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Monthly Archives: April 2011
How to go back to the Moon, cheaply
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged delta iv heavy, lunar, mission, moon, Soyuz, space, space travel
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American Soyuz/Delta Heavy Lunar Mission
As shown at far right in this diagram from wikipedia, the Delta IV Heavy is a US rocket vehicle capable of placing 23,000 kg into low earth orbit. This happens to be almost one fifth of the payload capacity of … Continue reading
An American Soyuz
The 50th anniversary of the first human flight into space comes with the United States about to retire the Space Shuttle. This means that the US will no longer have the ability to place humans into space on its own. … Continue reading
Fukushima coolant recirculation with siphon
This design avoids damage to recirculation pumps from sea water sediment. A gravity siphon is used to draw water out of the building into a pit where sediment is collected into a shipping container. Water is then pumped from the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged coolant pumps, coolant recirculation system, fukushima, gravity flow, nuclear, siphon
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Coolant Recirculation System at Fukushima
They’ve been using sea water to cool the rods, but when the level threatens to overflow the reactor buildings, they’re flushing the water back into the ocean (ref here and here). This is an obvious radioactivity hazard to the environment, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged coolant, fukushima, recirculation, shipping containers
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Teleoperated Radioactivity Sample Boat
The high levels of radioactivity in the waters off the Fukushima nuclear plant require constant monitoring, which is best conducted without exposing human workers. Hence this design for a teleoperated radioactivity sample boat. To make the modification effort as simple … Continue reading
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Tagged boat, fukushima, radioactivity, robotics, sample, water
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A Roof for Fukushima
On the right is the baseball stadium known as Safeco Field in Seattle, USA. It is famous for its retractable roof, which rolls back for sunshine on the rare days in Seattle when there is sunshine. Why bring this up? … Continue reading
Fukushima Cooling Pump Cascade
A German concrete pump is being used at Fukushima to spray cooling water on the spent fuel rods. Now that the plant’s own cooling pumps are down and the cooling pools are empty of water, this pump may be all … Continue reading
Fukushima: Removing Spent Fuel Rods
If you’ve ever looked at Fairewinds Associates videos, you know that the big problem at Fukushima is the drying up of the cooling pools which are suspended over the reactor vessel and contain the spent (but extremely radioactive) fuel rods. … Continue reading
Japan’s Choice: Go Solar or Go Dark
“Japan’s dim capital faces further power crunch” (Associated Press, April 3): About 9 million kilowatts of capacity may be gone forever as the radiation-leaking Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is likely to be scrapped and the future of the halted Dai-ni … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged electrical power, fossil fuel power, japan, nuclear power, power, solar power
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