onenukecourse

"Pinochet was a capitalist dictator"

If you read my comment carefully I clearly state:

- Pinochet slaughtered (tens) thousands of innocents

- Cuba is a backstop to American imperialism in the region which I clearly eluded as a good thing for those L. Americans outside of Cuba (at least until Americans drop their Monroe BS).

My parents are from Argentina and lost many friends, students and professors (luckily no family) to capitalist dictators. The battles of L. America literally run through my blood. I think I am very well aware who the Chilean equivalent of Videla is. Pinochet, however, must be recognized for having relinquished power unlike his Argentine capitalist counter parts and Cuban socialist counterparts.

Anyway, I think I have demonstrated a little more nuance in this very complicated topic than trite single line slogans. I am not a "capitalist", whatever that means. I reject the destructive "socialism" vs "capitalism" false dichotomy.

Before the staunchly communist Freda Utley left for the USSR in the 30s, Bertrand Russel, her godfather, cautioned her not to delude herself that any flaws in the society were because of poor implementation by the Russias. Whatever she saw there was socialism he said.

Russel, of course, was aligned with the left his entire life.

Since then socialism (per Marx defined as the nationalization of all but private effects) has been independently tried to the same ruinous effect. Every socialist regime is unique, because they all try to explain and fix why the others failed; uniquely brutal reaching it's zenith with Pol Pot.

Gorby appears to be the sole exception. Might have something to do with having close family killed in the famines, and tortured in the Gulags. Every European other regime fell under pressure from the streets.

Cuba is a tyranny. They've soften up to get European investment and tourists, but they're brutal in their indoctrination, imprisonment of dissidents, etc. They're also an important (and beloved) backstop preventing American domination in L. America.

Pinochet didn't fall, he basically handed over power peacefully. His (surprisingly liberal) constitution of 1980 established him as head of the armed forces (which he was until he died) and promised free elections. He allowed for a fair and free elections in '88 that he lost and whose result he respected paving the way for the 1990 presidential elections. Again he lost and respected the result.

He's also a murderer who slaughtered thousands of innocents, but that's peanuts compared what the commies have wrought.

Everything I wrote is a gross oversimplification. Volumes have been written for each of the three topics you glibly referenced.

A few years ago I read something that opened my eyes about smartphones - the larger they got the better battery life they got. It makes sense:

- Screens use energy as the square of their diagonal dimension.

- Batteries store energy as the square of their diagonal dimension.

So it's a wash? No! Since there are other things inside the phone whose dimensions are essentially fixed (the phone itself), the proportion of battery area to the screen area tends to one as the phone gets larger. My 2016 iPhone SE (daily driver) has a battery about a third the size of the phone. I can imagine that an iPhone 13 Pro has a battery at least 2/3s the total size.

So you have to choose two of three: Battery life, fast phone (uses more power), or small phone.

I chose: none of the above. My next phone will be a Pinephone no matter what it's dimensions, battery life or performance is. We have to break the power of Big Tech.

Upvoted both you.

Ask yourself: "If you're asking yourself this question, can you excel two years working for an employer you appear to despise?"

Me, no. My wife, definitely.

You're right, if the bitcoin is mined anyway. I'd argue that things like cryptocurrency, social media, Youtube, government spying, are best shutoff and the carbon kept underground.

"It would also be common to all thermoelectric powerplants placed in the same locations."

Common, but not the same. Nuclear power work efficiency (30-40%?) is typically lower than a gas turbine plant (60%?). So electrical watt for electrical watt, the nukes need far more cooling water.

You don't have to actually remove carbon with excess power. In fact that would be bad environmentally since all you accomplish is removing carbon but you still have process inefficiency. Your statement is globally equivalent to doing something that would be done anyway but is tolerant to interruptions. There are power consumers that can do this and they have a power preferential rate (i.e. they're willing to shut down when the power company calls).

Also, what you're saying can be done by, for example, electrolysis of water to make hydrogen. I'm currently working on fuel cells that can be operated in reverse; that is they generate electricity from fossil fuels when needed (at very high efficiency) but absorb excess electricity by producing hydrogen.

Really what you're proposing is accomplished more efficiently by stored energy. The problem is that we've tapped out the easy ways to redistribute load, or store energy decades ago.

Disclaimer - I only took one reactor course 17 years ago.

The rods soak up neutrons. the reactor is designed so that its power would increase if the rods weren't there. The rods are what keeps the k == 1 (basically how the neutrons change in time. K == 1 is no change).

So don't think of the rods as a throttle valve in your car, i.e. this throttle angle corresponds to this much torque and therefore power. The rods are best thought of as controlling the rate of change of reactor power.

This is why the reactor is built so that the neutrons increase when fully withdrawn - because you have to start it! If the reactor is being started, the rods are withdrawn until the power wanted is achieved. Then the rods are lowered.

Note this is a far more complicated problem; this is a very serious operation because at the very start, except for your neutron starter, you only have "prompt" neutrons that can very quickly cause an increase of power. Once the reactor has stabilized the "nuclear waste" inside it releases non-prompt neutrons that are part of the neutron budget and are easier to control.

So, while waste in the reactor is being accumulated and while the fuel burns up, the position of the rods to achieve stable power changes! Furthermore these changes are different in different parts of the reactor so each rod is individually changed (actually I think there are two sets of rods, not all of them are individually actuated)