
Well, one answer to that is when the lives saved by nuclear balance out the lives cost by fossil fuels. Nuclear currently has a rate of 0.07 deaths per terawatt-hour. Coal has a rate of 24.6 deaths per terawatt-hour. If fully replacing coal with nuclear required making nuclear a hundred times more dangerous than it is now it would still be completely justified.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)
#50If anyone would like to work on a startup focused on Nuclear Propulsion, please reach out.
Canadian software engineer here, would be interested to hear more but if you're US based ITAR may be a problem. Email is in profile.