randformblog on math, physics, art, and design |
This post is somewhat a brief follow-up post to the last post which mentioned a math conference/workshop. For those who are interested (sponsors, investors etc…. :) ) in the issue of academic jobs and mathematics: there is currently a discussion about math job opffers at the mathematics blog “n-category cafe”.
For those who were interested in the discussion about the travelling wave reactor (TWR). According to the Technology review article: Advanced Reactor Gets Closer to Reality the reactor concept of the TWR had been changed completely:
In the new design, the reactions all take place near the reactor’s center instead of starting at one end and moving to the other. To start, uranium 235 fuel rods are arranged in the center of the reactor. Surrounding these rods are ones made up of uranium 238. As the nuclear reactions proceed, the uranium 238 rods closest to the core are the first to be converted into plutonium, which is then used up in fission reactions that produce yet more plutonium in nearby fuel rods. As the innermost fuel rods are used up, they’re taken out of the center using a remote-controlled mechanical device and moved to the periphery of the reactor. The remaining uranium 238 rods—including those that were close enough to the center that some of the uranium has been converted to plutonium—are then shuffled toward the center to take the place of the spent fuel.
(remark: my comment on Azimuth to the previous concept may give some hints why they may have wanted to change their reactor design)
The new design sounds to me less futuristic and to be more like a “conventional” breeder running in burner mode (that is you fill an inside (a “core”) with fissile material breed the fertile material around it (in a “blanket”) into fissile material). The original idea of guiding the nuclear reaction through a cylinder (which I found futuristic) seems thus to had been given up.
Concerning the new concept: I might believe that the nuclear reaction may travel a bit through the blanket in fact I could imagine that this is partially happening already in “conventional” breeders. In particular I wonder wether there weren’t already some experiments on how thick a blanket could be for sustaining a reaction (maybe even in some russian journals of the 70s). But apart from this concept – it is not clear to me how much actinides are left in the fuel rods that are taken out (like in a integral fast reactor these rods are usually supposed to be put to reprocessing) – this concerns the possible waste. Moreover the problem of a sodium leakage (see e.g. the talk slides ) and the other problems mentioned in the Tech Review article and that of similar breeders are still there.
Meanwhile you can listen and see here, how things are going if something goes wrong with nuclear technology:
(via boingboing)
A recent product description at Inhabitat. Read about: Miss Maple – the pendant lamp by Elisa Strozyk and the tile-tale of cozy Sherlock Home.
“mental diffusion”, artwork by Jonah Gekoppi.
After monkeys were successfully able to control an robotic arm via their brain activity the new turn is now on humans.
You may want to read the article: Human Trials Planned For Brain Computer Interface , it is a bit related to the machine-human discussion in the recently uploaded game- scheme- article.
From the article:
The algorithms in the machine must first learn the patterns of brain activity that occur when the human is either imagining or physically carrying out a task. As the system becomes familiar with the neural commands, the patient’s control over it becomes more seamless.
…
A video of the results shows a woman trying to play a computer game by imagining the moves. When she loses control of the ball on the screen, the patient throws out a physical cue—raising her arm—to help the computer refine its estimation of her intentions.
-> related randform post
The problems at Fukushima are keeping me still busy, see e.g. this comment and the discussion there.
As of now my Laptop seems to have again a Major damage.
—blogging will Be Even more retarded
update same day evening: Luckily it seems that the laptop
had only a bad software bug and the friendly people at the Apple store could repair
this within an hour. Please press thumbs that the hardware is/stays uneffected.
Some internet-surf results:
According to Wikipedia one needs approximately 6 to 7 litres milk for 1 kg milkpowder.
Assuming a consumption of half a liter of milk per human, this gives a consumption of 182 kg milk per year, which can be substituted by a consumption of approx. 30.4 kg milk powder per human per year.
According to Wikipedia (unfortunately without source) the milk powder production in Europe is 800.000 tons (per year?). A similar amount is produced in the US according to the website of the US Dairy Export Council:
Approximately 10% of the world’s milk powder production — over 800,000 metric tons — is manufactured at more than 80 plants in the United States, making the United States one of the largest milk powder producers in the world.
800.000 tons divided by 30.4 is roughly 26 million.
So if this computation is right then the annual US milk powder production would suffice for roughly 26 million people.
I couldn’t find good numbers on the soy milk production, there seem to have been some increased production in China concluding from the financial times.
Japanese people have in comparision to other asian people a rather good milk tolerance according to Gastroenterol Jpn. 1975;10(1):29-34.
Studies on the etiology of milk intolerance in Japanese adults, by Yoshida Y, Sasaki G, Goto S, Yanagiya S, Takashina K.
Eventually the US quality powder may be better then the European .
According to this german website a typical container ship takes about a month to the Far East and carries about 128.000 tons. Looking at the map it seems that a ship from the US to the Far east takes about half a month.
According to this website a cargo plane carries about 128 tons.
This post is not adressed to food speculators.
I wrote a little essay about the limitations of sustainability for the “people, planet, profit” – triple pundit, “year in review contest”. I am sorry to deviate with this economy essay again from “math, physics, art and design”. And frankly speaking – economy is not my most favorite subject, but like for nuclear energy, one has to acknowledge the fact that economy affects everyones normal daily lives in a quite drastic manner, so I think one has to think about it and put it into the general living context.
In the essay at triple pundit I tried to point out major economic obstacles for establishing “sustainability”. With sustainability I mean here the “common sense sustainability”, namely “being environmentally and socially friendly”. There are of course a lot of discussions about what sustainability encompasses, what it means to design etc. The essay was not concerned with this discussion but with the general question of how (common sense) sustainability fits into economy. In particular the essay takes a critical look at the notion of sustainability and profit, which is currently also a strongly discussed issue (see e.g. here). I found it quite a challenge to squeeze such a complex issue into such a small format, but I think it is possible and I figured that a small and concise (nontechnical, non-math) essay might eventually motivate people, who don’t like to delve too much into economic questions, to think about the topic.
The winner of the triple pundit “year in review contest” is Boyd Cohen with his essay 2010-The Year that Climate Capitalism Emerged to Save the Day. He believes that
enlightened capitalism focused on solving climate change at a profit, will be perhaps the most important tool to move the lever fast enough to thwart the worst of the climate crisis.
In his essay he listed his “top 10 climate capitalism stories coming out this calendar year that gives him hope”. Among others one story that gave him hope was that the electric car company “Better place comes to North America”:
Along with other announced North American efforts in Hawaii and Ontario, Better Place is poised to lead us away from our “addition to oil.”
The company “Better place” was just featured in the last randform post, where a quick calculation displays that electric cars may for certain electric energy mixes not reduce CO2 output but on the contrary increase CO2 output.
You can vote which article of the “Year in review contest” you like most, if you have a Twitter account.
My essay is after the click or at triple pundit.
note: My Apple book works again, that is – thanks to the courtesy of Apple – the graphics board was exchanged free of charge. However I am still too busy for blogging which was on the other hand not the reason that the randform archives had been offline in the last days – this was due to a strange technical problem at our internet provider.