Posts by disillusioned fanboi 43 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Sep 2024
The French aircraft carrier "Charles de Gaulle" was built for the Rafale, but they forgot about the Hawkeye. As it turned out, the runway was 4 meters too short. So back to the shop for a 400 million euros of retrofit. Not having an eye in the sky significantly reduces the effectiveness of a carrier task force.
Looks like the UK will put a radar on a helicopter. It just looks silly.
If the UK was convinced on using VSTOL, then the 2 carriers they built are way, way oversized. They could have build 4 smaller carriers for the same price.
Also, the UK wants to use "Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing (SRVL)" instead of the vertical landings the US uses, so I'm not sure about some of the advantages you cite.
If they made a CATOBAR carrier they could have used the same airborne radar instead of glueing a radar onto the side of a helicopter.
So honestly I don't think the UK carriers are the result of a mature informed choice, more like the result of the project being put through a pinball machine.,,
Good summary. I first realised that Fusion power was impractical when I read this article... https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/
Fusion is a valid research project but not a valid industrial project. Don't count on fusion to solve any real-world problems. Be suspicious of the motives of anyone pushing fusion. Fission breeder reactors are a much more viable solution to our current problems.
I have flown on one - Ryanair removed the word "MAX" but you can find the info...
However please note that the Boeing message about being the most inspected aircraft was before the door blew out. Since the blowout, not so much.
Personally I found the seats very uncomfortable, Easyjet was noticably better (same day flight).
I agree with all of the above, but I remember some details that are worth adding (unless my memory is wrong, soffy).
So even if you did have 2 AOA sensors, the accident could still happen. MACAS only took one input, left or right. And, the cockpit warning "AOA disagree" was also optional. Subsequently Boeing made it standard, so now we're all safe.
I believe that on other Boeing airlines there is a 3rd "Synthetic" AOA input, but too expensive to backport to the Max. So is it really the maximum of what Boeing can do?
Dassault has a long history of actually building fighter planes. The Eurofighter was an expensive knockoff of the Rafale - certainly no-one in the eurofighter consortium had build a fighter with canards before.
Rafale and Eurofighter had a shared genesis, but after the split Rafale entered service before Eurofighter.
Dassault correctly spotted the trend by making a plane to do everything and do it well. Today Eurofighter cos-plays at being multirole.
In the FCAS plan, Dassault was the lead integrator for the manned fighter from the start. Airbus got to be lead in other sub-projects. Then Airbus decided it wanted to be co-lead in the Fighter, but everyone blames the french ? Personally it looks like Dassault is good at what it does, the others are the ones slowing things down...
I appreciate that they put the fuel cycle in their highlights (apparently Tritium is 30,000 dollars per gram). You can generate Tritium from Lithium if you have enough neutrons.
In the standard fusion reaction you get one neutron, with lots of energy - an order of magnitude greater than the neutrons in a fission reaction, and you get a helium atom with the same but opposite momentum. We can calculate the energy released, but converting it into electricity is tough.
In the ITER project its been put off to the follow-on project phase called "DEMO". I might have missed a concrete proposal, the page has been changed since I looked.
In my opinion its notable that there is no mention of electricity generation here, but perhaps it was just overlooked?
Thanks. Embarrassing indeed, now I want a summary!
OK 5% enrichment, solid core, fuel rods, refuelling every 18 months, classic PWR design.
Can't find the pressure vessel dimensions. The reactor pressure vessel for Hinkley point C was "delivered", just saying...
By some measures there's enough uranium 235 for another 100 years of these reactors. So its a bit pointless building reactors with a probable lifetime of 100 years (like the EDF's EPR), and the more we build the less time we'll have. So its OK if this RR SMR only has a 40-year lifespan, hopefully by that time will have breeder reactors that work...
I searched the web for "close-coupled three-loop pressurised water reactor", found various articles using the same phrase without explaining. So I'm not alone :)
I found the RR web page, very light on details. "Deliverable", but everything is deliverable. 5 years on-site construction time, which isn't bad if it happens, but no info on operating lifetime.
I adhere to the "all of the above" approach to expanding power generation, so if the UK can kickstart this industry for only 5 billion that's great. But the lack of details makes it look like all the other powerpoint pitches out there. Except that most SMR pitches try to propose something new. I'm underwhelmed.
How many hours of meetings to decide to "report the situation", I wonder. What alternatives were discussed. What forced their hand?
I'm very surprised that they didn't just implement the missing security features and keep quiet about the past. There was a lot of money on the table if they could just weather the storm...
In France, where they reprocess the used fuel from their nuclear power plants, the residual high-level waste is (they say) 20 grams per person per year, and is about the volume of a 20-centime piece.
However the high-level waste contains both fission products and transuranics. The radiation from the fission products is negligible after 300 years, but the transuranics remain active for several thousands of years.
I'm interested in seeing Thorium reactors, which don't produce significant transuranics.
I worry about the current reactors using U-235. The reactors EDF is building should still be running in 100 years, but if we continue using U-235 for all the new nuclear power stations being planned, then the fuel will become very expensive. There really isn't very much U-235 on earth. So a breeder reactor using either Thorium or U-238 is a necessity in my opinion.
I use the word utopia to mean "here be dragons". There are a lot of economic consequences that aren't apparent. I'm very surprised that some thinktank or economist hasn't published an analysis - or they have and its never bumped into me.
At what rate of taxation would you break even?
Imagine you're undocumented, and you don't get the UBI. Normally you would look for basic labour jobs, but the pay they offer people getting the UBI will be low, so the undocumented will be even less. Probably not economically viable to be an undocumented immigrant. Right-wing utopia.
Factories would pay less (say half), so manufacturing costs would decrease, you can reshore all those jobs that went to asia.
The kicker, in my opinion, would be international trade. If a single country did it, then factories would have a large price advantage vs. their neighbours.
Basically its a fascinating alternative reality, but impossible to try and not clear if it could arrive at a better level of stability than our current systems.
People react to the Universal wage as if its a left-wing utopia, but its really a right-wing utopia.
No minimum wage, taxed from the first cent. Less or no government social policies.
Plus it enables entrepreneurs to work from the garage for a weeks or years.
I like that it gives more negotiations power to employees, since its not a catastrophe to walk away from a job where you're being harassed...
I don't rename, I make a zip
$ zip -r website-2025-09-15.zip website
I like using zip on Unix since its a format that windows users think they understand.
Works pretty much everywhere except these new-fangled containers...
Takes less space than a rename.
So I have zips littered over my filesystem with various datestamps.
And I still have to delete afterwards, so the terror is still part of the process...
Yes for me modular means "no larger than a standard shipping container". Some SMR designs promise a shipping container but then its a non-standard monstrosity.
Once each module can fit in a standard shipping container who cares how many you need. Equally the site requires lots of non-nuclear preparation.
The interesting question is whether the modules can be shipped back to the manufacturer at their end of life, or do they have to be buried on-site for 300 years...
My first trip abroad, when I was 12 or so, my mother tried to write my name and address on my skin!
In the UK, if you're driving the traffic cameras record your every movement, for more detail you're carrying a mobile phone that's constantly telling the phone company where you are.
I think its fair to say that carrying a proof of identity is not a relevant factor in your privacy, and can be useful in many situations.
Equally I think any national government has the right to know who is living in the country.
First you need to be able to prove your identity. National identity cards would be useful for this. I honestly don't understand why the UK is so extremely allergic to the principle.
On the other hand, I don't see why your gender or age should be on the card. If you want to prove you are a junior or a senior, that could easily be a separate piece of paper with a QR code. Scan the identity, scan the qr code, get result. Both issued by a national authority. Appropriate alert to your phone when your identity is accessed.
Setting up a reactor is probably quite easy. No atmosphere to transport anything that escapes, easy to put a 1km security border around it. But then how to create electricity? Steam requires water, and the Rankine cycle, like the Carnot cycle, requires cooling....
Meteor impact will burst any pipes close to the surface.
Colour me sceptical for another 50 years or so...
Normally the team would then rent the stadium?
The stadium would have many uses, concerts and things, so it would be normal that the team wouldn't be the owner.
If the team thinks their current stadium is too small or decrepit, its normal that they complain and threaten to move - do they have any choice?
But its a risk for the team, the rental costs of the new stadium will presumably be higher...
Apart from energy from the sun, of course.
The first reaction a fusion company tries is Deuterium and Tritium. Tritium has a half-life of 12 years, meaning there's none in nature. You have to produce it from Lithium. An isotope of lithium. Isn't lithium difficult to buy?
Then all the beginner reactions, including he3, produce fast neutrons - about an order of magnitude faster than the neutrons produced when you split Uranium. Its tough to produce electricity from these. Its tough to step these things damaging your building!
A possible future fusion reaction is Hydrogen + Boron, producing 3 He nucleii - since they're charged you can probably directly get your electricity from them. Also its fission?
There is 0 chance of a fusion being used in a power generator over the next generation.
So this is a bribe, or the promise of a bribe.
Corrupt politics.
I work in contact with zOS Mainframes. There is a trend to switch to Intel Linux, and many companies sell services for that.
I've seen projects where applications on Linux have to produce the exact same output as the application on zOS.
So in that use case I could indeed see an AI coder doing a large part of the conversion process.
For example if converting from COBOL to Java, you could have a team of Java coders, and the AI reading the COBOL and producing a first draft of the Java code.
So I hear that something has to change. But criminal proceedings are probably unhelpful. If you had an insurance policy, you would have the insurance company listing their requirements, and possibly sending an investigator and doing pen tests. Expensive? Yes, extremely. But it would encourage each company to reduce the cost of the insurance by doing regular updates and carefully examining "End of Support" dates.
Of course, the insurance company would try the old "the policy excludes <whatever happened>", so there would be a need for a law specifying what the insurance must cover (i.e. everything).
And everybody still hides the outages until its blindingly obvious, to avoid triggering the insurance.
So not a perfect solution, but I'm surprised the insurance companies don't lobby more to be in the loop....
Fusion is pop science, and any buzz about fusion gives politicians an excuse to not invest in established nuclear power.
The only innovative nuclear power company that I believe might actually produce something usable is Copenhagen Atomics with their Molten Salt Thorium reactor.
Otherwise the power plants like Hinkley C are large investments that will pay off for 100 years with low-carbon electricity. We need more of these.
They propose to use the Duterium-Tritium reaction, which produces a high energy neutron. They want to use lithium to capture the neutron to produce heat and more Tritium. There are so many problems with this plan!
- You won't get 100% absorption of the neutrons in the lithium, so you're going to have the building irradiated by high energy neutrons
- You need a specific isotope of lithium. Lithium is abundant, but the refining procedure is difficult.
- Lithium+neutron only produces one tritium, so you have to add tritium from some other source
- Tritium has a half-life of 12 years, there is no natural tritium. Today Tritium is available commercially from the Canadian "CANDU" reactors, as a by-product. No new CANDU reactors are being built and the existing ones are progressively being decommissioned.
So before we get to the engineering challenges, just the powerpoint presentation is not perticularly believable.
There are other reactions available, but at much higher temperatures that we can't currently hold in a Tokamack. Come back in 10 years with a better powerpoint please.
I'm currently studying Fusion for my son's school project. I can say with certainty that a fusion power remains science fiction.
Most fusion projects aim for Deuterium and Tritium fusion. It happens at an achievably low temperature, and has been demonstrated in various test environments. However Tritium is not naturally available, the best source is from the Canadian nuclear power stations which will soon be decommissioned. The D+T fusion produces energy in the form of a fast neutron, which we don't really know what to do with. There are various theories, some produce Tritium, but globally it sucks.
The next most easy is Deuterium with Helium3 (isotope of helium with only one neutron). Its nice in that it produces energitic charged particles which we could probably directly use to produce electricity. See this projects pitch for more info: https://www.helionenergy.com/articles/explaining-helions-fusion-fuel-choice-d-he-3/
However Helium3 is not naturally available on Earth. It might be available on the Moon. Globally its science fiction.
ITER is a D-T experiment to prove that excess energy can be generated. But there is no plan to capture the excess energy. Its not a power plant. And its costing billions. So fusion will not help solve any current problems. Its fun to research, but it has no foreseeable practical use.
Sorry guys, its not what I wanted to hear either....
Stealth works hard to remove direct reflection. Random scattering still works. An F22 is huge, they're saying that the drone they chose has an equivalent behaviour - who knows, but sufficiently true to look for a grant for further research.
Distributed radar can easily locate a stealth airplane, as can a UHF radar.
As the author suggested, you need each link of a kill chain to work to actually get a military benefit.
So you could scramble a fighter to intercept the UFO you detected with your starlink scattering radar, and then launch heat seeking missiles at it.
Or you could discover that someone spoofed your starlink radar and you'd scrambled planes for nothing,
