In The News Today...

Quote: Evenbob

They finally finished the nuclear plant they
started building in the 70's in TN.

http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2016/06/new-nuclear-reactor-countrys-first-two-decades-begins-operations

A very good thing. What is really needed is to standardize to 1-2 designs and thus allow streamlined approval, as little as a few years. I still say the best way to dispose of the rods is drop them into a mine and set off a battlefield mini-nuke. Until someone can show why it would not work.

Quote: AZDuffman

A very good thing. What is really needed is to standardize to 1-2 designs and thus allow streamlined approval, as little as a few years. I still say the best way to dispose of the rods is drop them into a mine and set off a battlefield mini-nuke. Until someone can show why it would not work.

If we used Thorium reactors versus the U235 reactors we use now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

"There is much less nuclear waste—up to two orders of magnitude less, states Moir and Teller,[4] eliminating the need for large-scale or long-term storage;[14]:13 "Chinese scientists claim that hazardous waste will be a thousand times less than with uranium."

The reason for the type of nukes we use now is to make fuel for nuclear weapons. With enough thorium in the US to power our needs for 1000 years. Electric cars and trains and airplanes are feasible.

US nuclear submarine reactors were standardized. Supposedly it helped. Though most errors are made by lax crews and crews without feedback from their actions. Fukishima was finished the moment the salt water hit all the electronic infrastructure, after that decommissioning was certain but the crew failed to realize that and kept trying to use pure water to protect the plant instead of any water since it was already a piece of junk.

Most people don't realize the huge military
presence we still have in Japan 71 years
after the war ended. Oh well, you attack
and lose the war, you get what you get.
Besides, the military is the economy
on Okinawa, it would collapse if we left.
There are 53,000 troops still in Germany
and they like having us there. It costs
them nothing.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-dangles-large-land-return-anti-resentment-surges-084112121.html?ref=gs

Quote: Fleastiff

US nuclear submarine reactors were standardized. Supposedly it helped. Though most errors are made by lax crews and crews without feedback from their actions. Fukishima was finished the moment the salt water hit all the electronic infrastructure, after that decommissioning was certain but the crew failed to realize that and kept trying to use pure water to protect the plant instead of any water since it was already a piece of junk.

I am not thinking the errors so much as the approval process. I always read that the other countries standardize their designs from the get-go. In the USA so much was custom each job. So in other places they had already approved the concept before it was more about location making the concept work. In the USA they had to look at it all.

A simple example would be building homes. Levittown went fast because the houses were identical. Building inspector approved the design once. But a fancier place the homes are custom, so each has to be looked at by the town board.

Quote: AZDuffman

A simple example would be building homes. Levittown went fast because the houses were identical. Building inspector approved the design once. But a fancier place the homes are custom, so each has to be looked at by the town board.

My dad built a Levittown type kit house
in 1946, after the war ended. Levittown, NY
had a strict whites only policy, no blacks
and no Jews. Levitt himself was a Jew, but
didn't think the races should be mixed. It
wasn't until the mid 50's that he was forced
to integrate, but it was too late because all
the homes were long sold. 1400 went in the
first 3 hours they were offered. To this day
the Levittown in NY (there are others) is
95% white.

Quote: Evenbob

My dad built a Levittown type kit house
in 1946, after the war ended. Levittown, NY
had a strict whites only policy, no blacks
and no Jews. Levitt himself was a Jew, but
didn't think the races should be mixed. It
wasn't until the mid 50's that he was forced
to integrate, but it was too late because all
the homes were long sold. 1400 went in the
first 3 hours they were offered. To this day
the Levittown in NY (there are others) is
95% white.

Levittown was a boon for all kinds of contractors by 1960. The houses were built very cheap. Not 1 hot water tank going at once, but 1,400 within a few years. Windows, termites, everything, it all needed replaced in a short period because the lifespan was similar.

Quote: AZDuffman

Levittown was a boon for all kinds of contractors by 1960. The houses were built very cheap. Not 1 hot water tank going at once, but 1,400 within a few years. Windows, termites, everything, it all needed replaced in a short period because the lifespan was similar.

But they're all still there and the average
value of one is $206,000, for a house
that orig cost $7,000. Sociologists said
it was a slum in the making and they
were 100% wrong. Many of the houses
have been expanded to twice their
orig size.

The sociologists who talked about slums of the future were living in rented apartments in NYC, the buyers in Levittown were OWNERS starting families after the war, they hammered, nailed, repaired and expanded.

Quote: Evenbob

But they're all still there and the average
value of one is $206,000, for a house
that orig cost $7,000. Sociologists said
it was a slum in the making and they
were 100% wrong. Many of the houses
have been expanded to twice their
orig size.

That is a cheap slum by Long Island standards. It is not like an old-school slum because the people have cars and mobility. Nassau County is the worst of suburbia. Homogenized everything beyond belief. The nadir of that was probably like so many other things in the 1970s.

I used to have Long Island in my region. I was way upstate and the stories they had about general life there. Traffic a nightmare. Cost of living a killer. People making near six figures and could not get a decent place to live. Showed them my place and what I paid, they hated me for the rest of the day. I despised going there on business.