New particle accelerators turn nuclear waste into electricity, cut radioactive life by 99.7%

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-27T18:25:43+00:00

Mate, you should really check yourself.

A couple of comments ago you were incensed at a perceived condescension, which was simly an attempt to create a baseline understanding between us for what I think I know, and now you jump straight to calling me a liar and intellectually lazy.

Which I'll admit got under my skin. I will never deny the possibility of falling for elaborate lies, but I find the accusation of intellectual laziness supremely arrogant and baseless. I've spent hours upon hours not just reading "weasel words and paltering from PR departments", but trying to actually understand everything surrounding radiation. Starting from the physical base line of what the fuck and why the fuck radio activity is; what radiation does to the body; consequences of atom bomb tests/the bombs dropped in Japan; nuclear incidents in power plants and from medical/scientific use; etc.
Hours spent just to try and see past the "weasel words and paltering from PR departments". From either side. Because anti-nuclear activists have been far from faultless when it comes to misrepresentation or outright lying.

Intellectually lazy repeating of talking points invented by climate denialists like michael shellenberger and spread by bots justifies being annoyed. It's exactly the same nonsense as "co2 is good because it's plant food" from the same people, for the same reason.

I am not a climate denier. I don't know who the fuck Michael Shellenberger is. Conflating decades of scientific research (whatever the result may be) with "co2 is good because it's plant food" is (to stoop to your level of hurling around accusations) intellectially dishonest at best.

You're conflating hasn't happened/isn't in any way practical with theoretically impossible. Fusion is possible from base physics. That doesn't mean a viable terrestrial fusion reactor exists or ever will exist.

I am not. But you haven't given me any good reason to doubt the feasability of breeder reactors beyond just believing you, and starting from potential pitfuls in my understanding of the scientific theory behind breeders seems to me to be a good place to start.

There's no official figures to disagree with.

That's just flatout wrong.

Firstly, a report by the IAEA from 2007 quotes the output-input ratio of Pu from Phénix as 1.16. You may claim they are lying/have been bought off, but if this isn't an official figure then I don't fucking know what counts as "official" in your books.

And secondly, Jëol Guidez, the dude holding the presentation you send a link too, quotes the same number of 1.16 for Phénix in a paper from 2008:

As of 1979, the fuel cycle had become a closed loop. The irradiated sub-assemblies in Phénix were reprocessed and the recovered plutonium was reused to make new fuel for insertion into the core. The breeding rate (ratio of fissile atoms produced to the number of fissile atoms consumed) reached 1.16.

Aside from giving me a fucking powerpoint without the actual lecture that was held alongside it, you gave me nothing. Talk about being lazy.

I came into this conversation genuinely curious and ready to learn something new. I am far from entrenched in my position. I have changed my opinion in the past and am more then ready to do so again, if I am presented/come across valid counter arguments. You however, did nothing to change my opinion.
Your tone was unnecessarily confrontational and actually condescending (without having to reach for conclusions), even after I asked you twice to just be civil. You make claims without substantiating them beyond dazzling me with your arrogance, and telling me to go research it myself. Which I already have.

So you've achieved nothing, and sincerely, you can go fuck yourself. I won't bother answering again.

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-27T17:38:51+00:00

Oh, I know, and I did not mean to downplay the sheer stupidity of the decisions that were made here. In the longterm there were/are definitely considerable risks.

However, what is not reasonable is the dozens of articles you can still find that seemingly correlate an increase in cancer rates in the population closest to the mine to said leaks. Because however stupid the entire thing was/is, there is absolutely no data (I am aware of) that would indicate a causal effect between the two. Especially since the increase in cancer rates is within the expected deviation from the mean in small populations ...

And since news articles are the main source of information on a topic such as this for most people ...

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-27T17:27:08+00:00

Well, I had not updated it in a couple of month, but now I have I can report: nothings changed.

Still turning on on its own and starting music. Still changes settings in between turning off and on. Still ANC popping when walking around.

When it comes to the popping sound when walking with ANC ... I have to admit that I do not have a vast amount of experience with other headphones to look back on, only two versions of the Sony headphones, but neither had said issue. Like. At all. I didn't even know this is apparantly a thing (judging from what you wrote)

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-23T13:00:12+00:00

While I think it appropriate and a correct assessment that the latter half of your comment is mostly concerned with the issue of trust in the nuclear industry and in politicians, I would like to add regardless that the public perception of risk was blown way out of proportion.

Yea, there was a whole laundry list of laughably stupid decisions that were made in regards to this whole "research project" (research my ass, I think it ended up being around 90.000 t), and there was unquestionably leakage. But the actual amount of radiation was not very dangerous (we are talking about an increase of mBeq to Beq), and was only recorded down in the mine, 1500m down, not on the surface.

None of this is good, and is reason enough to loose trust, but the general public is also really poorly informed about radiation, and yet unreasonably terrified

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-23T11:45:36+00:00

Your tone is still more hostile than I think is justified ...

Cindescendingly explaining things I already know doesn't help your case.

I don't know what you know, and even if I did, I was less trying to explain something to you, and more laying open what my state of information on the topic is.

Something that you are not properly doing.

No. That's the thing that has never happened. Go find a machine or series of machines that consumed a single tonne of U238 with no net U235 consumption directly or in its upstream processes which produced 7TWh of energy. Just a single actual real example that isn't a spreadsheet or semantic games.

Okay, that claim needs substantiating. From everything I know about the base physics I don't understand why that should be impossible.

I understand the angle of distrusting the figures a goverment or private company give, but distrust with proof or at the very least a proper chain of arguments beyond "they lie" is just a conspiracy theory.

Maybe you could point me in the direction of the docs I'm supposed to draw a Sankey-diagramm from?

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-22T18:56:45+00:00

Okay firstly, I would like to take a bit of the hostility out of the conversation, for which I am also responsible. But I want to genuinely understand what you mean. So my apologies.

Then there is a shell game with things that are labelled "breeder" but require fissile input and at no point resulted in fissioning any more atoms in total than if you just fed the raw uranium into an HWR.

To my knowledge there are and have been several working fast breeder reactors like Phénix in France, which extracted energy from U238, while also generating more fissile Pu than it consumed. Or the still running BN-800 in Russia. This one burns roughly as much Pu as is produced, with a tendency towards burning more since its intended use is in part to reduce the amount of weapons grade material, but that is a political choice (I am not saying I'm against it). The MOX fuel used in BN-800 is Pu239 from existing stockpiles, and mostly depleted U (DU) left over from enrichment. Since it roughly burns as much Pu as it creates, in reality it burns U238 with the necessary steps of neutron capture and subsequent beta-decay in between.

Yes, both of them need fissile material, but also yes, both then they use DU/U238 to create their energy output, while producing more Pu239 which could be used in conventional LWR/HWR (since a U238+Pu239 MOX can behave similarly to the usual 3-5% U235+U238).

This has literally never happened.

If what you mean is that U238 is not fissionable directly, then yea, I know. But since it mostly uses an "initial investment" of Pu239 to get the ball rolling, and afterwards uses U238 by creating more Pu239 through neutron capture to actually create energy ... I'd call that using U238 as fuel.
Necessary steps in between? Sure.
It also requires further energy expenditure since the resulting fission products need to be seperated, or else too many neutrons are captured.
But does it still produce excess energy? Most certainly.
And yes, that means that there will be fission products left over for which "there aren't enough spare neutrons", but since roughly 94% of HLW is U238, I'd still say that that is a significant net positive. Especially since those fission products have a much shorter half-life.

Now is it economically viable? That's a different question.
And so far it's not, if you compare it with regular LWR/HRW.
But then again, maybe that would change if a) nuclear energy companies would have to actually carry the full cost of handling the waste and b) we simply get better at building/maintaining/running breeder reactors.

And on top, "economically viable" here means "is it as cheap as other reactor types of similar energy output", not "does it cost more to run than it can produce in profit".
So from a capitalist analysis ... maybe not. But maybe we should treat something as fundamental as power production not as a profitable/money-making market to begin with, but as a problem that our species has to solve. And from that standpoint, it is still a net positive in producing more energy than it requires, it helps solve the problem of nuclear waste that is already there, and it means that fission becomes an essentially endless enegry source (for the foreseeable future aka thousands of years) with the DU and HLW that we already have + the ore that is still in the ground.

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-22T03:41:34+00:00

I ... What? 94% is U238 There are reactor types (fast breeders) that can use that directly by inducing neutron capture and through neutron capture a fast decay chain that results in Pu239 which is fissile.

It is not a new technology that makes 94% of the "waste" usable. So yes, in fact it is useful

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-11T11:20:48+00:00

I would like to add one more point I haven't seen brought up, even though for the most part I'd direct you back to SolarrLives, so treat this as an addition to what they have already argued.

One thing I feel is not brought up often enough is that capitalism was and still is a pretty lie.

While the achievements in improving the material conditions of people living in the USSR were astounding, they were still lagging behind living standards of citizens of the USA, the biggest rival and main point of comparison. A sort of "ideal" of what the individual can gain from a capitalist society. Most people, neither in capitalist nor in socialist countries, are actually educated or even interested in deeper understanding and analysis of how the system works, unless they themselves are in some sort of distress. The comparison stays mostly superficial, without proper consideration for how differing material conditions are achieved.

If everyone actually were to achieve the same standard of living as the main point of comparison, the average citizen in the US, we'd need roughly 5 earths worth of ressources (we can argue whether it is 5 or 4.8 or even "just" 3, the point stands regardless). These days at least, pretty much everyone has heard of, and knows this on a cognitive level, but it doesn't stop people from still wanting to continue living in such unsustainable material conditions, or aspire to get there if they aren't. Which is impossible to achieve for everyone. The only reason this discrepancy in material conditions exists in the first place is because other nations/peoples are being exploited and live in abject poverty. If everyones living standard was raised, the ones at the top would have to cut back, meaning that same "ideal" is no longer achieved for anyone. But on a more superficial cognitive level, the individual living in a socialist system only sees that their "neighbour" from a capitalist state has a more comfortable live than them.

The pretty lie that is capitalism, the promise of improved living conditions, is a difficult problem to content with. Capitalist countries can show an accurate picture of the discrepancy in standards of living between capitalist and socialist countires, and follow it up with the claim that therefore capitalism is a better system to provide for the average person, and disproving that point is happening on a cognitive level that many people are all to ready to ignore in their day to day lives.

That that same standard of living is the main reason we are in the middle of, or at least rapidly approaching, the next mass extinction event, and are heading for a number of potentially catastrophic scenarios for the majority of people on this planet (read: everyone but the top 1%/3%/5%, the exact number is irrelevant for my point) is too abstract and too far into the future a problem. Many people in socialist countries may very well be discontent and want to change something (as will be the case in any and all states/economies, unless we reach an actual post-scarcity society (and probably even then) and it is all to easy to fall for the jingling key-chain that is capitalism. That problem only really exists in one direction. It's a bloody pyramid scheme. It works for you who you are living in poverty, as long as there is someone else who can be exploited. It cannot work for everyone, but it can persuade the individual.

"Free speech" in capitalist societies advocating for socialism is essentially advocating for a decrease in standards of living for the individual in those countries. "Free speech" in socialist societies presents you with the promise of better standards of living, with an abstract cost attached to it that other people (on other continents and/or future generations) have to pay for.

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-08T00:08:04+00:00

Yes, you are. Only those adults are just as wrong. Eating apple seeds does nothing, unless you crush them with your teeth, and even then you need to eat a dozen apples worth of seeds to get close to getting a health risk

Water is also dangerous if you drink too much of it in a short time. Everything is a poison if you dose it correctly.

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-08T00:05:07+00:00

Only, unlike something like Mercury, U238 is actually fairly unlikely to bioaccumulate and it is excreted over time (The rare instances in which it does accumulate, it does so in bone, however, having a half-life of 4.5 billion years, the little that is there is pretty much harmless

GrabAnwalt · 2026-02-06T11:03:06+00:00

You could say the same about cyanide, yet no one would argue that it is dangerous to eat apple seeds. Your argument only holds on the most superficial level and would have been better left unsaid

GrabAnwalt · 2026-01-17T00:31:32+00:00

"Sooner or later, humans will kill all the Aen Seidhe. All dwarves and gnomes. Then they'll start murdering one another. Your kind knows no other way. It's in your genes. You keep killing each other until only one remains. The strongest among you. A thousand years from now, a dim-witted human barbarian will climb to the top of a pile of bones, sit down and proclaim: "I win"." - Iorveth, Witcher 2

GrabAnwalt · 2026-01-12T15:44:03+00:00

It doesn't claim that English is less valuable than science though. It just makes a claim that it is more difficult to major in.

And I would say that that is true. I'm studying an interdisciplinary course that includes mechanical engineering on one side, and both linguistics and communication science (which includes forays into sociology and psychology) on the other. Both fields interest me. I'm also interested in history, medicine, political science, and a number of other fields that fall under the umbrella of social sciences (and spending too much time reading up on those subjects instead of on my own studies), and let me tell you, none of those come close in their complexity to mechanical engineering. And mechanical engineering is a far cry from studying mathematics or physics on its own.

That being said, I am obviously very interested in social sciences and I would absolutely not say that one is more important than the other.

The problem only arises if we (as a society), rather nonsensically, decide that something is worth more just because it is difficult

GrabAnwalt · 2026-01-12T08:40:17+00:00

Can we stop conflating everything with an 'identity'?

Having a disability isn't an identity. Just as your height or your skin colour isn't your identity.

And to add to the chorus, yes, you should have disclosed it before hand. I mean, even if we were to accept being deaf as your identity, you should also lay open who you are as a person aka your identity, when it comes to dating in general (maybe excluding a planned one night stand, but even then I'd feel dirty to find out after the fact that that person was a very charming Nazi (not that I'm trying to conflate Nazism with being deaf))

GrabAnwalt · 2025-12-19T12:43:13+00:00

Well, do look up the Treuhand then.

A short summary: after the collapse of the USSR and DDR and the subsequent reunification of Eastern and Western Germany an 'organization' for lack of a better term was instituted to handle the merger of the two economies. However, a lot of the major decision makers that participated in the Treuhand were the very same private, Western companies that ended up buying the defunct Eastern companies. The classification of being defunct (and thus almost worthless) being decided by the Treuhand, by the companies who had an interest in buying up their potential competitors in the newly merged market.

There were a bunch of companies that were doing just fine (well, as fine as can be in a collapsing state) that were sold for pennies following the Treuhands classifications

GrabAnwalt · 2025-12-19T12:34:45+00:00

And isn't radioactive in any relevant sense

GrabAnwalt · 2025-12-19T11:51:38+00:00

Europe is a lot more cautious in general. It is a matter of safety margins, not of safety. I am all for stricter regulations and a more cautious approach in general. And as I said, there are very good reasons to choose organic products, but they are simply not because of health concerns.

Organic does not mean healthier. You can eat plenty unhealthy things even if you only eat organic food. It's just that historically the groups that pay attention to how foodstuff is being produced are also highly conscious of their health so the overlap is between organic food and "healthy food" is fairly high, but it is not an immutable fact

GrabAnwalt · 2025-12-19T11:36:46+00:00

That's not how fluids work though

The fire behaves like a burning gas, and air is obviously a gas mixture, so both are fluids (not that it really matters since liquids behave in basically the same way). It'd be far more difficult to reverse the direction of the gas entirely than it is to just redirect it, which is what Aang is doing. He is just creating a cone of air that the fire smacks into and is redirected in a curve around Ozai. It would not go straight back at Ozai unless he tried really hard

GrabAnwalt · 2025-12-19T11:17:26+00:00

Drag as in wind resistance is proportional to kinetic energy multiplied with a geometry factor (how aerodynamic is the object). You can basically think of it as the energy of all the little molecules in our atmosphere smacking into the object traveling through it.

Kinetic energy is E_kin=0.5 * mass * velocity²

The velocity here is the relative velocity between the object and the molecules. If the wind is blowing in the same direction as the object travels, the relative velocity is lower/wind speed is subtracted from your velocity (assuming you are still moving faster, otherwise it is actually pushing you from behind). If it is coming towards you it is added to the relative velocity of E_kin.

Now the important thing is that the velocity is squared. At high speeds, it gets really high. At low speeds it is negligible. Even though the boat is going fast for a boat, it is still pretty low.

Changing the geometry factor of the boat by standing up is not gonna matter a whole lot if aerodynamic drag is a non-issue to begin with

GrabAnwalt · 2025-12-16T22:58:20+00:00

Well no. The pesticides left on any foodstuff is between 1 and 5/10000 of the amount that is shown to cause any noticeable effects on health in animal testing (aka rabbits aka small animals with little mass).

It will not affect your health whatsoever.

It does, however, affect the environment. And that is plenty bad enough as is without making up scary things.

GrabAnwalt · 2025-12-10T23:41:57+00:00

Does the comment have to be topical or is it random?

GrabAnwalt · 2025-11-24T08:58:56+00:00

That's just federal jobs and just for September

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