How do I dispose of this bulb?

[dennis]

Reactors split the atom they don't follow a natural decay sequence. The by products are different.

Need anymore differences?

[Owain]

To all believers in geothermal: REMEMBER POMPEII

Owain

[Andy Champ]

Hey, be fair, Geothermal will if anything reduce the risk of any problems by sucking heat out of the system. So if you're going to live on a volcano, use geothermal.

Why you would want to live on a volcano is another matter!

Andy

[Frank Erskine]

A lot of people seem quite happy to build and live on a flood plain...

:-)

[Andrew Gabriel]

Actually, geothermal energy extraction is resulting in a marked increase in earthquakes in many areas where it's deployed.

[Clot]

Interesting that. I have to confess that I have worked in the water industry for 30+ years. When we moved to our current abode in 1983. It's location with regard to level and proximity to watercourse were priorities, as was access to a reasonable local school for the one kid at the time.

Much of the problem (in recent years) with houses having been built in the floodplain has been as a result of either the employed staff of local authorities or elected councillors either ignoring or wittingly disregarding Environment Agency advice.

[Jason]

where the PCB tracks burned out.

[Jason]

Nothing to do with religion. It is pure economics getting in the way of proper engineering.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, the new eco religion is a marketing mans dream

Its a chance to foist a total load of crap on the public, at a higher price, and at usually far less quality. Like organic food is.

After careful calculations I have concluded that only three things are really significantly eco-friendly enough to be of any real use.

Nuclear power stations. Heat pumps. Insulated houses.

Those plus electric transport, would actually enable us to have an almost completely carbon free economy withing 25 years. At almost no excess cost.

ALL the rest is a juts bollocks by and large.

[Andrew Gabriel]

transistor having blown up.

Some designs deliberately burn out a track or fusible resistor to prevent continued operation when the tube filaments are worn out. (Continuing to run a dead tube is a fire risk as the tube ends get very much hotter if the ballast lets it run in cold cathode mode after the filament coatings have failed.)

[Andy Champ]

Wow! Do you have a link? I'd like to read about that - even though there's no risk of it around here.

Andy

[Andrew Gabriel]

I watched a TV program about it becoming a major problem in New Zealand a few years back. A quick google search found this is happening in lots of other places where geothermal energy is extracted too. (I only knew about the New Zealand case until I did the google search before posting that.)

[geoff]

I have a house in the caldera of a volcano

... and there's an active volcano just up the road

life in the fast lane old boy

[Bob Mannix]

I think one might include Hydrogen fuelled transport as a possibility. Hydrogen production has the benefit of being ideally suited to stop/start power production (wind, solar, tidal etc) as you can make hay while the sun shines (so to speak) and not worry when it doesn't - not the case for domestic electricity supply. This makes Hydrogen quite attractive economically (aside from the initial infrastructure costs). A mixed nuclear/"alternative"/Hydrogen energy policy would be quite attractive from a carbon, environmental and UK strategic point of view.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Why make hydrogen? make diesel.

Hydrogen is a bulky fuel. Very bulky.

And it doesn't pipe well.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The other point being if you don't have windmills you dont need to store.

Everybody coming up with all these clever very expensive ways to make wind power work.

Don't bother. Don't use it.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I managed to get electrolosis running from a car battery in my bedroom just about fast enough to create a continuous candle sized blue flame when I was a teenager.

I wonder how efficiently electrolosis can be made to create hydrogen on a large scale?

[dennis]

The problem is people think hydrogen is a fuel when it is a storage/transmittion system. Using hydrogen to fuel stuff would be fine provided you can actually make the stuff without burning real carbon fuels. If its done by putting water through a nuclear reactor to superheat it and then electrolyze it using the power from the reactor it might even be possible. Then we can dump the grid system and pipe hydrogen about and run micro CHP in houses.

[Bob Mannix]

Well, that was both my and (sort of) TNP's points although you sound like you are suggesting something new! He would do it all nuclear, I think it would be cheaper (and appropriate) to use other forms of less expensive power than fossil or nuclear (in the long term) to produce it, using nuclear for the national grid.

[dennis]

To split water into hydrogen and oxygen you need energy. Some of that energy can come from heat and there is plenty of that from a reactor. You just need to superheat the water under pressure and use less electricity (in theory).