[SunRescue] nuclear reactors, energy expenses, etc.

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Sunday, January 14, 2001 at 14:08:26 (-0600), Bill Bradford wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [SunRescue] RE: Solaris 1.1 on a 4/330
>
> I found out that there's a small reactor on the grounds of the UT research
> campus.. which is about a quarter mile from my house and I drive past it
> every day.  eeep.  It dates from the 60s.

There's a SLOWPOKE (Safe LOW POwer Kritical (sic) Experiment) reactor at
the other UT, i.e. U.of.Toronto.  U.of.Alberta also has one, according
to their "Insurance Policy Summary" web page....  In fact they're all
over the place these days (even back in 1988 there were jokes about them
"popping up like mushrooms everwhere"!).

Of course it literally cannot "go critical" in any serious way (though
AECL had a 2-megawatt generator on their upscale SLOWPOKE at Pinawa, and
that would have some engineering safety requirements if nothing else).

It seems China stole lots of nuclear technology from the Canadian
Government, including the engineering designs for the SLOWPOKE and are
now "selling it around the world".  Oddly enough an AECL spokesperson
only said "If the Chinese can make money at it, we wish them luck."
Which is pretty stupid since AECL, a government organisation that's
supposed to work like a private sector company and be profitable
(i.e. they're supposed to sell it themselves!).


Now if the Chinese were to mass-produce a small SLOWPOKE at a decent
price then we'd be able to get cheap enough power to run all of our old
computers at home!

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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