r1ch4rd
Apr 22, 11:02 PM
Dawkins might. As I said before, most atheists are agnostic atheists.
I think the definition is a bit tricky to nail down. I don't think that theists know that there is a God. They just believe that there is. I think my belief is just as strong as that. They may argue otherwise.
I think the definition is a bit tricky to nail down. I don't think that theists know that there is a God. They just believe that there is. I think my belief is just as strong as that. They may argue otherwise.
ezekielrage_99
Aug 30, 07:42 AM
Is 99 for your year of birth? It's not like there's ten of them. You've probably had too many nightmares about Woodstock.
For your information I'm 26 work, I have a Masters, I'm a officer (imagery information analyst) for the defence force. In my line of work I get this inanely useless "hippy crap" 24 hour a day 7 days a week, kind of sick of hearing the same doom and gloom stories.
The majority of the people who put these studies out usually have ZERO idea of how to combat the problems, they say it's bad and when you ask how can we do something about it they have not a clue. Hence influencial people have a problem taking certain groups seriously, and hence my overly cynical response.
For your information I'm 26 work, I have a Masters, I'm a officer (imagery information analyst) for the defence force. In my line of work I get this inanely useless "hippy crap" 24 hour a day 7 days a week, kind of sick of hearing the same doom and gloom stories.
The majority of the people who put these studies out usually have ZERO idea of how to combat the problems, they say it's bad and when you ask how can we do something about it they have not a clue. Hence influencial people have a problem taking certain groups seriously, and hence my overly cynical response.
Macinthetosh
Apr 28, 12:55 PM
Agree. Too bad the iMac never took off in the enterprise sector. I remember when I was going to the university in the 90's I saw plenty of macs all around campus. Now the times I've gone all I see are Dell's, and HP's.
MacBook Pros, iMacs, and iPads are seen everywhere you look at LMU, UCLA, and USC.
MacBook Pros, iMacs, and iPads are seen everywhere you look at LMU, UCLA, and USC.
100Teraflops
Apr 5, 07:12 PM
Hmm? I'm not really sure what this means. Can you explain?
Wow. I could see this being a pain in the butt when we're used to just clicking on 'Close Window' and we're done.
Are you guys sure that switching is really "worth it"? (serious question)
One can delete icons by dragging and dropping them onto the desktop from another app or the dock. However, they are not permanently deleted from your hard drive. It sounds strange at first, but it is pretty cool once you get use to seeing the icon mystified, saying it is thrash. :eek: Both Windows and Mac thrash icons are waste paper baskets. :)
There are videos on Apple's web-site titled something like "switching from Windows to Mac 101 or the switch basics." I do not remember the exact title, but mine are close. These tutorials will be helpful! Check them out! Also, you can drag items such as photos and video directly onto the desktop with the mouse.
As far as regretting the "switch," no way! :) OS X is easy to use and the 'finder' is pretty much idiot proof! While using Windows, I struggle to find simply things like documents and system files, because you have to add exc and other computer jargon to find what you are looking for. Point being: using the finder incorporated into Mac OS X to hunt down documents and system files is easy. Plus you can search specific aspects of the hard drive. Like the entire hard drive, your music library, applications, a.k.a. apps (which are programs in Windows land,) or your documents. Each are separate folders to conduct a search for 'X' file, app, or song.
I am not bashing Windows though! This must be noted, because I am not a wiz with any operating system. Each OS has its pros and cons and I am unfairly pointing out the cons of Windows, because that is your request. I like to use computers, as I am a button pusher, but I do not how they tic. :D
Wow. I could see this being a pain in the butt when we're used to just clicking on 'Close Window' and we're done.
Are you guys sure that switching is really "worth it"? (serious question)
One can delete icons by dragging and dropping them onto the desktop from another app or the dock. However, they are not permanently deleted from your hard drive. It sounds strange at first, but it is pretty cool once you get use to seeing the icon mystified, saying it is thrash. :eek: Both Windows and Mac thrash icons are waste paper baskets. :)
There are videos on Apple's web-site titled something like "switching from Windows to Mac 101 or the switch basics." I do not remember the exact title, but mine are close. These tutorials will be helpful! Check them out! Also, you can drag items such as photos and video directly onto the desktop with the mouse.
As far as regretting the "switch," no way! :) OS X is easy to use and the 'finder' is pretty much idiot proof! While using Windows, I struggle to find simply things like documents and system files, because you have to add exc and other computer jargon to find what you are looking for. Point being: using the finder incorporated into Mac OS X to hunt down documents and system files is easy. Plus you can search specific aspects of the hard drive. Like the entire hard drive, your music library, applications, a.k.a. apps (which are programs in Windows land,) or your documents. Each are separate folders to conduct a search for 'X' file, app, or song.
I am not bashing Windows though! This must be noted, because I am not a wiz with any operating system. Each OS has its pros and cons and I am unfairly pointing out the cons of Windows, because that is your request. I like to use computers, as I am a button pusher, but I do not how they tic. :D
Backtothemac
Oct 8, 10:02 AM
Yea, OSX uses libraries, but not specifically poorly designed libraries like winblows. .dll files are attributed to the majority of crashes on a PC. The structure of windows .dll and libraries in Unix are totally different. And yes, the X 86 structure sucks. ;)
AppliedVisual
Oct 28, 01:03 PM
Probably true, and quite sad really. SGI was a heck of a company in its day. I'm not sure they could have adapted. Once everybody else abandoned MIPS SGI couldn't afford new processor revisions by themselves, and the false promise that was (and is) Itanium irrevocably doomed them. Itanium basically killed off all the competition when the Unix vendors all hopped on the Itanium bandwagon, and Intel's complete failure to deliver on Itanium's promises looks in hindsight to have been Intel's plan all along. Just think of the performance a MIPS cpu would have were it given the development dollars x86 gets.
SGI tried to build more popularity for MIPS by spinning it off as a totally separate company in the late '90s. But other than embedded applications and various closed architecture implementations, the MIPS CPUs became a dead product line. Too bad, they were always fairly nice CPUs... As for the Itanium deal, the only major UNIX vendor that essentially sunk with the Itanic was SGI. Sun just brushed it off and moved on, as did HP and IBM. SGI's ship was sinking long before thier jump to IA64... They initially started to even go x86 and it was totally obvious that this would work for them. But I think their corporate leadership and investors panicked when suddenly they had two Windows systems on the market that were outperforming their current model Irix workstations for less than half the price. If SGI was smart, they would have dug right in and milked that cow for all it was worth and continued to expand their x86 lines... 64bit x86 was already on the drawing board back then so it wasn't an unknown factor. SGI would have done well to port Irix to x86, too bad they didn't have the foresight to do it.
SGI's technology isn't so much obsolete (who else sells systems with the capacity of an Altix 4700?) as it is unnecessary. 4 CPU Intel machines do just fine for 99.9% of people these days, and the kind of problems SGI machines are good at solving are a tiny niche. That's not just number crunching, a big SGI machine has I/O capacity that smokes a PC cluster.
Altix is nice, but hardly unique in todays marketplace. That and it's still Itanium based, which is a glaring red flag. I'd much rather go for one of Sun's large-scale solutions based on Opteron CPUs. It may only give me 90% of the per-CPU performance with 70% of the bandwidth across the entire cluster, but it's also half the price and I know that the CPU architecture will still be supported several years from now. Itanium is all but dead and Intel doesn't even seem interested in supporting it anymore. Most major workstation and server vendors have dropped it already and Intel has missed ship dates for most of the IA64 products on their roadmap. SGI claims they came out of bankruptcy a very focused and agile company... Yet they're still producing products based on a CPU architecture most the rest of the industry has already written off. So yeah, niche market for sure. SGI can't even muster the resources to continue development of Irix and it's being discontinued this year. So now all they have is some overgrown IA64 Linux boxes. What's going to happen if their current sales figures stay about the same and their own technologies dry up? They're just going to become another business-oriented Linux server vendor placing off-the-shelf components in some of the prettiest boxes around for a super-premium price. ...That's practically all they are now and the only thing that really differentiates their products (other than the cool system bezels and rack enclosures) is their NUMALink design.
I used to be very fond of SGI and their products, but that was years ago... The past 6 years have been a continuous downhill spiral and the company I once loved has been dead and gone for a long time now.
SGI tried to build more popularity for MIPS by spinning it off as a totally separate company in the late '90s. But other than embedded applications and various closed architecture implementations, the MIPS CPUs became a dead product line. Too bad, they were always fairly nice CPUs... As for the Itanium deal, the only major UNIX vendor that essentially sunk with the Itanic was SGI. Sun just brushed it off and moved on, as did HP and IBM. SGI's ship was sinking long before thier jump to IA64... They initially started to even go x86 and it was totally obvious that this would work for them. But I think their corporate leadership and investors panicked when suddenly they had two Windows systems on the market that were outperforming their current model Irix workstations for less than half the price. If SGI was smart, they would have dug right in and milked that cow for all it was worth and continued to expand their x86 lines... 64bit x86 was already on the drawing board back then so it wasn't an unknown factor. SGI would have done well to port Irix to x86, too bad they didn't have the foresight to do it.
SGI's technology isn't so much obsolete (who else sells systems with the capacity of an Altix 4700?) as it is unnecessary. 4 CPU Intel machines do just fine for 99.9% of people these days, and the kind of problems SGI machines are good at solving are a tiny niche. That's not just number crunching, a big SGI machine has I/O capacity that smokes a PC cluster.
Altix is nice, but hardly unique in todays marketplace. That and it's still Itanium based, which is a glaring red flag. I'd much rather go for one of Sun's large-scale solutions based on Opteron CPUs. It may only give me 90% of the per-CPU performance with 70% of the bandwidth across the entire cluster, but it's also half the price and I know that the CPU architecture will still be supported several years from now. Itanium is all but dead and Intel doesn't even seem interested in supporting it anymore. Most major workstation and server vendors have dropped it already and Intel has missed ship dates for most of the IA64 products on their roadmap. SGI claims they came out of bankruptcy a very focused and agile company... Yet they're still producing products based on a CPU architecture most the rest of the industry has already written off. So yeah, niche market for sure. SGI can't even muster the resources to continue development of Irix and it's being discontinued this year. So now all they have is some overgrown IA64 Linux boxes. What's going to happen if their current sales figures stay about the same and their own technologies dry up? They're just going to become another business-oriented Linux server vendor placing off-the-shelf components in some of the prettiest boxes around for a super-premium price. ...That's practically all they are now and the only thing that really differentiates their products (other than the cool system bezels and rack enclosures) is their NUMALink design.
I used to be very fond of SGI and their products, but that was years ago... The past 6 years have been a continuous downhill spiral and the company I once loved has been dead and gone for a long time now.
BoyBach
Aug 29, 03:23 PM
Why are so many of these posts so vehemently anti-Greenpeace? What have they done, or alleged to have done, that I've missed?
CalBoy
Mar 27, 05:27 PM
But no one here has proved that Nicolosi is an unreliable representative of his field. If someone proves that Nicolosi is mistaken, maybe no one will need to attack him.
His only publications are those he's published himself. Nothing peer-reviewed, nothing backed up by psychologists at large. If that weren't proof enough, he also proposes to "cure" something which every other psychologist, psychiatrist, and neurosurgeon says is beyond our capability of understanding fully at this time.
He is nothing more than a closeted [insert profanity of choice] trying to validate his shame. There's a word for people like that, and it isn't "credible."
His only publications are those he's published himself. Nothing peer-reviewed, nothing backed up by psychologists at large. If that weren't proof enough, he also proposes to "cure" something which every other psychologist, psychiatrist, and neurosurgeon says is beyond our capability of understanding fully at this time.
He is nothing more than a closeted [insert profanity of choice] trying to validate his shame. There's a word for people like that, and it isn't "credible."
![1975 Renault 12 Tl Wagon. 1970 Renault 12 TL [X17]](http://imcdb.org/i081757.jpg "1970 Renault 12 TL [X17]")
AppliedVisual
Oct 6, 04:59 PM
OK, it seems like Woodcrest was officially unveiled by Intel on July 27 and the new Mac Pros were available for purchase (same day they were announced) on August 7.
So if it goes like that, we could see these things as early as late November, right? Just doing some wishful thinking! :)
Ugh, it's gonna be hard waiting until December or January. I just hope the price won't be so much higher than what we see now.
It's difficult to say. Intel has been making engineering samples of Cloverton available to companies like Apple and Dell and motherboard makers for a while now. From the time Intel formally announces availability to the time we can buy a Cloverton Mac Pro should be a matter of days, maybe a week or two. Now, if there are problems with cooling or voltage or BIOS/ROM incompatibilities/bugs to work out, then it could be longer. I'm pretty confident that it won't be a delay anywhere near as long as the Merom Macbook[Pro] delay.
2.66GHz (or 3GHz? maybe?) Cloverton Mac Pro for me... :D Hopefully they have a better graphics card offering than the current choices too.
So if it goes like that, we could see these things as early as late November, right? Just doing some wishful thinking! :)
Ugh, it's gonna be hard waiting until December or January. I just hope the price won't be so much higher than what we see now.
It's difficult to say. Intel has been making engineering samples of Cloverton available to companies like Apple and Dell and motherboard makers for a while now. From the time Intel formally announces availability to the time we can buy a Cloverton Mac Pro should be a matter of days, maybe a week or two. Now, if there are problems with cooling or voltage or BIOS/ROM incompatibilities/bugs to work out, then it could be longer. I'm pretty confident that it won't be a delay anywhere near as long as the Merom Macbook[Pro] delay.
2.66GHz (or 3GHz? maybe?) Cloverton Mac Pro for me... :D Hopefully they have a better graphics card offering than the current choices too.
neko girl
Apr 26, 10:19 PM
I invite you to demonstrate how Islam is a threat to freedom and democracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Pakistan
This is fun..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Pakistan
This is fun..
MacinDoc
Aug 29, 11:15 AM
The reason Apple "performs poorly" on recycling compared to Dell is that Apple computers, on average, remain in use approximately twice as long as Dell computers. Instead of being recycled, they are still being used. Apple does, after all, have a free recycling program. And there is no way that making computers that are replaced more frequently is more environmentally friendly.
It also seems that most of Greenpeace's complaints focus around Apple's refusal to provide Greenpeace with information on what materials are used in manufacturing its products.
Greenpeace does not have an exactly spotless record when it comes to ethics. Makes you wonder if it gets its computers from Dell at a discount.
It also seems that most of Greenpeace's complaints focus around Apple's refusal to provide Greenpeace with information on what materials are used in manufacturing its products.
Greenpeace does not have an exactly spotless record when it comes to ethics. Makes you wonder if it gets its computers from Dell at a discount.
wtfk
Aug 29, 02:36 PM
As soon as you mention Greenpeace, morons seem to go on auto-pilot and once they do that you can't stop them.
Do you think Greenpeace's behavior might have something to do with that?
Do you think Greenpeace's behavior might have something to do with that?
Mord
Jul 13, 10:36 AM
every vendor, dell, HP, gateway ect offer workstations with single xeons, it's a very common practice because it makes business sense.
diamornte
Apr 13, 02:50 AM
Wait, what happened to all that talk of iPad integration? Another Macrumorfanboy wet dream?
FF_productions
Oct 28, 03:20 PM
Wow, and I thought the G5's were God.
Apple OC
Mar 13, 11:46 AM
with all hope that things stay under control in Japan ... Nuclear power is still the way of the future.
we can learn from this disaster ... for instance future cooling generators need to be built where failure is not an option.
Things will be learned and we will be better moving forward.
we can learn from this disaster ... for instance future cooling generators need to be built where failure is not an option.
Things will be learned and we will be better moving forward.
spicyapple
Sep 20, 12:31 AM
Woohoo a hard drive! :D
I wasn't planning on buying CenterStage, but the DVR functionality(?) would make it very appealing.
I wasn't planning on buying CenterStage, but the DVR functionality(?) would make it very appealing.
paul4339
Apr 28, 01:07 PM
Well it doesn't matter what you think either then! :p
And that's a stupid argument, I'm pretty sure 99% of people on this forum understood what I meant when I said, a computer shouldn't need a computer to be usable. :rolleyes:
I could be wrong, but I don't think that was his point... I think he meant it doesn't matter if you think it should be part of the shipment market share report or not.
That is, I think his point is even if it's not considered a computer, the report is just showing what people are buying (where the market is heading)
And that's a stupid argument, I'm pretty sure 99% of people on this forum understood what I meant when I said, a computer shouldn't need a computer to be usable. :rolleyes:
I could be wrong, but I don't think that was his point... I think he meant it doesn't matter if you think it should be part of the shipment market share report or not.
That is, I think his point is even if it's not considered a computer, the report is just showing what people are buying (where the market is heading)
firestarter
Mar 13, 07:27 PM
Solar plants can be put out in the scrub, they don't destroy what can be some of the most beautiful places on Earth like dams do, and have much less land impact.
We don't all have scrubland... or reliable sunshine! Can't see solar power taking off in the UK, I'm afraid. The same goes for most of Northern Europe.
We don't all have scrubland... or reliable sunshine! Can't see solar power taking off in the UK, I'm afraid. The same goes for most of Northern Europe.
r0k
Apr 14, 02:57 PM
Stompy, a few posts back somebody mentioned that the OP was later banned. That might explain why he hasn't come back. I am a fairly recent switcher. In fact I can honestly say I switch daily.
I switch whenever I manage to unchain myself from the Windows oars at the office and sit down in front of my lag-free, freeze-free, are you sure? free, (almost) trouble free, pleasant to use, easy to look at Mac.
There has been some good discussion here and there has been some wasted discussion. I think it's worth keeping this thread around for the sake of the good stuff. One of the things I like to do is to come in here and be reminded of some of the misconceptions I had when I first started switching over 5 years ago.
I don't have an ignore list for MR, but it's threads like this that draw out the kind of posts that make it fairly easy to put one together if someone is so inclined.
One thing that I stumbled across today was this...
One of my earliest Macs was a lowly Quadra 605. I was gonna put a picture of the 605 in here when I stumbled across this...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Apple_mac_quadra_800.jpg/220px-Apple_mac_quadra_800.jpg
We all know how Macs look nowadays (iMac, Mini, Macbooks, etc) and with the possible exception of the Mac Pro, none of them look much like the 1990s era Mac Quadra 800. Meanwhile, if you want to see something that looks like this today, it's readily available from Dell, HP, and half a dozen other "mini tower" PC makers. Wow.
http://i.dell.com/das/xa.ashx/global-site-design%20WEB/795f5356-a523-8089-dc4c-13112bb4c05d/1/OriginalPng?id=Dell/Product_Images/Dell_Client_Products/Desktops/Inspiron_Desktops/inspiron_570/hero/desktop-inspiron-570-left-piano-black-hero-504x350.png
That ancient form factor is one thing I don't miss after switching. It's like somebody on the PC side hit the "pause" button when they got their 1994 mini tower PC design completed and all these years later still I see more mini towers than any other PC form factor but I see very few Macs with this ancient form factor.
At the end of your post, you mention needs and tastes and I must admit that industrial design figures prominently in my tastes since switching to Apple gear. Even if the OS were equal (which they are not), I want stuff that doesn't take up more room than necessary, isn't noisier or hotter than necessary and looks good.
I switch whenever I manage to unchain myself from the Windows oars at the office and sit down in front of my lag-free, freeze-free, are you sure? free, (almost) trouble free, pleasant to use, easy to look at Mac.
There has been some good discussion here and there has been some wasted discussion. I think it's worth keeping this thread around for the sake of the good stuff. One of the things I like to do is to come in here and be reminded of some of the misconceptions I had when I first started switching over 5 years ago.
I don't have an ignore list for MR, but it's threads like this that draw out the kind of posts that make it fairly easy to put one together if someone is so inclined.
One thing that I stumbled across today was this...
One of my earliest Macs was a lowly Quadra 605. I was gonna put a picture of the 605 in here when I stumbled across this...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Apple_mac_quadra_800.jpg/220px-Apple_mac_quadra_800.jpg
We all know how Macs look nowadays (iMac, Mini, Macbooks, etc) and with the possible exception of the Mac Pro, none of them look much like the 1990s era Mac Quadra 800. Meanwhile, if you want to see something that looks like this today, it's readily available from Dell, HP, and half a dozen other "mini tower" PC makers. Wow.
http://i.dell.com/das/xa.ashx/global-site-design%20WEB/795f5356-a523-8089-dc4c-13112bb4c05d/1/OriginalPng?id=Dell/Product_Images/Dell_Client_Products/Desktops/Inspiron_Desktops/inspiron_570/hero/desktop-inspiron-570-left-piano-black-hero-504x350.png
That ancient form factor is one thing I don't miss after switching. It's like somebody on the PC side hit the "pause" button when they got their 1994 mini tower PC design completed and all these years later still I see more mini towers than any other PC form factor but I see very few Macs with this ancient form factor.
At the end of your post, you mention needs and tastes and I must admit that industrial design figures prominently in my tastes since switching to Apple gear. Even if the OS were equal (which they are not), I want stuff that doesn't take up more room than necessary, isn't noisier or hotter than necessary and looks good.
jonnysods
Apr 9, 02:07 PM
Very exciting. Can't wait to see where this is all headed.
Imagine iPhone 7, 8, 9, they are going to be incredible!
Imagine iPhone 7, 8, 9, they are going to be incredible!
alexf
Aug 29, 12:17 PM
I could not care any less.
Although, I do know of one thing Apple does that hurts the environment. They make me drive 3 hours to get to the closest Apple Store and 3 hours to get back home plus sitting in all the traffic in Atlanta. However, I drive a Nissan Armada (of course it has a V8) so I'm not too worried about gas consumption. ;)
Yep, just another wasteful American. Same sad story.
Although, I do know of one thing Apple does that hurts the environment. They make me drive 3 hours to get to the closest Apple Store and 3 hours to get back home plus sitting in all the traffic in Atlanta. However, I drive a Nissan Armada (of course it has a V8) so I'm not too worried about gas consumption. ;)
Yep, just another wasteful American. Same sad story.
alexeismertin
Aug 29, 12:10 PM
I hate people who are soo stuck up Apples arsehole that rather than accept Apple are poor environmentally, still stick up for a computer company.
It might not affect you, or the people on your street, or your city but somewhere in the world the impact of Apples actions are being felt.
I'll accept its not just Apple but this site is about Apple so lets not compare or excuse to justify Apples actions.
Big profits Big responsibilty
It might not affect you, or the people on your street, or your city but somewhere in the world the impact of Apples actions are being felt.
I'll accept its not just Apple but this site is about Apple so lets not compare or excuse to justify Apples actions.
Big profits Big responsibilty
takao
Mar 13, 05:18 PM
To quote one of your articles:
Notice the part about it being used to test a wide variety of fuels and machinery? Also the fuel temperature instabilities? That's what caused the Cs-137 and Sr-90 contamination, as noted above. A reactor that's properly designed (with properly fabricated fuel) won't have the disadvantages of a test reactor, and shouldn't have that contamination. I'm not saying it's perfect now, but controlling those instabilities shouldn't be an issue, especially in light of salt or liquid fuel possibilities. Furthermore, what about MSR? It's not a pebble bed; it's molten. That itself should even out the fuel temperature instabilities a little, just the liquid fuel based system.
You raise a very valid point about Thorium, however I think one instance of a test reactor hardly justifies dinging the entire concept because the initial reactor wasn't designed well (see the cracked bottom of the AVR...), but rather it serves as a basis for future designs. Also, what about India planning to use thorium? They're not approaching this with guesswork-- there's clear advantages to using it over uranium. Differences in opinion I guess, but hey, to each his own.
EDIT: Also, I know my initial wording was a little fuzzy; what I meant to say was PBR with uranium, and MSR with thorium-- at least for now.
the second link actually is the "power-delivered-to-the-grid" 300 mw powerplant ... not an testing reactor
in reality creating the pebbles and preventing the pebbles from cracking was also highly difficult (and costly)... the production facility for them was afaik also involved in some radioactive leakages
i have nothing against further testing out reactor types or different fuels if it means finding safer and more efficient ways for nuclear power plants but the combination peddle reactor + thorium has been neither been safe nor economical (especially the pebble part)
also two general problems about the thorium fuel cycle:
- it actually needs to the requirement of having a full scale fuel recyling facility which so far few countries posess, of which all were in involved in major radioactive leakages and exactly none are operating economically
- Nulcear non profileration contract issues: the 'cycle' involves stuff like plutonium and uranium usable for nuclear weapons being produced or used: not exactly something the world needs more
perhaps a safer thorium reactor can be constructed but using it in actually power production is still problematic
perhaps MSR can solve the problems but that technology has yet to prove it's full scale usability especially if the high temperatures can be handled or if they have a massive impact on reliability on large scale reactors
it might take decades to develop such a large scale reactor at which point cost has to come into play wether it is useful to invest dozens of (taxpayer) billions into such a project
i'm just saying that sometimes governmental money might perhaps better be spent elsewhere
Notice the part about it being used to test a wide variety of fuels and machinery? Also the fuel temperature instabilities? That's what caused the Cs-137 and Sr-90 contamination, as noted above. A reactor that's properly designed (with properly fabricated fuel) won't have the disadvantages of a test reactor, and shouldn't have that contamination. I'm not saying it's perfect now, but controlling those instabilities shouldn't be an issue, especially in light of salt or liquid fuel possibilities. Furthermore, what about MSR? It's not a pebble bed; it's molten. That itself should even out the fuel temperature instabilities a little, just the liquid fuel based system.
You raise a very valid point about Thorium, however I think one instance of a test reactor hardly justifies dinging the entire concept because the initial reactor wasn't designed well (see the cracked bottom of the AVR...), but rather it serves as a basis for future designs. Also, what about India planning to use thorium? They're not approaching this with guesswork-- there's clear advantages to using it over uranium. Differences in opinion I guess, but hey, to each his own.
EDIT: Also, I know my initial wording was a little fuzzy; what I meant to say was PBR with uranium, and MSR with thorium-- at least for now.
the second link actually is the "power-delivered-to-the-grid" 300 mw powerplant ... not an testing reactor
in reality creating the pebbles and preventing the pebbles from cracking was also highly difficult (and costly)... the production facility for them was afaik also involved in some radioactive leakages
i have nothing against further testing out reactor types or different fuels if it means finding safer and more efficient ways for nuclear power plants but the combination peddle reactor + thorium has been neither been safe nor economical (especially the pebble part)
also two general problems about the thorium fuel cycle:
- it actually needs to the requirement of having a full scale fuel recyling facility which so far few countries posess, of which all were in involved in major radioactive leakages and exactly none are operating economically
- Nulcear non profileration contract issues: the 'cycle' involves stuff like plutonium and uranium usable for nuclear weapons being produced or used: not exactly something the world needs more
perhaps a safer thorium reactor can be constructed but using it in actually power production is still problematic
perhaps MSR can solve the problems but that technology has yet to prove it's full scale usability especially if the high temperatures can be handled or if they have a massive impact on reliability on large scale reactors
it might take decades to develop such a large scale reactor at which point cost has to come into play wether it is useful to invest dozens of (taxpayer) billions into such a project
i'm just saying that sometimes governmental money might perhaps better be spent elsewhere
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