[HN Gopher] Kodak ran a nuclear device in its basement for decades
___________________________________________________________________
Kodak ran a nuclear device in its basement for decades
Author : cainxinth
Score : 206 points
Date : 2025-11-15 15:21 UTC (7 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.popularmechanics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.popularmechanics.com)
| pinewurst wrote:
| https://archive.ph/gb4Kj
| wumms wrote:
| > In 1975, Kodak powered up the country's first californium
| neutron flux multiplier (CFX) ... to provide Kodak R&D with an
| ample stream of neutrons for materials analysis. > If an X-ray
| shows you the crack in a pipe, neutrons will show you the leak.
| rzzzt wrote:
| I'm getting "Windows Subsystem for Linux" vibes from the project
| name. Shouldn't this be called a HEUFX with a Californium source?
| richardatlarge wrote:
| Quote: "and though it takes roughly 100 pounds of it to build an
| atomic bomb..."
|
| Are they stupid at PM or just selling misinformation?
| dmurray wrote:
| This matches other sources on the internet: a bomb requires
| about 15kg of U-235 [0] with a good use of neutron reflectors,
| and HEU by definition contains 20%+ of U-235 [1]. We don't know
| exactly what the U-235 concentration was in the Kodak device,
| but reasonable values would make the claim "roughly" correct.
|
| [0] https://www.britannica.com/technology/nuclear-
| weapon/Princip...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium
| _n_b_ wrote:
| Their SNM license was for "up to 93.5% enriched"[1] and their
| decommissioning plan describes them as MTR-type Al-clad
| plates. So I'd take a reasonable guess that these are at 93%
| nominal enrichment, like ATR and HFIR fuel plates.
|
| [1] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0900/ML090080661.pdf
|
| [2] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ml0816/ML081690374.pdf
| cryptonector wrote:
| HEU != 20% enriched -- 20% is more like the floor for
| considering it HEU. You need much more than 20% to make an
| efficient Uranium bomb.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| At least it wasn't "though it takes at least the equivalent of
| 12.5 bald eagles of it to build an atomic bomb"
| ahoka wrote:
| The whole article is a journalistic nothingburger.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| It wasn't a secret like the article admits later on.
| Yokolos wrote:
| Seems like a distinction without a difference to me?
|
| > And aside from a license renewal snafu in 1980, the device
| made no waves until its existence was shared with the local
| newspaper--it wasn't a secret, just unpublicized.
| quinndexter wrote:
| I think "secret nuclear device" and "license renewal" are
| kind of conceptually incongruous, even if only at a surface
| level.
| Yokolos wrote:
| The license renewal has nothing to do with anything. It's
| not related to the incident where its existence was
| revealed. This is about "secret" vs "unpublicized", not
| "secret" vs "license renewal".
| IshKebab wrote:
| In this context "secret" implies they didn't tell the
| government. Merely not publicising an internal project is
| totally normal and doesn't warrant "secret project!!"
| alpinisme wrote:
| I guess that depends on how hysterically you read the word
| secret (including projecting hysterics on others using it).
| But we at work have a lot of secret projects. Basically
| everything is given a project code name until it's public
| and if you work in R&D you are told not to discuss your
| work on such projects either outside the company with
| friends or inside the company with people who don't work in
| R&D. That is the closest to the definition of secret I can
| imagine. And it sounds like this nuclear lab was in a
| similar category.
|
| If someone freaks out about it, it's because they think
| you're abusing normal, run of the mill product development
| secrecy, whether to develop a product that shouldn't exist
| or to hide a practice that is never intended to be public
| and is just called secret to avoid scrutiny from an
| interested public (who, in this hypothetical scenario, feel
| that they have a right to be interested -- think research
| into dangerous pathogens next to an unprotected public
| aquifer).
| jpalawaga wrote:
| Is there a penalty to discussing the secret projects?
| Like if your manager/director/vp knew you were talking
| specifics without some authorized, what would happen?
|
| It sounds like there is no penalty to the nuclear labs
| except, if you blab to the wrong person, it's going to
| stir up trouble.
| alpinisme wrote:
| I've never heard of anything more happening than being
| reminded not to do that (pretty much the only time it
| happens is when someone is talking with product support
| and lets slip a feature or product they're working on
| will solve a complaint about an existing product). I'm
| sure you'd be fired if it was thought you did it
| intentionally to spread knowledge of the secret though.
|
| I guess in this case the question comes down (for me) to
| whether employees at this lab were asked by their
| managers not to tell friends and acquaintances what they
| worked on. Even if not with an explicit threat of harm,
| asking someone not to tell something is pretty much
| exactly what asking them to keep it a secret means.
| fragmede wrote:
| yeah but is this internal project one where we kidnap
| homeless people and torture them in the name of science or
| is it because we spent $50,000 to make a new logo? Some
| secret are meant to be kept. Others are meant to be blown
| wide open. Others... Other just are, and nobody need to
| know. Posting that a particular woman's a slut is a shitty
| thing to do on Facebook, but if one of my male friends is
| feeling extra lonely and ready to end it all, there's a
| date or two I could set him up on.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| There are no secrets in a legal sense e.g. NDAs. However, there
| is a culture around private nuclear labs of giving no hint of
| their existence so that they can hide in plain sight.
|
| The objective is to avoid attention, not to be secret per se,
| though the effect can be similar.
| retrac wrote:
| Here in Toronto, every once in a while, someone has a
| meltdown (if you'll forgive the expression) when they
| rediscover that there is a CANDU nuclear fuel manufacturing
| plant in their dense and quiet suburb.
|
| Now CANDU reactors run on natural uranium. So they're forming
| metal pellets out of uranium powder. The main risk is direct
| chemical toxicity from the uranium, not the radiation. But
| for many people "nuclear fuel" might as well mean hot nuclear
| waste.
|
| The mystical level of dread it inspires in some is hard to
| overstate. Just to avoid drama from the neighbours it's
| understandable they try to keep quiet.
| imglorp wrote:
| What a neat device. Unlike those extra spicy, dangerous sources
| that say "drop and run" on them, this thing only runs when you
| line up the CF-252 with the HEU plates. It has an off switch to
| stop the cascade. Perfect for lab use.
| rdtsc wrote:
| Cf-252 is no joke though. It has to be carefully handled. It
| constantly emits neutrons. And those need shielding, something
| with lots of light atoms like hydrogen - water, PET or other
| plastics etc.
| randallsquared wrote:
| > _Indeed, it's difficult to imagine trusting private
| corporations with the stuff atomic bombs are made of today._
|
| Valar Atomics would like a word.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| When I studied chemistry at university, only a handful of select
| students were introduced to the nuclear science lab in the
| basement. It had a lot of spicy isotopes, neutron sources, etc.
| Even as a chemistry student with free run of the place for years
| I had no idea it was in the building until the department head
| pulled a few of us aside.
|
| The reason for the informal secrecy, as it was explained to me,
| is that every so often someone would find out there was plutonium
| etc in the basement and have a public freak out, including on
| occasion other (non-STEM) professors at the same university.
| These people would try to organize crusades to get it shut down
| because evil. Intentionally obscuring its existence greatly
| mitigated this drama. They appreciated us continuing the
| tradition of keeping it out of sight and out of mind from the
| general public.
|
| The publicity around this Kodak case was an example of why no one
| talks about nuclear labs. The public cannot be trusted to engage
| in a discussion about anything "nuclear" in good faith. There are
| quite a few areas of science like this.
| orioni wrote:
| This is just like how universities hide their animal research
| facilities. It wasn't until the final year of my biology degree
| that I found out we had a basement floor under our life
| sciences building where this research is carried out.
|
| I visited a few times as part of a research project I was
| involved in, and that experience was one of the factors that
| put me off pursuing a career in biomedical research.
| hammock wrote:
| If we can't have a good faith discussion then maybe it is a
| good idea to hide nuclear and animal labs.
|
| But with less oversight, that also invites abuse.
|
| You can probably imagine abuse on your own in an anima lab,
| but I would also point out after Obama banned gain of
| function research in 2014 U.S. scientists moved their lab to
| China where it continued without the same oversight, and bad
| things happened.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| As a dyed in the wool leftist I more and more struggle with
| Obama legacy from common core to regulation to his utter
| selling out the American people to the cia.
|
| When he was well intentioned he seemed to be a total
| failure and when he was blatantly self interested he was
| monstrous.
|
| I don't think the right is another option but woof... this
| is tough
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| It was obvious when he was president that he's a terrible
| person. Not sure how you're struggling with it now. He's
| just a guy like anyone else. Not special. We shouldn't
| deify presidents. I didn't vote for him in 2008 because I
| thought he was too inexperienced. I didn't vote for him
| in 2012 because he continued the war of terror.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| I didn't say any of this. I think you are responding to
| Your own thoughts and not mine.
| anonymars wrote:
| On the one hand, "bomb bomb Iran"
|
| On the other hand:
| https://youtu.be/HLAzeHnNgR8?si=rcgu4dkfY60icTuO
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| What bad things?
| PeterHolzwarth wrote:
| It's a reference to the theory that perhaps covid came
| from, and accidentally escaped from, a lab.
| 0ckpuppet wrote:
| Wasn't this theory proven by documents that were released
| and reported on?
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| No, it's very squarely in the conspiracy theory category.
| ralph84 wrote:
| The idea it came from a mystery animal species that
| despite six years of intense searching hasn't been
| identified is the conspiracy theory.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Respectfully, I challenge you to show that it's any more
| "in the conspiracy theory category" than zoonotic
| crossover in a wet market.
|
| I don't mean to say that it's proven, because to my
| knowledge it is not. There is a great deal more evidence
| pointing to it being likely than necessary for it to be
| considered a mainstream theory.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-update-healthcare-
| professionals...
|
| > One of the contentions in support of this theory was
| that the furin cleavage site on the virus has never been
| found in nature. Therefore, to some, that meant it must
| have been created in a laboratory... Recently, Wu and
| coworkers identified a bat virus (Bat CoV CD35) that
| harbored a furin cleavage site identical to that found on
| SARS-CoV-2 (Zhu W, Huang Y, Gong J, et al. A novel bat
| coronavirus with a polybasic furin-like cleavage site.
|
| > There is now abundant evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was an
| animal-to-human spillover event that occurred in the
| western section of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market
| that housed several live animals that were susceptible to
| the virus. Indeed, the early cases of COVID-19 centered
| on that section of the market.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03026-9
|
| > The hunt for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic has
| new leads. Researchers have identified half a dozen
| animal species that could have passed SARS-CoV-2, the
| coronavirus that causes COVID-19, to people, by
| reanalysing genomes collected from an animal market in
| Wuhan, China1. The study establishes the presence of
| animals and the virus at the market, although it does not
| confirm whether the animals themselves were infected with
| the virus.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| You've shown that zoonotic origin is a reasonable theory;
| I do not dispute that.
|
| I'm asking you to show that a reasonable person wouldn't
| consider a lab origin, which is what you asserted.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| That's not how the burden of proof works. If you are
| putting forth the lab leak origin, it is you who must
| provide reasonable evidence in support of it.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| I did not put it forth. The other user asserted that it
| was "conspiracy". That's the assertion that I'm
| challenging, not the veracity of the theory itself.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| I am not sure what you are trying to say. It is a
| conspiracy theory at this point because it is believes,
| in spite of the existing evidence, the covid absolutely
| came leaked from a lab rather than starting being of
| zoonotic orign. It also asserts a coverup by both the
| Chinese and American government, as well as cover ups and
| complicity from the entire Chinese and American virology
| community.
|
| This, _despite_ the possibility seriously investigated by
| (at least the Americans) and finding very little evidence
| to support it, and far less than the zoonotic origin.
|
| That's why it's a conspiracy theory, because it alleges a
| conspiracy.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| You're putting a lot of words in my mouth here.
|
| The specific origins of the virus have not, to my
| knowledge, been confirmed.
|
| I am not asserting that it was a lab leak; I'm merely
| asserting that it is not unreasonable to consider it
| possible.
|
| Nowhere did I suggest that I believed it more likely to
| be the source than zoonotic spillover, nor did I assert
| anything about a coverup by any party.
|
| Frankly, this whole discussion is a great example of why
| I commented. It should absolutely not be discouraged to
| consider less-likely explanations when the most likely
| has not been conclusively proven.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Joe Public doesn't provide oversight. He's mostly good at
| generating outrage. Experts provide oversight, and animal
| research in the US is highly regulated by experts!
| Teever wrote:
| People like Erin Brokovitch, Lois Gibbs, and Wilbur
| Tennant seem to have provided significant oversight that
| has proven beneficial to society.
|
| As a Joe Public, how do you suggest that I can verify the
| oversight of experts?
|
| Is there sufficient oversight with animal testing in a
| place like Wuhan?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Brockovich
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Gibbs
|
| [3] https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/dupont-bilott-
| book-ex...
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Erin Brockovich and Lois Gibbs generated outrage, which
| was well deserved and a societal good. They were working
| against unregulated/underregulated firms, which did not
| have effective oversight.
|
| Oversight for PG&E should have come from the US EPA. I
| suppose the EPA should have handled Love Canal too, but
| the agency didn't exist when Hooker dumped their
| pollutants.
|
| Your cultural references suggest you're American, so you
| don't have a direct way of interacting with a sovereign
| nation's internal affairs. You can, however, elect
| competent politicians who support a competent foreign
| service.
|
| If you want to verify the work of experts, you need
| knowledge. You need to read, practice, and talk. Once you
| develop relevant expertise, you're an expert and no
| longer Joe Public. There are public universities near you
| where you can learn any of these topics. If you're in a
| remarkably remote location, you can take online courses.
| It takes time, but that's true of almost anything worth
| doing.
|
| If you aren't willing to do that, you're just proving
| Asimov right: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United
| States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-
| intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its
| way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by
| the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance
| is just as good as your knowledge."
| Teever wrote:
| This kind of dismissive attitude and condescending tone
| is a big part of why people don't trust people who say
| "trust us, you don't need to know what we're doing to
| those animals in the secret basement at the university."
|
| For the record I am not American and I have sat in on a
| few institutional review board meetings that pertained to
| animal welfare relating to a project that I was involved
| with.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Animal research is regulated, but not by a public jury.
| "We don't advertise what we do with animals in the
| basement" is because extremists have attempted to murder
| animal researchers in recent memory[1]. In the US we have
| a review process similar to an IRB for animal research:
| IACUC.
|
| I'm dismissive of and admittedly rather condescending to
| people who equate their ignorance to experts' knowledge.
| But that's the whole point: expertise isn't a hereditary
| title. It comes from study, and I support anyone's effort
| to gain it!
|
| For what it's worth: if you've sat on an IRB you're not
| Joe Public. You may not be a scientist, but you're an
| expert in another field. You also know that, so I don't
| get what you're arguing.
|
| [1]: https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/eco-
| violence-rec...
| 0ckpuppet wrote:
| This is a problem when the definition of expert is made
| by politicians and bureacrats instead of academic rigor
| MengerSponge wrote:
| In the dictionary definition that politics is "the total
| complex of relations between people living in society",
| academic rigor is defined by academic politics. It is a
| political problem, which means the definition and
| fundamental regulation will be made by politicians.
|
| Consider supporting politicians who respect expertise. If
| you aren't presented with that ballot choice, at least
| vote against the anti-intellectuals.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Could you describe the experience? I've always wondered what
| biomedical research was actually like.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| A standard part of preclinical research for medicines and
| topical ingrediants is to determine the LD50. That is the
| dose per unit of weight of an animal, typically lab rats,
| that will kill just about 50% +- some small range. That is
| time consuming to zero into a 50% kill rate over a
| statistically significant sample.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| To be fair an operational animal lab is an order of different
| ethical problem than safely storying radioactive material.
| billy99k wrote:
| These public freak outs is also why we don't have abundant
| nuclear energy.
|
| The climate activists of the 60s-90s stopped us from building
| more reactors, one of the cleanest sources of energy ever
| known.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Climate activists backed and propagandized by the fossil fuel
| industry and the KGB.
|
| And now that there are a number of barriers to creating new
| nuclear, the propaganda has flipped with fossil fuel
| companies supporting nuclear because they know it'll be
| decades before anything real can happen.
|
| I have nothing against nuclear and if it can be built I'm for
| it. But at the moment, solar + battery is quick to deploy and
| about as cheap as you can get.
| simianparrot wrote:
| Ok but what about when it's night time or cloudy?
| goodcanadian wrote:
| That's where the battery comes in.
|
| Yes, I am over-simplifying the very complex problem of
| grid management, but so are you.
| ldoughty wrote:
| Molten salt solar power doesn't care. It remains hot.
|
| Advancements in solar also are improving with clouds.
|
| Also, you know, batteries. When someone makes it cost
| effective to install a device to sell your car battery
| power on the grid we'll also have a better time managing
| the grid during spikes... Would be nice if that also did
| home battery backup in blackouts... 70 kWh would get me
| through most of the ones I've experienced.
| lazide wrote:
| Molten salt absolutely does care, keeping it molten
| controls how much power can be withdrawn. It's a form of
| thermal battery (and an inefficient one).
|
| If the sun is shining vs not (and if further withdrawal
| will freeze the salt) absolutely controls power output.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Molten salt solar power plants are completely obsolete.
| See for ex. Ivanpah being shut down early because the
| power its generating is too expensive compared to Solar
| PV: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/once-an-
| engineeri...
| dgacmu wrote:
| Solar + battery + wind actually do pretty well. There's a
| bit of a de-correlation between solar and wind that makes
| the mix more resilient than either alone. We can't do
| 100% in most places yet, but it's pretty straightforward
| to move to a much higher percentage of them in our grid
| mix than we have now, California possibly excepting. (But
| even in California you see battery starting to extend how
| much we can do with solar as prices continue to drop.)
|
| And the plummeting price of solar modules makes it more
| cost effective to over provision for the case of clouds,
| and/or to mount solar panels to optimize for morning and
| evening production as well.
| xp84 wrote:
| California has energy costs more than double most other
| states so it's probably not the best argument for "it's
| so easy to go mostly renewable." A lot of things are
| feasible if you're willing to [force everyone in the
| state to] spend 2x. Whatever California is trying to do
| in the past 20 years has been extraordinarily regressive.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Our energy costs are due to the distribution network and
| the massive amount of deferred maintenance on it that has
| come due in the last decade, accelerated by the Camp fire
| court case. There was a two year period a few years ago
| where power went out at least once a week while SDGE
| replaced every power pole in the rural east county by
| flying them in on helicopters. That's largely what we're
| paying for.
| dgacmu wrote:
| As the above poster said.
|
| Generation costs are a small part of most consumers'
| bills, but particularly in CA.
|
| If you look at the location marginal pricing map from CA
| ISO: https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/prices
|
| You'll see that right now (before solar has really kicked
| in), The price for the next megawatt hour of generation
| is $49 -- i.e., under 5c per kWh. That's comparable to
| the average price in PJM (east coast) at the same time:
|
| https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/prices
|
| vs https://pjm.com/
|
| The big problem for California is that cheap generation
| via solar doesn't move the needle as much on consumer
| bills because of the transmission and distribution costs.
| In San Francisco, for example the distribution fee is
| over $0.20/kWh. That's twice what mine is in Pittsburgh.
| In contrast, the generation pricing is only about
| $0.04/kWh more than mine:
|
| https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SC
| HED...
|
| though this pricing does favor behind the meter
| generation such as residential solar.
| jeffbee wrote:
| In terms of consumer bills, California is actually among
| the states with typical spending on such things. Your
| actual energy bill in California is not that high. There
| are 14 American states where residential energy bills are
| higher than California's.
|
| People are always pointing out the marginal volumetric
| costs of electricity, which is indeed very high. But that
| is just reflection of the fact that we use so little
| energy because of our history of efficiency laws and the
| mild climate, so the fixed charges and taxes that combine
| into the volumetric price are much higher than in other
| states. And our extremely large fleet of behind the meter
| solar panels also contributes to the higher volumetric
| price of grid electricity. All together, this doesn't
| tell us much about whether renewables are a good policy
| or not.
| parineum wrote:
| Cost of electricity and cost of energy should be
| considered in a conversation about renewables vs fossil
| fuels.
|
| Many of those other states avoid high electricity costs
| because they are cold states that don't use electricity
| for heat.
| jeffbee wrote:
| If the homes heated by gas or oil all switched to grid
| electricity, that would in all likelihood reduce the
| marginal volumetric price of electricity by amortizing
| the fixed costs over a larger volume.
| dgacmu wrote:
| Agreed. The point I'm trying to make is that the
| breakdown of California's costs shows that it's not
| actually the generation cost, i.e., whether or not the
| generation is solar or fossil is not really the thing
| that's making the difference.
|
| (When you factor in behind the meter, solar is, in fact,
| probably reducing the average cost to consumers.)
| zekrioca wrote:
| It hasn't, it is actually showing the way forward for a
| more dynamic energy mix. Regressive is continuing with
| the same 150y fossil fuel receipt for energy despite
| continuous advances in various clean technologies.
| California has multiple natural issues with regular fires
| and dry air that makes energy management very expensive.
| jsight wrote:
| Texas and Florida both have a lot of solar as well, with
| TX likely passing CA on battery storage over the next few
| years. Those states also have much cheaper energy than
| CA.
|
| California's energy problems aren't due to the source of
| their energy.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| > But at the moment, solar + battery is quick to deploy and
| about as cheap as you can get.
|
| The actual equation is solar + battery + gas fired power
| plant.
|
| That's the dirty secret behind intermittent power sources
| and why fossil fuel companies are all investing in solar
| and wind. Batteries are simply not enough to face the long
| term intermittence. It's purely an intra-day solution at
| the moment and nobody knows how to actually run a large
| grid on purely intermittent sources.
|
| Even China is actually aggressively pursuing nuclear at the
| same time it builds an insane amount of solar and gas fired
| power plants.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The actual actual problem is energy per acre of land per
| year.
|
| Solar is king in places like west Texas and Nevada.
| Massive sunny flat sprawling landscapes where the land is
| practically free.
|
| It's a different story in places like Massachusetts or
| New York, where land is expensive and the sun is mildly
| sunny.
|
| Gas becomes much more competitive because you only need 5
| acres instead of 500, and the energy is 24/7.
| zekrioca wrote:
| Long distant transmission lines would help with that.
| Also, I want to point out we need to decarbonize, so I
| don't think gas considers all externalities that it
| causes, like air pollution.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The problem is that people don't really want to pay for
| it.
|
| When you compare the rates at which people recognize the
| need to decarbonize, to the rates at which people are
| willing to pay 20-50% more for green energy, an obvious
| and expected trend arises.... people overwhelming don't
| want to put their money where there mouth is. Or they
| want someone elses money to go where there mouth is.
|
| It needs to be understood that almost all those "green
| energy is cheaper than fossil fuels" studies use the best
| case scenario to calculate those values.
|
| To put that another way, gas meets it's ideal pretty much
| everywhere, whereas green energy meets it's ideal in
| small, often far from society, spots. Transmission can
| bridge the gap to a degree, but it's then a cost
| multiplier.
|
| A carbon tax is a good way to balance this, but man,
| people vote hard to not have to spend more of their own
| money. (I don't want to pay for it/I only want it if
| billionaires pay for it)
| jeffbee wrote:
| "how many acres are in the gas field??" I type into the
| goose meme generator.
| pfdietz wrote:
| > It's a different story in places like Massachusetts or
| New York, where land is expensive and the sun is mildly
| sunny.
|
| Even in those places, the cost of land is a small
| fraction of the cost of a PV installation.
| rayiner wrote:
| > Climate activists backed and propagandized by the fossil
| fuel industry and the KGB
|
| Who are the current generation of climate activists backed
| and propagandized by?
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I don't know about activists, vut the US green party was
| influenced by russia for years. There is evidence of
| influence with Jill Stein for instance. But if you pick a
| political organization anywhere in the world that doesn't
| show signs of Russian influence, that would almost be
| more suspicious.
| ghurtado wrote:
| To pretend that the US "green party" has anything to do
| whatsoever with the environment is beyond naive, it's
| completely disconnected from reality.
|
| Neither their policies nor their electorate support the
| idea that people like Jill Stein are in any way looked at
| as authorities in any "green" subject.
|
| I don't think that someone that had national relevance
| for roughly half an election cycle, and who got less than
| half of one percent of the vote (at the peak of her
| popularity) has had any influence shaping nuclear
| opinions.
|
| She's not even on record stating her position, that's how
| utterly unimportant this issue to Putin / Russia.
|
| I'm not even sure how you think Russia would benefit from
| less nuclear power plants an entire continent away
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > I don't think that someone that had national relevance
| for roughly half an election cycle, and who got less than
| half of one percent of the vote (at the peak of her
| popularity) has had any influence shaping nuclear
| opinions.
|
| It's not about any one person. You still see this now,
| where people suggest regulatory reform for the process of
| building new nuclear plants in the US to lower
| construction costs, people appear to tell you that
| nuclear costs too much and should be abandoned, i.e. they
| use circular logic to present the existence of the
| problem you're trying to solve as a reason not to try to
| address it.
|
| The current line of reasoning is something like "solar
| plus storage is cheaper than nuclear so nuclear must
| never be attempted", which ignores both any possibility
| of improving the cost efficiency of nuclear and that the
| cost comparison they're using is for intra-day storage
| whereas nuclear also reduces the need for multi-day
| storage which is significantly more expensive.
|
| > I'm not even sure how you think Russia would benefit
| from less nuclear power plants an entire continent away
|
| Russia is a petroleum exporting country and petroleum is
| a global commodity. If the US (or anyone else) uses
| nuclear instead of fossil fuels then global demand for
| fossil fuels declines, US natural gas or coal producers
| instead sell to foreign customers who might have bought
| gas from Russia, etc.
|
| Notice that the US oil industry has the same incentive.
| Exxon is very much aligned with Putin on this one and
| they have lobbyists too.
| cogman10 wrote:
| IDK, Maybe china? China is eating everyone's lunch when
| it comes to producing green tech (particularly solar and
| batteries).
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| China is eating everyone's lunch on new(ish) sources of
| energy because it seems to have basically run out of
| old(er) ones. The insane amount of coal burning aside,
| there are e.g. basically as many hydroelectric plants in
| China as its enormous rivers can support, accompanied by
| the huge amounts of ecological and societal destruction
| that those always cause, _and that's still not enough_.
| The buildup of both solar and nuclear energy
| infrastructure is not motivated by compassion for the
| environment or ( _pace_ George Carlin) the humans that
| have to live in it, it's motivated by the cold, hard
| necessity of powering the industrial base. And if the
| project can partly fund itself by selling some of the
| production capacity to others, all the better.
|
| None of this detracts from the quality of the
| engineering, but it's important to keep the motivation in
| view (whether to filter out the propaganda or to try and
| reproduce something like this at home).
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| I don't really care what the motivation is. If it means
| we get green energy over more coal-fired plants/fossil
| fuel sources than whatever. Call it Super Awesome MEGA
| PATRIOT Fuel for all I care. Right now we have an
| administration touting the virtues of "beautiful clean
| coal" on its official government website -
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-
| actions/2025/04/rein...
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| one of the current approaches is to turn communities
| against solar and wind projects on the grounds that it's
| racist or disturbs plant life etc. This has advocates of
| environmental justice, which is an important concern on
| its own, weaponized against building renewable energy.
|
| Here's one example in Florida, but it is happening around
| the US https://www.eenews.net/articles/fla-solar-plans-
| stoke-fight-...
|
| The net effect is a win for the fossil fuel industry and
| a weakened environmental movement.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Some of these opposition groups come _from_ the fossil
| fuel industry.
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/ohio-mount-vernon-
| frasier...
|
| https://www.npr.org/2023/02/18/1154867064/solar-power-
| misinf...
| Analemma_ wrote:
| NIMBY homeowners mostly. For instance, these days the
| Sierra Club mostly exists to preserve property values by
| blocking all new green energy construction.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| > solar + battery is quick to deploy and about as cheap as
| you can get
|
| Solar production is seasonal, batteries to carry over
| seasons are beyond expensive.
|
| Otherwise 10x your dinner solar to get winter solar and now
| it's not cheap.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| I also really enjoy privatizing profits and let the public
| deal with the aftermath.
| zekrioca wrote:
| Exactly. It is amazing how certain people really don't care
| about others' money, and above all, health.
| SonOfKyuss wrote:
| The activists of the 60s-90s were witnesses to the nuclear
| bombing of Japan, domestic nuclear accidents, as well as a
| nuclear arms race that threatened to wipe out all of
| humanity. It is unfortunate that we threw the baby out with
| the bathwater when it came to nuclear power generation, but
| the people who had issues with nuclear in that era did have
| good reasons to be afraid.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Yep. Also, the pro-nuclear techno-utopians of that era
| promised that nuclear electricity would be too cheap too
| meter, nuclear-powered cars would be common, and quite a
| few other things.
|
| If the public doesn't understand complex new thing X, and
| advocates for X have obviously told them all sorts of lies
| - _yeah_. Don 't be surprised if the public becomes
| extremely skeptical about X.
| MassiveQuasar wrote:
| Were they good reasons or did they just fell victim to
| their feelings?
|
| Not creating nuclear power plants because you're afraid of
| some bombs is good reasoning?
|
| What about the millions of deaths to fossil fuels every
| year? Are they better than the nuclear accidents we had?
|
| I don't think good reasoning is why they felt that nuclear
| power was bad.
| SonOfKyuss wrote:
| How about understandable reasons then?
| 7bit wrote:
| It is. And also because of Chernobyl and Fukushima. But
| you don't care do you
| mr_toad wrote:
| We're going to look back and realise that the destruction
| wrought by global warming was far worse in every way than
| at Chernobyl.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| I don't know if you quite realize how close to a major
| climate change event Chernobyl almost became.
| rayiner wrote:
| If the entire developed world had followed the same energy
| usage and nuclearization path as france, we'd be able to
| accommodate the entire developing world increasing carbon
| footprint up to the French level within the same overall
| carbon footprint we have today.
| speed_spread wrote:
| When you read about how incidents and accidents at research
| and commercial nuclear facilities have been denied, covered
| up, downplayed and fumbled sometimes for years and years you
| realize the problem is not nuclear technology but the people
| who manage it. Nuclear technology may have progressed but our
| ability to handle it ethically surely hasn't.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Almost nobody knew or cared about the coming global warming
| in the 60s-90s.
| hammock wrote:
| What do you mean "the coming" global warming? I thought the
| hockey stick graph starts hockey sticking around 1900.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| _Starts_ hockey-sticking and _is finished_ hockey-
| sticking are... not the same.
| 7bit wrote:
| Ask the Ukrainian how clean Chernobyl is. I hear it became a
| very touristic place with people dying to get housing there,
| because the air is so clean.
| 7bit wrote:
| 1. Mining and processing are destructive Uranium mining
| leaves behind contaminated soil, groundwater problems,
| tailings, and long-term ecological damage. "Yellow Cake"
| shows this clearly. These impacts last far longer than any
| economic benefit.
|
| 2. Operation is low-CO2, but not low-risk Severe accidents
| are rare, but the consequences are catastrophic when they do
| occur. Chernobyl and Fukushima are obvious examples. The U.S.
| history is full of near misses, leaks, hardware failures, and
| human-factor problems. Calling such a technology "safe"
| glosses over systemic vulnerability.
|
| 3. Waste cannot be neutralised High-level waste remains
| hazardous for tens of thousands of years. No human
| institution has ever maintained stable responsibility for
| anything even close to that timeframe. Most countries still
| rely on interim storage because final repositories are
| politically and technically unresolved.
|
| 4. Long-term burdens are externalised The benefits
| (electricity, profits, political narratives) are short-term
| and local. The harms (contamination, risk, millennia of
| monitoring) are long-term and imposed on future generations
| who cannot consent.
|
| 5. "Clean" becomes a marketing word In lifecycle terms--
| mining, fuel fabrication, plant construction,
| decommissioning, and waste storage--nuclear energy cannot be
| "clean" in any holistic sense. It is at best low-carbon but
| high-burden.
|
| This doesn't mean nobody can argue for nuclear energy, but it
| does mean that calling it clean is a simplification that
| hides very real costs and risks
| zekrioca wrote:
| Certain lobbyists like hiding the end-to-end aspects of
| nuclear and focus mostly on "energy density", "clean
| operations" etc, because they take advantage of the fact
| most people think short term (because, well, it is
| simpler). It is like the fossil fuel lobbyists that say gas
| is cheaper but never mention the externalities caused by
| e.g., the air pollution causing health issues to those
| living nearby LNG plants, who end up paying for the costs,
| just not at the moment of operationalization. Of course
| none of these proponents live near these infrastructures.
| This is the very same old 60-90's stories with the tobacco
| industry saying smoking have health benefits.
| parineum wrote:
| Future generations can't consent to anything, even fields
| of solar panels and mining for battery materials.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Nuclear accidents were common back then. Activists not only
| had good intentions they had actual accidents occuring with
| cover-ups. I think you're only seeing the worst parts here.
| They didn't follow the science as well as they should but
| they did get dumping sorted and held the industry liable.
| parineum wrote:
| > Nuclear accidents were common back then
|
| Name them
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Wikipedia has a chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucl
| ear_and_radiation_accident...
| fragmede wrote:
| Same thing with animal testing. You don't get to know where the
| monkey labs are but the alternative is we test on poor people?
| learn to keep secrets, people.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| You also don't want the very stupidest of your politicians to
| catch wind of it [0]. None of these puppy people would refuse
| stroke treatment on the same ethical grounds, naturally.
|
| [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ford-warning-
| scientist...
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, however I suppose it is fuel for conspiracy theories.
| theultdev wrote:
| no I think it's fuel for boiling water
| vpShane wrote:
| Ah yes, nuclear energy, real hot, make water boil, make
| things happen.
|
| You're telling me we don't have sci-fi energy harnessing
| capability to capture the nuclear energy itself and convert
| it to electricity?
|
| It's 2025!
| xg15 wrote:
| Found it kind of depressing that this seems to be the
| current strategy for fusion as well.
|
| You have this insane device that produces a million
| degree hot ring of plasma and use it... to boil water...
| maximilianthe1 wrote:
| Scy-fi enegry generator _looks inside_ steam turbine
| rnhmjoj wrote:
| We are still trying to solve the problem that we can't
| keep the plasma hot long enough to create fusion energy,
| so working on exotic conversion schemes is one step too
| far.
|
| Consider also how complex these reactors already are, it
| makes sense to use the simplest method that we know works
| well.
| xg15 wrote:
| Makes sense, but from a layman perspective it seems like
| _introducing_ additional complexity and lots of
| inefficient, high-loss transmission steps.
|
| We start with detached electrons moving at high speeds
| (plasma). We want detached electrons moving at moderate
| speeds (electrical current). And yet, the intermediate
| steps involve everything from heat, steam, large-scale
| mechanical forces and magnetic induction, just to get
| back to the electrons?
|
| It feels more like the "pull in a 500MB framework instead
| of writing the function yourself" kind of simplicity.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Steam power is no joke if you actually look at the
| numbers. At this scale, it lets you move energy around
| and convert it to electricity in fewer steps, with fewer
| losses, than any other strategy.
| mapontosevenths wrote:
| To be fair, I think we're getting something like 60%
| efficiency that way. Its not perfect, but it isnt as
| primitive as it sounds.
| mr_toad wrote:
| There are lots of ideas, like using a reverse cyclotron
| (a particle decelerator) to drive a turbine, or
| harnessing the photo-electric effect (essentially solar
| panels, but for x-rays).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_energy_conversion
| theultdev wrote:
| Keep it simple, stupid.
| api wrote:
| Conspiracists and media brainwashed people will react this
| way no matter what. Doesn't matter whether it's secretive or
| not. It's not about you or the subject matter but their need
| to feel important or in possession of some truth THEY don't
| want you to know.
| mapontosevenths wrote:
| I suspect its less about the need to feel special than you
| imagine.
|
| My take is that these folks can't accept that nobody is
| actually driving. It terrifies them to realize that we are
| all aboard a rudderless ship, so they imagine these secret
| cabals to be able to sleep at night.
|
| Take COVID. There is insufficient proof that it was the
| result of lab work, but many many people prefer that warm
| fuzzy thought over acknowledging that mutating is just what
| viruses do, and always have done. Knowing that we're all
| one unlucky mutation away from grisly death is just too
| much for some folks. "It can't happen again, we shutdown
| that lab!"
|
| To those people it has to be a nice, neat conspiracy. That
| way someone is in control, and if we just put those few
| villains in their place everyone will be safe from viruses,
| economic instabilty, immigrants, and the boogey man
| forever.
| anonymars wrote:
| Kids in hot cars, drug addicts, etc.
|
| https://blog.codinghorror.com/they-have-to-be-monsters/
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| > The public cannot be trusted to engage in a discussion about
| anything "nuclear" in good faith.
|
| I agree the fears and subsequent responses are generally not
| warranted but to call it "bad faith" (by saying not in good
| faith) is not fair either. Some people are afraid and don't
| understand it. We've all seen seen the disasters and
| communities impacted with higher rates of cancer even decades
| later as a direct result of the Manhattan Project. This stuff
| can be dangerous so it's not meritless even if the reactions
| are wrong and generally uninformed.
|
| People not engaging in good faith are doing it very
| deliberately.
| tokai wrote:
| Same is surprisingly common when weeding books in university
| libraries. Care is often taken disposing of material, as it can
| trigger a lot of drama if discovered by the student body.
| jprd wrote:
| RPI?
| 0ckpuppet wrote:
| I suggest we should strive for a more educated public to raise
| the percentage of people who can have informed discussions.
| We've seen what happens when education is watered down, so
| let's try raising the bar, and pushing more science in high
| schools.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| OK, HN physicists: how did this work?
|
| My first guess was that the beam of Cf252-emitted neutrons, when
| it hits the U235, triggers new neutrons moving in the same
| direction, rather than in random directions. This would ensure
| that any tertiary neutrons would join the crowd and help the
| amplification while not just heating the system up.
|
| Or, maybe that's the point? It's a not-quite-critical collection
| of U235 that is pushed even closer to criticality by the Cf252,
| multiplying the Cf232's neutron flux by "up to 30 times". But, if
| the U235 neutrons trigger the same emissions as the Cf252
| neutrons, then wouldn't that require a razor's edge of
| criticality?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium_neutron_flux_multi...
| rdtsc wrote:
| It works just like a nuclear reactor. Neutron hit U atoms,
| those split and emit more neutrons in a cascade. The
| configuration is set up to not be self sustaining. It's a
| matter of geometry, enrichment level and such. Therefore it
| needs a source of neutrons. Cf-252 is such source. It fires
| neutrons constantly but has a relatively short half life (you
| have to replenish it yearly or so).
| MalbertKerman wrote:
| > then wouldn't that require a razor's edge of criticality?
|
| Yup. From the device description in its decommissioning plan:
| The CFX was a sub-critical assembly of uranium-2-35 surrounding
| a Cf-252 source. The function of the U-235 fuel was to multiply
| the neutrons coming from the Cf-252 source, which fissions
| spontaneously. The CFX was designed never to exceed a Keff of
| 0.99. The CFX assembly yielded sufficient neutron fluxes for
| applications such as neutron activation analysis.
|
| Keff is the fission neutron multiplication ratio; 1 is
| criticality.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| As a reminder: MIT has a research reactor smack-dab in the middle
| of Cambridge. It's like a block or two off of Mass Ave near
| Central.
|
| They give tours, and if you're in the area, it's highly
| recommended. A great Boston-area date for the right kind of
| person.
|
| https://nrl.mit.edu/reactor/
| TomMasz wrote:
| Kodak did a lot of government work over the years. When the news
| came out, no one panicked. Kodak was the biggest employer in the
| region and had a lot of local goodwill, we trusted them to take
| care of things.
|
| Needless to say, that is no longer the case.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Kodak also accidentally detected nuclear fallout.
| https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/nuclea...
| omnicognate wrote:
| The Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London contained a secret,
| operational nuclear reactor from 1962 to 1996. Decommissioning it
| must have posed some interesting challenges, given it was inside
| a 300 year old building designed by Christopher Wren that is part
| of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_reactor
| shevy-java wrote:
| You don't want to know what I keep in my basement ...
|
| (... but it really isn't so interesting, so in order to keep the
| mystery, I'll simply not say what it is!)
|
| > In 1975, Kodak powered up the country's first californium
| neutron flux multiplier (CFX). Though it couldn't live up to the
| sci-fi-tinged promise of its name
|
| Why? It vanished! Nobody knows why or how.
| anjel wrote:
| At the Univ of Maryland College Park in the mid 1980s, a campus
| of 40k students, it was common knowledge the was a small research
| reactor in full time operation right on campus. I can't imagine
| it was the only school to have one.
| sudosteph wrote:
| We also have one at NC State, still there AFAIK. I thought it
| made sense though given our nuclear engineering program.
|
| I looked it up and apparently we've had 3 or 4 different
| reactors on campus over the years, first one in 1950:
| https://nrp.ne.ncsu.edu/about/history/
|
| I'd wager that even most NC State students don't know that it's
| there though.
| justin66 wrote:
| My school for undergrad had, and still has, a "Nuclear Reactor
| Laboratory." I'm pretty sure everyone who cared understood what
| was going on there.
|
| The university got in trouble in the mid nineties for having
| buried nuclear waste as well as medical waste (cadavers) on a
| remote part of campus, but apparently that's not enough to put
| a Nuclear Reactor Laboratory out of business. Or a large
| university's medical system, of course.
| huydotnet wrote:
| Disappointing, for a second I thought I have found a solution to
| power my 8x5090 homelab.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| The article is paywalled, but remember that the USA's business
| giants during the Cold War were ran quite different than
| businesses today, especially with the fact that they had major
| internal R&D labs that did novel research in-house and relied
| less on transfer coming from research universities. Think about
| the other stories that you may have heard about Xerox or Bell
| labs. So Kodak having research abilities is not surprising. They
| also made the cameras and films for US spy satellites during the
| Cold War. They were not just a little company that made
| recreational film. They were a science and chemistry powerhouse.
| ccapo wrote:
| The University of Toronto (among others in Canada) had SLOWPOKE
| reactors on campus.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLOWPOKE_reactor
| owenversteeg wrote:
| I see a lot of people claiming this sort of thing was "common"
| (JASON at the Royal Naval College London, MIT's MITR-II, CROCUS
| at EPL) but there is a huge difference between these things.
| Kodak's CFX was a small device the size of a refrigerator; it is
| a neutron source and not a reactor. CROCUS is a reactor, but also
| small (100W thermal) and JASON, while larger, is also low power
| (10 kW.) MITR-II on the other hand is nearly one thousand times
| larger at 6 MW thermal.
|
| There are only three civilian reactors >1MW in the US: at MIT, UC
| Davis, and the University of Missouri. You could also count the
| RINSC MTR, which is owned and operated by the Rhode Island state
| Atomic Energy Commission but located on the University of Rhode
| Island campus and collaborates closely with the university.
| Similarly, there are only two >1MW in Western Europe (TU Delft
| and TU Munchen.)
|
| If this sort of thing interests you, I can recommend reading
| about the history of the TRIGA. Freeman Dyson and Edward Teller
| designed it as a reactor "safe even in the hands of a young
| graduate student" and the US government sent them around the
| world as part of Atoms for Peace.
| chc4 wrote:
| UMass Lowell has a 1MW research reactor as well.
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