I know your comment was sarcastic, but today I was wondering if you could do remote control via SIPRNet or JWICS (military computer networks) and avoid the issues associated with conventional controls.
Quantity. One of the big issues with nuclear power is that we aren’t building frequently enough, and therefore lose expertise and capability, which drives up costs, both from screw-ups and from not being able to amortize over a large production run. To give an analogy, imagine if Boeing only made one 737 every five years. That aircraft would be insanely expensive.
Personally, I’m bullish on the companies in the micro reactor space that have minimal site construction. I’m less bullish on Oklo, given that their application had some glaring omissions and got denied an NRC license.
There are plenty of cleared jobs that don’t do polygraphs. I work for a DOE contractor. Q-cleared, no poly. The vast majority of positions where I am don’t have a polygraph associated with them.
A lump of raw ore on a shelf in your home office? Sure.
Uranium ore in ton quantities, underground in a poorly ventilated mine? That’s a big health risk, due to radon, other daughter products, and the inherent heavy metal hazards of uranium.
It’s most places, due to the international pressure from multinational organisations like the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) and WTO (World Trade Organisation) … they have longstanding campaigns to harmonies members national legislations to facilitate easier international trade and respect of intellectual property rights between countries…
As a result most countries (but, yes, not all countries) have the Bern convention “life plus 70”
It is life+70 only for copyrights owned by natural persons. That's why, for example, the estates of dead artists are managed by their heirs (at least in name). For copyrights owned by businesses, it's 70 years from publication.
Yes, you can have the reactor offline, with control rods inserted for launch. Then when you reach the requisite altitude, withdraw the control rods and start up the reactor. In the event of a launch accident and potential destruction of the reactor, the enriched uranium fuel would be a chemical hazard (uranium is a heavy metal like lead), but only a mild radiation hazard (since there are no high-gamma fission products, and the uranium has undergone heavy purification prior to fuel fabrication).
I think this is the default for any launch of reactors from Earth - launch inert, possibly in pieces and ideally in re-entry proof capsules so you prevent contamination and can re-launch after a failure.
Hypothetically, if the technique can enrich U, Pu, or other fissile isotopes in decent quantities, you run into other issues. Stirring an aqueous enriched uranium solution is a great way to have a criticality accident (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident). That’s not to say it’s impossible to manage, just difficult. UF6, the current compound of choice for enrichment, is in the gas phase during the process.
It’s still a point source, and thus cheaper and easier than direct air capture. I don’t think it will be as significant as some think it will be (we will likely move toward different processes for the remaining limited petrochemical production), it is likely to still be important for some industries.
Is there any way to link up which designer works with which contract manufacturer (or at least the models)? And are there any exceptions? I seem to recall Alienware stuff was made in Florida at some point.
Search for schematics, or look for identifying clues on the motherboard. All the OEMs have more-or-less distinguishable styles and part numbering schemes. E.g. a part number beginning with "LA-" followed by a few digits, then possibly another character, indicates Compal (LA-8331P, LA-4921P, LA-A994P.) Inventec likes to use 6050Annnnnnn (6050A2266501, 6050A2493101.) Quanta uses a few characters/digits code (e.g. ZHY, LX89, ZE6.)
Alienware is just owned by Dell now and seems to put out overpriced poorly built chunky machines that target gamers with too much money. Razer and Falcon NW might be better from the chassis design side, or Sager and Clevo from the OEM value side.
The Alienware laptop I had for a week or two a few years ago was the worst laptop I've ever used. Noisy and hot and expensive and poor ergonomics and just all around unimpressive, poor hardware masked by a once respected brand name.
The 1972 ban was in the United States. It wasn’t global, and even the Stockholm Convention allows for vector control using DDT. In any case, starting in the 1960s DDT-resistant mosquitos began to emerge, so continued non-targeted spraying likely would’ve become ineffective sometime in the 1980s.
