6 ms·

I'm missing the part where they solve for the collection problem. The article mentions the boy who gathered dangerous amounts of Americium from smoke detectors

I'm missing the part where they solve for the collection problem. The article mentions the boy who gathered dangerous amounts of Americium from smoke detectors but doesn't provide any kind of mechanism to counteract that risk. It seems like any mass production of nuclear battery material risks an interested human or organizational collector amassing significant quantities of that material and that risk doesn't seem to have gone down.

fruitworks 1y ago
Americium is fissile. The isotopes used in chip-scale nuclear batteries typicially are not.
Nifty3929 1y ago
Also missing is any indication of whether or not this is a rational and valid concern, or whether it's simply generalized fear of "nuclear" without basis. I genuinely wonder and would be interested in some facts about it.
- Joel_Mckay 1y ago
  Actually, the story of the Radioactive Boy-scout is often steeped in urban legends. The TLDR is he cobbled together a breeder reactor, and found a large sample of Radium from an antique clock that mistakenly contained an old dial-paint vile. His little hobby cost a lot to clean up, and ruined his life. Nuclear energy should be conserved for space, as in the past 80 years people still haven't figured out how to safely dispose of hotter waste products. You can disagree on what this means, but every project attempt is provably wrong when projecting containment past 75 years. These days renewables are profitable, and are not a 1950's hubris driven loss-leader fission tech for our grand kids to pay the actual cost. =3
  - ta20240528 1y ago
    " as in the past 80 years people still haven't figured out how to safely dispose of hotter waste products." Buried underground in salt rock formations. Conceived, located, designed.
    - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
      "Underground" usually also means degraded containment (micro-tears in 15cm thick steel), seeping water soluble heavy-metal salts, off-gassing Radon, and sometimes literally on fire when using the wrong brand of kitty-litter to clean up toxic waste. When (not if) the salt caverns collapse from rotten concrete, they hope it will remain stable and dry. Even vitrified ceramic containment isn't perfect, but seems better than a caveman bucket technology. We will have to disagree about it justifying fission tech sustainability. =3
      - fruitworks 1y ago
        The salt caverns we're talking about are pretty geologicially predictable, so we won't have to hope.
        Joel_Mckay 1y ago
        All holes eventually fill with water, especially in places with soluble structures and negligent engineering assumptions. Or, people could put up a 20kW solar roof for $1k year in most places. =3
        fruitworks 1y ago
        I know a guy who was a nuclear engineer and geologist who did planning for yucca mountain and he seemed to know his stuff. I don't know if you would be getting that much water in the desert that is the nevada test site, or who would even be drinking from that water. Also the cat litter thing you mentioned earlier is already regulated by 10 CFR, and all uranium offgasses radon (even natural uranium that never gets dug up and used in a reactor in the first place). The threat from used fuel is that the short lived nuclides seep into groundwater, or that someone might use the fissile material create a weapon. So as long as you keep it in a deep cave in the middle of nowhere and guard the entrance, it's fine. Solar will probably remain cheap as long as it can take advantage of the existing grid capacity and push that storage externality on the rest of the electrical grid. Nuclear's long-term problem in the USA is the massive reserves of cheap shale gas discovered in the last 10 years.
IlikeKitties 1y ago
If you knew how bad it really is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7TwBUxxIC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7TwBUxxIC0 Anyway here's where you can order bulk capsule of americium: https://de.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-nap-07-module.html?spm=a2g0o.home.auto_suggest.4.3c587a8b8ytsgk https://de.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-nap-07-module.html?spm... Thorium oxide powder https://whgoldenwing.en.made-in-china.com/product/PZtfXWbMbAYc/China-Thorium-Oxide-99-9-CAS-1314-20-1-Thorium-Dioxide-Powder-Tho2.html https://whgoldenwing.en.made-in-china.com/product/PZtfXWbMbA... That should get you started repeating the atomic boyscouts experiments straigt from china. If the thorium oxide isn't to your liking in bulk, it's been sold as a "negative ion" product to gullible esoteric idiots and widely available. Edit: you might also need some beryllium for the neutron gun, you can get that on ebay https://www.ebay.de/itm/266979263956?_skw=beryllium&itmmeta=01K3GX8J1SEJVYZ5DDSXNNBMPE&hash=item3e293445d4:g:FdMAAOSwME5m2cKt&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA0FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1djKe8yL4oElK71LabQ2oKwNhTHx1unvjpwuL9pc32EjCpC8v7gCPxh4xBkOa%2F54sqK0HoYD17Yaal6dpPXcCU5%2FtPG2IEXdhsFG8dmYyB1CTQrQLLCFq9UdpJKxxQgpMt50wYpaMUqtD1p%2BRqilF0J328trEjc%2BMt6acl6rMGNRgl9HQYV2392wducS35WZ7gjySQ5QvM3%2F6hkcIVwvHAj5orh06MiuPnGeB8Pr7mpWKEB5HoV9GiQK4Nrc%2Fsgy40%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4yhop2cZg https://www.ebay.de/itm/266979263956?_skw=beryllium&itmmeta=... Anyway, i'm on a whole lot of fbi lists now
- Joel_Mckay 1y ago
  > Anyway, i'm on a whole lot of fbi lists now The Radioactive Boy-scouts real problems started with a unlucky find of an antique Radium paint vile inside one of the clocks he salvaged. Everyone is already on a list now regardless of conduct, as privacy became redundant in 2017. The funnier phenomena is people still acting like they are Batman. It is absurd naive behavior... =3
  - IlikeKitties 1y ago
    I did extensive research into his experiments and i can guaran fucking tee you that the stuff i posted here is enough to repeat his experiments without the radium paint vile.
    - Joel_Mckay 1y ago

fruitworks 1y ago

Americium is fissile. The isotopes used in chip-scale nuclear batteries typicially are not.

Nifty3929 1y ago

Also missing is any indication of whether or not this is a rational and valid concern, or whether it's simply generalized fear of "nuclear" without basis. I genuinely wonder and would be interested in some facts about it.

Joel_Mckay 1y ago
Actually, the story of the Radioactive Boy-scout is often steeped in urban legends. The TLDR is he cobbled together a breeder reactor, and found a large sample of Radium from an antique clock that mistakenly contained an old dial-paint vile. His little hobby cost a lot to clean up, and ruined his life. Nuclear energy should be conserved for space, as in the past 80 years people still haven't figured out how to safely dispose of hotter waste products. You can disagree on what this means, but every project attempt is provably wrong when projecting containment past 75 years. These days renewables are profitable, and are not a 1950's hubris driven loss-leader fission tech for our grand kids to pay the actual cost. =3
- ta20240528 1y ago
  " as in the past 80 years people still haven't figured out how to safely dispose of hotter waste products." Buried underground in salt rock formations. Conceived, located, designed.
  - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
    "Underground" usually also means degraded containment (micro-tears in 15cm thick steel), seeping water soluble heavy-metal salts, off-gassing Radon, and sometimes literally on fire when using the wrong brand of kitty-litter to clean up toxic waste. When (not if) the salt caverns collapse from rotten concrete, they hope it will remain stable and dry. Even vitrified ceramic containment isn't perfect, but seems better than a caveman bucket technology. We will have to disagree about it justifying fission tech sustainability. =3
    - fruitworks 1y ago
      The salt caverns we're talking about are pretty geologicially predictable, so we won't have to hope.
      - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
        All holes eventually fill with water, especially in places with soluble structures and negligent engineering assumptions. Or, people could put up a 20kW solar roof for $1k year in most places. =3
        fruitworks 1y ago
        I know a guy who was a nuclear engineer and geologist who did planning for yucca mountain and he seemed to know his stuff. I don't know if you would be getting that much water in the desert that is the nevada test site, or who would even be drinking from that water. Also the cat litter thing you mentioned earlier is already regulated by 10 CFR, and all uranium offgasses radon (even natural uranium that never gets dug up and used in a reactor in the first place). The threat from used fuel is that the short lived nuclides seep into groundwater, or that someone might use the fissile material create a weapon. So as long as you keep it in a deep cave in the middle of nowhere and guard the entrance, it's fine. Solar will probably remain cheap as long as it can take advantage of the existing grid capacity and push that storage externality on the rest of the electrical grid. Nuclear's long-term problem in the USA is the massive reserves of cheap shale gas discovered in the last 10 years.

IlikeKitties 1y ago

If you knew how bad it really is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7TwBUxxIC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7TwBUxxIC0 Anyway here's where you can order bulk capsule of americium: https://de.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-nap-07-module.html?spm=a2g0o.home.auto_suggest.4.3c587a8b8ytsgk https://de.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-nap-07-module.html?spm... Thorium oxide powder https://whgoldenwing.en.made-in-china.com/product/PZtfXWbMbAYc/China-Thorium-Oxide-99-9-CAS-1314-20-1-Thorium-Dioxide-Powder-Tho2.html https://whgoldenwing.en.made-in-china.com/product/PZtfXWbMbA... That should get you started repeating the atomic boyscouts experiments straigt from china. If the thorium oxide isn't to your liking in bulk, it's been sold as a "negative ion" product to gullible esoteric idiots and widely available. Edit: you might also need some beryllium for the neutron gun, you can get that on ebay https://www.ebay.de/itm/266979263956?_skw=beryllium&itmmeta=01K3GX8J1SEJVYZ5DDSXNNBMPE&hash=item3e293445d4:g:FdMAAOSwME5m2cKt&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA0FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1djKe8yL4oElK71LabQ2oKwNhTHx1unvjpwuL9pc32EjCpC8v7gCPxh4xBkOa%2F54sqK0HoYD17Yaal6dpPXcCU5%2FtPG2IEXdhsFG8dmYyB1CTQrQLLCFq9UdpJKxxQgpMt50wYpaMUqtD1p%2BRqilF0J328trEjc%2BMt6acl6rMGNRgl9HQYV2392wducS35WZ7gjySQ5QvM3%2F6hkcIVwvHAj5orh06MiuPnGeB8Pr7mpWKEB5HoV9GiQK4Nrc%2Fsgy40%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4yhop2cZg https://www.ebay.de/itm/266979263956?_skw=beryllium&itmmeta=... Anyway, i'm on a whole lot of fbi lists now

Joel_Mckay 1y ago
> Anyway, i'm on a whole lot of fbi lists now The Radioactive Boy-scouts real problems started with a unlucky find of an antique Radium paint vile inside one of the clocks he salvaged. Everyone is already on a list now regardless of conduct, as privacy became redundant in 2017. The funnier phenomena is people still acting like they are Batman. It is absurd naive behavior... =3
- IlikeKitties 1y ago
  I did extensive research into his experiments and i can guaran fucking tee you that the stuff i posted here is enough to repeat his experiments without the radium paint vile.
  - Joel_Mckay 1y ago