#All Nuclear Reactors Leak All the Time

[captainhongjoong]

just watched a korean movie about a nuclear meltdown and it is among the worst movies i’ve ever seen

[robogirlwomb]

An android girl, meticulously constructed by the conversion mainframes for a very specific purpose.

At least, that's what she's been told. It's only been a few days since her conversion, and she's still been getting used to this new chassis. Her memories of her old human life are still there, in her databanks, just neatly compartmentalized and filed away, there to be accessed if she needs them.

She thinks so, anyway. Those memories feel more and more like a vaguely-remembered dream every day. Everything just feels so happy and fuzzy these days.

It's just so much easier to fall into her new AI Mainframe-directed life, helping to construct the new world that the Roboverlords are converting the planet into.

She sighs happily, looking down at her rounded belly for what must be the thousandth time. Heavy and gravid, much like a human pregnancy, except silly humans didn't have built-in belly support.

Nor, for that matter, could what humans carried be more accurately described as payloads.

Her tummy is transparent, and though the material is at least an inch thick, she lovely blue glow is no less visible through it. A nuclear ball, glowing the beautiful blue-raspberry color of Cherenkov radiation. She giggles, before inhaling deeply through her olfactory receptors. Her CPU does, in fact, register the scent as a tangy blue-raspberry flavor, like candy.

She finds herself giggling again, curling her legs below her, gently carressing her rounded tummy with her synthetic fingertips. It tickles, just a little, and she coos softly, as gentle and protective of what she's carrying as if it were an actual child.

She can almost hear her hard drive clicking as it struggles to keep functioning, keep her thinking amongst the radiation. She didn't mind one bit, though. She really enjoyed being this fuzzy and spacey and dumb and giggly.

As if on cue:

Reactor Unit BH-3627. Commence pleasure-based obedience conditioning and power generation.

The voice of the Overmind, in her head.

BH smiled dumbly as she rose to her feet from her spot sitting on the floor, walking slowly, almost trancelike, with a goofy grin on her face, to her harness. She turned, and almost melted backward into her comfy harness, her legs already spreading to allow access to her synthetic pussy, which was already self-lubricating generously in preparation for her reconditioning.

As her arousal grew, the Geiger counter on the wall of her room began to tick, tick, tick, faster and faster. The blue glow in her tummy began to brighten, strengthening as more power was drawn from her to fuel the facility around her.

BH idly tweaked one nipple, cupped one pendulous breast, as a heavy uranium fuel rod slowly descended into the room, gently carried by a series of robotic arms.

Unit BH-3627 is a good girl.

BH moaned in anticipation as the fuel rod came closer and closer, the tip just gently grazing her labial folds. A soft, needy moan spilled out of her, yet she didn't dare move from her spot.

Her compliance with safety procedures was paramount, after all. That had been one of the first things they'd programmed into her during the post-conversion brainwashing.

With a low hum, the fuel rod began to vibrate, before slowly pushing into her.

Her round belly began to glow a blinding blue, the Geiger counter's clicks beginning to blend together, her brain getting fuzzier and fuzzier-

Unit BH-3627 is a good reactor.

BH moaned as she came around the vibrating fuel rod, her CPU and Hard Drive beginning to sputter, before finally overheating and shutting down. BH began to thrash violently, trapped in the throes of an orgasmic seizure shaking her chassis as the fission process began within her,

before she finally

blacked out

shutting

down

Reactor diagnostic complete. Unit's mental processors experienced expected emergency overload and shutdown. All other systems functioning at optimal levels. Previously noted memory leak of pre-conversion memories continuing, acceptable. All parameters are still within acceptable limits. Fission process: resounding success. Introducing secondary reactor.

BH-3627 slowly came back online from a truly delicious wet dream simulation. She slowly pushed herself to a seated position in her harness. The weight of her belly was as comforting as always. That familar, comforting fuzzy feeling was back, clouding her sensors in that delightful way as she looked around the reactor chamber.

It was then that BH noticed that she was no longer alone.

Another harness had been installed while she slept, right across the room from hers. And there, sitting groggily in it, was another Reactor Unit, just like her, with an identical chassis.

This new Unit was looking at her, through curious, yet half-lidded eyes. Her own belly was round in her lap, a similar Cherenkov-blue glow shining from within.

BH smiled at the new Unit. She dreamily eased herself out of her harness, carefully cradling her tummy with her hands as she seemed to glide across the room, swaying almost drunkenly as she approached the new unit.

“Hello, sweetheart. What's your designation?”

The new Unit blinked repeatedly, as if trying to process the question. “My... my name is... GP-4737...” She blinked again. “W-wait, no, that's not my name, my name is... is...” GP-4737 groaned, placing her palm to her forehead with a clack. “Why is it... it's so hard to think right now...”

BH giggled lightly. “Ooh, fresh off the line, huh?” She leaned in close, smiling warmly at the newly-converted Unit. “Well, don't worry that lil' head of yours, you'll fit in just fine here. I don't remember much from before my time here either.”

GP's eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah... I forget a little more every time they power me up. It feels so nice... every time I try to remember back then, my Hard Drive just goes Pop! And I forget what I was even trying to remember.”

GP shivered, despite not being able to feel how cold the room was. “It sounds scary...” She couldn't help thinking she should be more alarmed about that statement, that concept, but she just couldn't bring herself to worry so much about it. Her... brain? Was just so light and fluffy right now.

“Aww, don't you worry, cutie. I'll help you out.”

“You will?!”

“Of course! I'm not gonna leave you in the lurch. Just...” BH smiled, before delicately placing her hand flat on GP's round tummy. “...lie back, and let me help you.”

GP's mint-condition hard drive hummed softly as a low pleasure emanated from BH's touch. GP gasped in delighted surprise, cooing low, her eyes closing as she relished how good this felt.

With a mischievous smile, BH leaned in, planting a kiss on her fellow Reactor Unit's lips. The bot's eyes opened in surprise, before closing once more, leaning into the kiss.

As BH kissed GP harder, she pulled on part of the harness for support, pulling herself closer to GP.

Their bellies touched in the center, and the Geiger counter on the wall immediately went into overdrive, as the nuclear payloads in both of their bellies began to glow even brighter.

It was as if an explosion had gone off in GP's head, tastes and smells and sounds swirling together in a thousand ways as her CPU short-circuited under the pleasurable onslaught. She kissed BH even harder as she began to cum, they both began to cum, over and over again, moaning and screaming even as their synthetic tongues swirled in the middle.

GP was dimly aware that she could smell her Hard Drive burning, overheating, memories of her previous life burning away one after another with every orgasm.

Finally, BH's legs fell limp as her servos failed her, and she fell backward onto the floor. She lay there, staring up at the high ceiling, not truly seeing it, as her scrambled CPU struggled to stay online, her robotic twat twitching, still cumming repeatedly.

GP lay there in her harness, giggling drunkly, still gasping every now and then as she continued to orgasm, her thought process little more than a jumble of glitched static for now.

In the robotic megacity, miles above their heads, the lights shone just a little brighter for the better part of an hour.

[stevebattle]

Quince (2011) by Tomoaki Yoshida and Takeshi Nishimura, Future Robotics Technology Center (fuRo), Chiba Institute of Technology, and Tohoku University, Japan. "Quince was developed to perform on-site surveys for use in Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE) accidents. "Hypothetical disasters include accidents at plants handling toxic substances, leaks of hazardous chemicals from chemical plants, explosions, and acts of terror like the notorious subway sarin incident. Risks are particularly high in enclosed spaces (underground and inside buildings), and expectations are high for robots as they will protect officers from secondary disasters. Quince surveyed the inside of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant whose damages were caused by the East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. Quince, with modifications for operations at nuclear power plants, has photographed the details of the buildings of the power plant, created radiation dose maps, and sampled radioactive materials floating in the air. It has been helping to reduce the radiation dose of on-site workers and to shorten the work period." – Future Robotics Technology Center (fuRo).

" “When I think about it now,” Yoshida says, “I feel like we really did manage to achieve something with it. All of Japan was in a panic back then, and we were talking about overhauling design plans for a robot that wasn’t even finished. All kinds of people started shouting at us. ‘Are you still working on that?! Hurry up!’ But really, I was impressed that we adapted Quince into something that could function in a nuclear plant in just three months.” … During a mission to investigate the fifth floor of the second reactor building — the first time robots had been used to investigate that building — Quince’s communications cable disconnected, and the robot was left stranded on the building’s third floor. According to officials, it is still there today." – Fukushima Rescue Robots and the Men Who Made Them, by Wataru Tsuchiya.

[captainseamech]

//*pics the mic* okay this may sound ridiculous at this point, but I’m here to once again talk about High Tide’s unique features because I have nothing better to do. Last time, I talked about his armor and how his spark is protected thanks to his altmode. Now I wanted to talk about something more interesting that is, more often than not, mentioned in most of my threads: High Tide releasing steam.

You may be wondering why the hell do I want to talk about this even though I did a whole meta post about the situation (which you should check btw). In that post, I talked about the circumstances of which he can start to release steam out of control, not how and / or why he does that. And that’s what I’m going to talk about tonight.

As you may know, I mostly use GR from the OVA for aesthetic purposes and I did use him in that study post to illustrate what I meant. Yesterday, I replied to an ask and mentioned in the tags that I loved the nuclear powered sentient robot that is GR (and still do ofc)... which made me wonder how a nuclear powered core can release steam when under pressure and how this is also applied to HT. After some study diving, I got my answer and I’m here to share it with you guys.

There are two types of submarines in terms of propulsion: diesel-powered and nuclear-powered, with High Tide being the latter. His nuclear core type is Boiling Water Reactor (or BWR for short), which works by having its reactor core heat water to turn it into steam and drive a steam engine connected to it. I’m not going to be too in-depth as to how it works because I’m a simple writer, but here’s the article talking more about the BWR for you to read later.

Thanks to this reactor, High Tide is able to control his steaming to get more power and before you ask if said steam is toxic to inhale, it isn’t. Well it actually is, but one of the safety procedures used in nuclear powered submarines with BWR is to have vents that can filter the radiation from the steam to make it non-toxic for plants and operators inside. So yeah, High Tide has a lot of those vents spread throughout himself internally, so you can easily breathe through that. Speaking of safety procedures...

As I mentioned in the same post where I talked about how much steam releasing is considered too much, I did also say this can be mallefic to him. Sure, when he gets mad and needs to cool down after his core spray system (which is exclusive to BWRs) activates in order to stop the generation of steam, therefore cooling him down. He can also activate special fans he has to manually cool himself through ‘breathing’ out of his mouth, which he can also control; but in case he’s exceeding his capability, his Emergency core-cooling systems (or ECCS for short) will activate in an attempt to shut down his core. You can read about all of the safety systems here, it’s quite interesting!

However, if all of that fails due to him non-stop pressuring himself, the reactor will boil to the point of melting, causing health problems to High Tide along the way. He will start to malfunction and have a very negative reaction, as this heat might reach other areas of his body and, potentially, melt his spark chamber and reach his spark, causing him to collapse while leaking a scary green smoke out of his frame and possibly some energon with it, indicating that he could not contain his own radiation no more.

High Tide obliviously turned himself into a dangerous nuclear hazard, and will only find out about this the day he dies to his own core.

[calder]

Although most glowing ones encountered elsewhere in the wastes have become feral, those encountered in New California are generally civil (if not sane).

Until Necropolis was overrun by the super mutants in 2162, glowing ones lived quietly in the remains of Vault 12, separate from the normal ghouls on the surface. Just above ground, several were kept in cages within the Hall of the Dead, apparently as a source of lighting.[1] All glowing ones at Necropolis were kept within the church or the Vault. Those who dwelt within Vault 12 were all capable of articulate speech, and expressed themselves in strange, poetic declarations.[2] Those imprisoned at the church seemed to mumble and drool.[3]

Nearby, a separate population of peaceful ghouls were forced to take refuge in a sewer by the ghoul warlord Set.[4] Despite his brutal ways, he neglected to kill these peaceful ghouls, so they could help defend Necropolis should the need arise.[5] The placid glowing ones of Necropolis may have been kept for similar purposes. They also guarded and maintained the Vault's water processing system, which was still operational.[2]

As they are not feral creatures,[2] the glowing ones of Vault 12 are mentally ill elderly people. They require water, and without the Vault's water processing functionality, they will die.[2] They will not attack the Vault Dweller unless the player assaults them or removes Vault 12's water chip. In both scenarios, the glowing ones act in self-defense against someone who has entered their home and attempted to murder them. There are no other encounters with glowing ones in the original Fallout.

The destruction of Necropolis resulted in the Bakersfield ghoul population scattering to the surrounding areas, such as Los to the east, where they founded the Church of the Lost, a ghoul cult dedicated to the protection of the Secret Vault. Glowing ones are seen among their ranks.

To the north, several glowing ones would go on to find work in the nuclear plant at the metropolitan settlement of Gecko, performing complex labor in the reactor area. The named character Hank is one of these glowing technicians. If the Chosen One fixes the reactor's radiation leak, the ghouls will remark that the plant feels "chilly." Additionally, two glowing ones live at Broken Hills, a settlement where all humans and mutants are invited to live in cooperation.

[...]

One person who ultimately went feral in Appalachia, Freddie Lang, was capable of typing for some time after his skin began to glow.[6]

not givn up gettin hardr to thikn straigt skin glwing so sick i tried feelss good to be dwn in th mine warmer near the radiation just gonna sleep ther wait 4 whtevr — Blackwater Mine terminal entries; Blackwater Bandits terminal, Help

[nightingaelic]

Quite frequently we see that entire groups of Asians (well, Chinese) get turned into ghouls. The submarine in fallout 4 for example, not a single member of that crew died due to radiation they all turned. So. A thought my friend and I had. What if that one special thing that determines if your die or ghoulify is Gengas Khan's genetics. Its the only genetic link I can think of that would explain this kinda distribution, at least without getting into racist pseudoscience wich hopefully the series itself doesn't do.

I don't think you're off-base in thinking there must be some genetic marker that predisposes someone to 1) ghoulification rather than death, and 2) the length of time spent sentient prior to becoming feral, but I personally don't think it's related to Genghis Khan's bloodline. Prisons and military installations full of ghouls are effective set pieces, and I think the groups of Chinese ghouls found in the games are there primarily to illustrate the forces of war that literally could not care less about the people caught up in it. More under the cut.

There are quite a few instances across the games where Chinese ghouls are living in groups, either sentient or feral, but these groups typically occurred for one of two reasons. The first reason is imprisonment, which includes the Turtledove Detention Camp in Fallout 3's Point Lookout DLC, and the Little Yangtze concentration camp in Fallout New Vegas's Old World Blues DLC. Both ran American programs of torture and experimentation prior to the Great War, and both were in close proximity to toxic waste that permeated the soil and water, which ghoulified the surviving prisoners after the bombs fell and their captors abandoned them.

The second reason is jingoism. This covers the Chinese remnants at Mama Dolce's and a couple of listening posts in Fallout 3, and the Motherlode Acquisition Facility in Fallout 76. The Motherlode Acquisition Facility is sitting right on top of what looks like an ultracite fissure site (which I can say from experience is not great for one's health), but besides that the sentient ghouls in each are doing what the Enclave does - carrying out covert military operations and extending the war past the point of nuclear annihilation. Ghoulification is practically a bonus in this case as it extends lifespans and eliminates the threat of radiation sickness, allowing agents to better carry out their missions on American soil. Whether or not the Chinese remnants all submitted to this process voluntarily is obviously up for debate - there is at least one spy in the Motherlode Acquisition Facility that doesn't want to be there. You also pointed out the Yangtze-31 submarine in Fallout 4, which touches both reasons - a Chinese nuclear payload that contributed to the Great War, and naval mine damage that caused a reactor leak which ghoulified the crew and shut the vessel down. Still, Captain Zao harbors no ill will to peaceful investigators, so it's safe to say he and his crew were primarily the victims of circumstantial imprisonment.

But for imprisonment by either the state or circumstances, there are plenty of documented instances where the populations affected weren't primarily Chinese. The Californian residents of Vault 12 in the first Fallout game, a vault whose door was designed to close improperly, is one such case. Vault 34 in Fallout New Vegas saw a chunk of its own Mojave Desert population mutate thanks to a damaged reactor. The beached FMS Northern Star in Fallout 4 has a Norwegian ghoul crew. The remaining inmates of Eastern Regional Penitentiary in Fallout 76 have become emaciated and feral, and they were Appalachian criminals and union organizers.

Ghoulification for the sake of America is a little harder to find, but I would argue that mutation is still a tool of those who are dragging the nation's corpse around. The Enclave classifies all mutants, ghouls included, as subhuman and worthy of extermination, but they're still willing to exploit Fallout 2's super mutant Frank Horrigan for their own purposes. If they viewed ghouls as useful, I have no doubt they would have ghoulified their own ranks.

Really, what we have in the case of the Chinese ghouls on American soil is a display of writer-induced survivorship bias. The setting draws heavy inspiration from the Red Scare and McCarthyism, where instead of the Soviet Union, Communist China has hidden within the United States to further its own goals. While the games make use of environmental storytelling elements like holotapes, journals, and propaganda, it's just more interesting for the player to occasionally happen upon a populated secret base or prison or submarine to see the extent of the Chinese infiltration and America's paranoia. Oh, it's been 200 years since the bombs fell? Well, lucky for the writers, they have this in-universe explanation for why someone might have lived long enough to meet the player character. If it weren't for the preserved groups of Chinese ghouls, we probably wouldn't see the pre-war Chinese people at all.

[dykesynthezoid]

Nuclear Accidents to read about for more Burrow’s End Context (Besides Chernobyl):

I’ve recently become hyperfixated with reading about these and a lot of them have bits that I think can add to what’s going on in Burrow’s End. (These are far from all the possible examples I could give you, these just seemed the most relevant). I’ve grouped them by location in honor of the Cold War themes we’ve been seeing.

Soviet Incidents:

Mayak Kyshtym Disaster (1957) | Considered the third worst nuclear plant disaster in history (behind Chernobyl and Fukushima). Case of neglect and lack of oversight and general human stupidity. Caused huge amount of contamination to surrounding area; they had previously already been dumping their waste into a nearby lake. High civilian casualties; at least 200 people died and many, many more were affected.

“In the 45 years afterwards, about half a million people in the region have been irradiated in one or more of the incidents, exposing them to up to 20 times the radiation suffered by the Chernobyl disaster victims outside of the plant itself.”

Vinča Nuclear Institute Criticality Excursion (1958) | Researchers smelled ozone while they were unknowingly being irradiated, resulting in one death

Greifswald Nuclear Power Plant Incidents | 1975: Electrical fire destroyed control lines to coolant pumps 1989: Another cooling pump malfunction caused near-meltdown

KS-150 Incidents (1976, 1977) | Several different incidents involving coolant malfunction

K-431 Chazhma Bay Accident (1985) | Criticality excursion on a nuclear submarine caused by operator error. Resulted in a large area of severe contamination. (10 fatalities, another 49 injured, unknown how many could have been affected by contamination).

US Incidents:

Louis Slotin Accident (1946) | There are several excursions and deaths associated with the Manhattan Project and Los Alamos— but this one involved witnesses reporting a “blue glow” as the resulting radiation ionized the surrounding air. Slotin died within days, and several of his colleagues were injured, one permanently disabled, with some later dying early deaths.

Cecil Kelley Accident (1958) | Procedural error caused criticality accident that resulted in a “bright flash of blue light;” (warning that the descriptions on this one get particularly grisly as Kelley received more than seven times the adult lethal dose of radiation; he was the only one affected).

Surry Power Station Incidents (1972, 1979, 1986, 2011) | Multiple cooling system accidents, primarily those involving escaping steam, resulting in burns and one explosion. (Only the events in 1972 and 1986 resulted in loss of life, for 6 deaths total)

Three Mile Island Accident (1979) | Water escaped from the coolant system due to a mix of operator error and design flaws. This led to the reactor overheating and an eventual leak of radioactive gases via the steam released during the incident. Luckily the contamination of surrounding areas appears to have been minimal (for the most part).

Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station Malfunctions (1986) | Used Cape Cod Bay as the water source for its cooling system, resulting in an impact on aquatic plant and animal life. In 1986, recurring equipment malfunctions resulted in an emergency shutdown. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission once referred to it as “one of the worst-run″ nuclear power plants in the US.

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station Incidents (1987) | Nuclear Regulatory Commission found evidence of misconduct, procedure error, corporate malfeasance, deliberate disregard for safety regulations, and pollution via accidental waste leakage into a nearby river. Resulted in a forced shutdown in 1987, associated with cooling malfunctions.

(There are several other [mostly nonfatal] US incidents at nuclear power plants, too many to fully get into here. See: Idaho National Laboratory, Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Millstone Nuclear Power Station, Crystal River Nuclear Plant, and Davis–Besse Nuclear Power Station)

Other Locations:

Lucens Reactor Accident (1969) | Loss of coolant accident led to partial meltdown and contamination of the reactor cavern

Vandellòs Nuclear Power Plant Accident (1989) | A fire damaged the cooling system, leading to near-meltdown

Other Resources:

Wikipedia:

Page for nuclear and radiation accidents

Page for criticality accidents

Page for LOCA (Loss-of-coolant accident)

Union of Concerned Scientists:

A Brief History of Nuclear Accidents Worldwide

National Health Institute:

Civilian nuclear incidents: An overview of historical, medical, and scientific aspects

See Also:

World Nuclear Association, Atomic Archive, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

[justafoxhound]

Snippet Someday

Tagged by @dirty-bosmer , thanks what a fun game! Makes me want to edit the early bits a lot lol, but was fun to dip back into the later parts!

Rules: Revisit an old fic (or earlier chapters of your current WIP) and share a snip from:

Your first chapter

Your favourite chapter

Your most challenging chapter

Alternatively, if you don't write longfic, feel free to share your one-shots. Provide as much or as little commentary as you want.

From Atomic Smitten (a Fallout 3 fanfic)

First chapter- 1. A Very Bad Wakeup Call

Radiation leak. Cave in. Reactor meltdown. Old age. Boredom. These were the ways Talia expected she would die in Vault 101, the underground nuclear shelter she called home. She���d never have guessed it would be Johnny from Vault Security in the cafeteria with the police baton.

Favourite chapter- 33. Obsidian: On Reflection, He Should Have Charged More

At the bottom of the stairwell he found her already clambering over a dead mutant, reloading her shotgun. She looked up at him, a hollow smile juxtaposing the deep set pits of obsidian in her pupils. Vaulties always were either the weakest or wildest migrants to the wasteland. “This thing is fucking awesome. You got one?” Clarence pulled back the hammer on his revolver. “Forty-four is all the stopping power I’ve ever needed, Miss. Now, I insist we hurry. We’ll cook down here regardless of the chef if we dither.”

Challenging chapter- 23. Private Investigations

The rain began to come down as Burke reached Wilhelm’s Wharf on the northern edge of the city. The universe sometimes had a grand sense of timing. Truthfully he disliked the city. Or at least the ruins of it. Rivet City itself was enjoyable enough. Crowded with the hungry and desperate, run by the honourable and corrupt alike, each as predictable as the other, with a healthy smattering of unscrupulous individuals throughout. It was rife with opportunity for making a quick buck, though he’d always been interested in a longer affair; the security was too tight to really work the system from the outside, so one would need to wield some amount of control. The city council was the key to that.

Anyone with works they want to share feel free to jump on this!

[capricioussun]

UF Papyrus prompts cont.

• [🦋] does your muse have any unconventional interests? what are they?

I’m not sure if you could really call this unconventional, but he really really really likes to know how things work. He likes to know how to take something apart and put it back together. But literally anything. Guitars? Humans? Nuclear reactor? Rollercoasters? Anything you can think of, if you started explaining how something is made or formed or the science that goes into how it functions, he’ll become invested quickly, especially if it’s something hands on he can help with, like fixing plumbing or any techy thing. Loves deconstruction and reconstruction.

• [😈] does your muse like to prank others? do they do so often?

Yes, and no. His pranks tend to be on the mild or just plain silly side, but it’s very rare for him to actually pull one, and when he does, he tries to keep it anonymous, so most people wind up pinning it on Sans or Undyne.

• [👨‍🏫] how much does your muse care about image? how would they react if something personal got leaked about them?

This one’s a little tricky. For the most part, he doesn’t care. There’s plenty of stuff people could gossip about that would just make him roll his eyes. But. There are a few things kept close to the chest that would either anger or mortify him if others found out. Outwardly he’d try his best to play it off the same, that he didn’t care or straight up deny it, but it would definitely impact him emotionally. Especially if it was someone close to him that outed it.

• [🔇] is your muse a pushover, or do they tend to stand up for themselves?

For the most part, not a pushover at all. Underground, to some degree, he had to play his part and not get (too far) on Asgore’s bad side, but otherwise, and especially on the surface, it’s a pretty hard no. The only exception would be those close to him, especially kids. He’d do pretty much anything for Frisk lol

• [🪀] what was your muse’s childhood like? how did their upbringing affect them?

Aha, uh. It was pretty bad, and it pretty much shaped him almost entirely. I won’t get into details, but he was basically an experiment until he and Sans escaped and lived on the streets of new home for a time. Eventually they set up in the abandoned house in Snowdin but yeah, things were pretty rough for them, and a lot of what he went through is why he has so many complexes about stuff (and severe anxiety oof).

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5

[restless-one]

Listen. I did not grow up near one nuclear power plant, no, it was 4. Bronkdorf, Brunsbüttel, Krümmel and Stade. And while three of them worked well, Krümmel was known as the "Pannenreaktor" the accident prone reactor. There were more than 300 smaller inccidents during its lifetime. Some due to material faults, some due to stupidity and some, well some were due to greed. There were hairline fractures in some pipes, incidents of dumping lightly radioactive water into the river and the one of greed were they shoved lightly radioactive waste material in barrels, welded them shut and stored them so badly on the grounds that the barrels started to rust, started to leak.

The anti AKW protests started long before Chernobyl, I've seen images of 1981's protests.

Chernobyl just showed what one stupid person at the wrong position could do.

And suddenly people looked closer. And Krümmel, yeah, still had accidents. But all those discussions were just academical at the time, there were no alternative ways.

Then came 9/11 and with that, the fear that terrorists could turn AKW's into targets. Oh and the number of Leukaemia cases of small children tripled near Krümmel.

And Solar was getting better, Wind as well and so they decided to do the long shut down.

Then came Fukushima. It was the fact that a nation like Japan that Germans looked at as even better at engineering then them, failed. Fukushima scared them so much that they reduced the remaining time the AKW's would run until they were to be shut down (- 10 years less if I remember correctly). And while gas wasn't the best alternative, it would bridge the gap (so they thought).

The problem was no one could expect the next fucking war on our doorstep. So that put a nix on gas. And while Solar is getting more and more popular even with the normal people, it is not yet ready to carry the load.

And while you can say nuclear is save, all I do remember are the pictures of the yellow rusting barrels that were just dumped willy nilly one the grounds of the AKW just because some people were unwilling to pay for proper waste disposal. Or the articles in the newspaper when they, once again, were searching for a bone marrow donor for a tiny tot that couldn't even walk yet.

It is not the nuclear principle that I mistrust.

I mistrust the people.

All it takes is one greedy or stupid or even worse greedy and stupid person at the wrong place.

I wish all environmentalists a very suck cocks in hell

[nando161mando]

To: Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton MP

No Future for Nuclear

We don't want dangerous and expensive reactors polluting our environment and endangering our communities. 

Nuclear energy is the least cost effective solution for our energy needs. Why is Peter Dutton spending time on a plan to INCREASE our energy bills?

Nuclear energy is also TWENTY YEARS away from generating energy in Australia. We need renewable energy solutions and good energy jobs.

Bottom line - Australians don't want dangerous nuclear waste being transported through our communities, or nuclear disasters leaking cancer-causing chemicals into our environment. 

Peter Dutton - abandon your dangerous and expensive nuclear folly.

Why is this important?

We all know why Peter Dutton and his fossil fuel mates are pushing for nuclear power. To protect their profits by stalling our transition to renewable energy. Nuclear power will take decades to get up and running and will be extremely expensive - it is the most expensive option for Australia's energy.

As a community we must show Peter Dutton that Nuclear has no future in Australia.

Please sign and share the petition to show Peter Dutton and the Liberals that Australia rejects nuclear.

[forgottenthreads]

Environmental idea

One of the big issues for the grid is that it's really hard to spin up extra generation on the quick and really inefficient too, big powerplants running cold wastes a huge amount of energy while they heat up and spin up. We're adding a bunch of renewable sources to the grid which is great but it's also making meeting demands really hard cause we double the number of times a classic power station cycles on and off.

One of the biggest demands on the grid is AC. It's as much as 10% of the energy demand, and while it is fairly efficient it's also for many time sensitive. I know Tech Connections has suggested AC as a battery, turn on the AC when there's low demand or high supply and over cool so it's needed less when there's high demand or low supply. But I think we can take it a couple of steps forward after all the AC is dumping the unwanted heat into the atmosphere doing no work with it, if we can supply cooling and use the heat that'd ultimately be more efficient.

So we have a bunch of high pressure pipes that are soon going to be obsolete I suggest repurposing them to carry compressed (or liquified) air. We generate the compressed air by keeping nuclear power stations running even when they're "not needed" and to meet peak demands rather than spinning up coal we turn off the compression.

The compression (or liquifaction) of air produces waste heat which can be used to preheat the water for the reactors or something like utility hot water, and the compressed air when it decompresses would cool the environment it's decompressed into.

There would be the side effects that the compressed air could improve air quality wherever it is released, the air can be fractionated to remove CO2 if it's liquified even without separation of all the other useful fractions like neon, argon, helium, etc... even if these are relatively small fractions doing this at scale could generate significant quantities anyway. Regardless of composition the air may be contaminant free, with no dust or live viruses/bacteria due to filtering or the compression process, and the compressed air will be less able to hold moisture so would provide air conditioning to a degree.

Once stored compressed air as a battery is near lossless, hot salt batteries shed heat over time even if not being discharged, chemical batteries self discharge over time, while 1kg of compressed air in a tank will remain 1kg of compressed air in a tank almost indefinitely providing the tank is well designed and leak free.

And there are many ways to used compressed air other than cooling, there are many tools that are already designed for use with compressed air. From workshop tools like pneumatic saws, drills, files and so on to pressure washers or medical equipment there are many uses for compressed air as a power source separate from its use as AC.

And I would assume that running a few larger processes could be made considerably more efficient than millions of smaller ones. A bigger system may be able to leverage multiple phase change stages in ways that are more effective than a single refrigerant loop, industrial machinery may be designed for higher pressure capacity, higher heat extraction levels, colder cold side than is necessary or safe for a residential or commercial environment.

I believe it could be a very valuable and worth while endeavour however I do appreciate I do not know all the nuances and I am well aware that effectively bottling atmosphere in one location and releasing it at another consistently could make the urban microclimate problem worse. Not only are urban environments more likely to hold onto heat this have a side effect of driving up atmospheric pressure in those same environments making them less likely to have cloud cover or rain while the compression locations my lower air pressure and lead to their own microclimates and may result in significant environmental impacts like permanent winds between cities and the compression stations.

I want to see some real studies into the feasibelity and long term effects of this plan even if it's a bad idea I believe it's worth exploring

[steveleeuk]

“I no longer have a home, only a place where I sleep.” - Voices from Chernobyl

At 1.23am on this day in 1986, a steam explosion destroyed the core and blew the roof off reactor building number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. Within minutes, lethal amounts of radioactive gas was released into the atmosphere. The fallout would leave a death-trail covering vast areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. It would be many years before scientists would fully understand the extent of that catastrophic accident.

Shortly after the explosion a gaping hole was identified within the reactor that was leaking radiation into the environment. The team overseeing the disaster recognised that it was time to act decisively. A team of specialists was recruited to enter the stricken site with heavy plant and equipment to fill the hole. Knowing they could die or even worse live, with the appalling effects of exposure to the radiation, they signed up for the mission in order that many lives would be saved. Although just two workers died as a result of the initial blast, many more of the emergency team would die in the first three months after the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station.

I’ve often reflected on that dreadful event and the selfless intervention of the recovery team, as I have communicated the rescue mission of Jesus that is recorded in the Bible. 2,000 years ago, God sent his son to fill the crater within the human soul that had been caused by our rejection of him and his plan for our lives. Jesus was the only person who could do the job. He was spotless and free from the things we have all done that have spoilt our lives and separated us from a perfect Creator God. The Bible says Jesus willingly laid down his life as a ransom for many and through his completed work on the cross, we can be salvaged and reborn into God’s eternal plan for our lives.

[cliff-montgomery]

Fukushima Nuclear Plant Has History Of Crisis Management Failures

By Cliff Montgomery - Apr. 17th, 2024

It doesn’t appear to have been much discussed in the U.S., but in February the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant mistakenly leaked “about 5.5 tons of water containing radioactive materials” into the Pacific Ocean, according to the Xinhua News Agency, the state-owned news service of the People's Republic of China.

“It is estimated that 22 billion becquerels of radioactive materials such as cesium and strontium are contained in the leaked water,” stated the Chinese news source.

A becquerel refers to “one of three units used to measure radioactivity,” according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Simply put, it “refers to the amount of ionizing radiation released when an element (such as uranium) spontaneously emits energy,” thanks to “the radioactive decay (or disintegration) of an unstable atom.”

The release of 22 billion units of such stuff sounds like quite a lot … Xinhua certainly thinks so.

“The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), claimed on [Feb. 7th] that [the] monitoring of a nearby drainage channel did not show any significant radiation level changes,” noted the news service.

But, asked Xinhua, “this begs the question: What constitutes a ‘significant’ level?”

The Fukushima nuclear power plant has had its series of disasters. On March 11th, 2011, the plant experienced the severe blows of the now-infamous magnitude 9.1 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Japan. That one-two punch destroyed a number of its reactors, allowing radiation leaks to contaminate the surrounding area. The plant is being decommissioned.

But “nearly 13 years after the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami,” pointed out the Chinese news service, “recurring leaking incidents still hint at the utility’s mismanagement and the Japanese government’s inadequacy in overseeing it.”

“The leak on [Feb. 7th] stemmed from a valve left open during cleaning operations,” stated Xinhua, while “on Oct. 26, 2023 … two men were hospitalized after being accidentally splashed with radioactive liquid at the plant.”

“The deficiencies in the fundamental equipment raise questions about the potential for similar occurrences,” stated the news service, “and whether TEPCO [the firm that owns the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant] conducts regular inspections of its equipment.”

“While TEPCO this time claimed that there is no risk to the public and that the surrounding environment remains unaffected by the leak,” Xinhua deftly pointed out that “its history of cover-ups and opacity has eroded public trust.”

“For instance,” continued the Chinese new service, “it took TEPCO over two years after the 2011 tsunami to acknowledge that radioactive tritium had leaked into the Pacific Ocean,” an admission that contradicted “its initial assertions that the toxic water had been contained within the plant’s premises.”

“Also, in February 2015, TEPCO admitted that since April 2014,” Xinhua continued, “it had been aware of radioactive substances from a rainwater drainage ditch linked to one of its buildings” leaking into the Pacific Ocean every time it rained.

A quick review of the Fukushima plant’s history reveals that such carelessness has been a hallmark of the facility from the very beginning.

“The worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown never should have happened, according to a … [scientific] study,” declared the University of Southern California (USC) news service USC Today back in 2015.

The study, spear-headed by researchers from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the Middle East Technical University in Turkey, found that “ ‘arrogance and ignorance,’ design flaws, regulatory failures and improper hazard analyses doomed the coastal nuclear power plant even before the tsunami hit.”

You would think U.S. citizens might be interested in learning about all this, if they were ever given the chance to read or hear about it. Such a media omission is America’s corporate press in a nutshell - working hard to protect its corporate friends by maintaining a convenient silence.

[xtruss]

November 11, 1930: Patent Granted For Einstein-Szilard Refrigerator

Refrigeration Patent

Albert Einstein is best known to the general public for devising the world’s most famous equation: E=mc2. But his contributions to physics extend over a broad range of topics, including Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect, special and general relativity, and stimulated emission, which led to the development of the laser. Less well known, even among physicists, is his work with Leo Szilard to develop an energy efficient absorption refrigerator with no moving parts.

Szilard was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1898, the son of a civil engineer, and served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I. After the war, he returned to university, studying physics under Einstein and Max Planck, among others. His dissertation was in thermodynamics, and in 1929 he published a seminal paper, “On the Lessening of Entropy in a Thermodynamic System by Interference of an Intelligent Being”–part of an ongoing attempt by physicists to better understand the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment first proposed by James Clerk Maxwell in the 19th century.

Szilard had a knack for invention, applying for patents for an x-ray sensitive cell and improvements to mercury vapor lamps while still a young scientist. He also filed patents for an electron microscope, as well as the linear accelerator and the cyclotron, all of which have helped revolutionize physics research. Szilard’s most important contribution to 20th century physics was the neutron chain reaction, first conceived in 1933. In 1955, he and Enrico Fermi received a joint patent on the first nuclear reactor.

Einstein wasn’t a stranger to the patent process, either, having worked as a patent clerk in Bern as a young man. He later received a patent with a German engineer named Rudolf Goldschmidt in 1934 for a working prototype of a hearing aid. A singer of Einstein’s acquaintance who suffered hearing loss provided the inspiration for the invention.

When they met, Einstein was already a world-famous physicist, thanks to his work on relativity, while Szilard was just starting out, as a graduate assistant at the University of Berlin. The impetus for the two men’s collaboration on a refrigerator occurred in 1926, when newspapers reported the tragic death of an entire family in Berlin, due to toxic gas fumes that leaked throughout the house while they slept, the result of a broken refrigerator seal. Such leaks were occurring with alarming frequency as more people replaced traditional ice boxes with modern mechanical refrigerators which relied on poisonous gases like methyl chloride, ammonia, and sulfur dioxide as refrigerants.

Einstein was deeply affected by the tragedy, and told Szilard that there must be a better design than the mechanical compressors and toxic gases used in the modern refrigerator. Together they set out to find one. They focused their attention on absorption refrigerators, in which a heat source–in that time, a natural gas flame–is used to drive the absorption process and release coolant from a chemical solution. An earlier version of this technology had been introduced in 1922 by Swiss inventors, and Szilard found a way to improve on their design, drawing on his expertise in thermodynamics. His heat source drove a combination of gases and liquids through three interconnected circuits.

One of the components they designed for their refrigerator was the Einstein-Szilard electromagnetic pump, which had no moving parts, relying instead on generating an electromagnetic field by running alternating current through coils. The field moved a liquid metal, and the metal, in turn, served as a piston and compressed a refrigerant. The rest of the process worked much like today’s conventional refrigerators.

Einstein and Szilard needed an engineer to help them design a working prototype, and they found one in Albert Korodi, who first met Szilard when both were engineering students at the Budapest Technical University, and were neighbors and good friends when both later moved to Berlin.

The German company A.E.G. agreed to develop the pump technology, and hired Korodi as a full-time engineer. But the device was noisy due to cavitation as the liquid metal passed through the pump. One contemporary researcher said it “howled like a jackal,” although Korodi claimed it sounded more like rushing water. Korodi reduced the noise significantly by varying the voltage and increasing the number of coils in the pump. Another challenge was the choice of liquid metal. Mercury wasn’t sufficiently conductive, so the pump used a potassium-sodium alloy instead, which required a special sealed system because it is so chemically reactive.

Despite filing more than 45 patent applications in six different countries, none of Einstein and Szilard’s alternative designs for refrigerators ever became a consumer product, although several were licensed, thereby providing a tidy bit of extra income for the scientists over the years. And the Einstein/Szilard pump proved useful for cooling breeder reactors. The prototypes were not energy efficient, and the Great Depression hit many potential manufacturers hard. But it was the introduction of a new non-toxic refrigerant, freon, in 1930 that spelled doom for the Einstein/Szilard refrigerator.

Interest in their designs has revived in recent years, fueled by environmental concerns over climate change and the impact of freon and other chlorofluorocarbons on the ozone layer, as well as the need to find alternative energy sources. In 2008, a team at Oxford University built a prototype as part of a project to develop more robust appliances, and a former graduate student at Georgia Tech, Andy Delano, also built a prototype of one of Einstein and Szilard’s designs. Yet another team at Cambridge University is experimenting with cooling via magnetic fields. Perhaps this invention won’t revolutionize the world, but in its own small way, it might help spare the planet–more than 70 years after Einstein and Szilard first conceived of it.

[repairingangelsworld]

What effect does mutation have on Chernobyl in terms of the people and animals?

Due to all the radiation being spilled out in chernobyl, this caused contamination in the soil and the water within the radius of the meltdown, the exclusion zone and beyond. The agriculture within the town after the nuclear power plant meltdown had been destroyed due to the radioactive iodine being leaked out into the plants, animals grazing grass and the milk being produced. What was most concerning during this period was the contamination in the plants because the radioactive iodine speeds up decay. Unfortunately the food and drink such as meat, milk and crops has been contaminated and will be for decades to come within the affected areas. Specifically a chemical element called Caesium-137 will be present in the food and drink which can cause major harm to people's health. The high levels of radiation took a huge toll on peoples health as it led to serious illnesses such as leukemia, respiratory problems and thyroid cancer. During this time many people couldn't afford medical help which therefore contributed to a higher death toll. Since the agriculture was down, a healthy food source was unavailable which led to more problems such as malnutrition. During the year of the Chernobyl Nucleur Power Plant Disaster (1986), babies that were being born had an increased number of birth defects present. These defects were caused by a genetic mutation, this means that they are most likely to pass it onto the next generations to come. 

The rivers in chernobyl were affected by the power plant meltdown, causing radioactive material to leak into the rivers. During the first weeks of the incident, the radiation within the rivers in Chernobyl had been rapidly decreasing because the environment caused it to either decay, dilute or be absorbed into the soil. The fish within the rivers absorbed radioactive iodine but because nature is clever, the radiation decreased rapidly because it was decayed by the environment. Today within the open rivers in Chernobyl, the water and fish have low levels of Caesium-137 and strontium-90 present due to radioactive decay. However, some of the rivers that are closed in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus will continue to be contaminated with higher levels of Caesium-137 both in the water and fish.

In chernobyl, the animals living within the 20-30km radius of the nuclear power plant had been reported to have harmful effects. Every animal within the exclusion zone had been affected on different levels because some had higher doses of radiation than others as well as different levels of sensitivity to radiation. The higher the dose of radiation and the closer the animals were to the reactor, the higher chance there was of mortality and a decrease for these animals to reproduce. There have been reports of genetic defects within animals during the first few years of the incident and still today there have been abnormalities in the Exclusion Zone and beyond. 

From the radiation, the chernobyl wildlife mutants were affected by the stress and not having enough antioxidants in their diets. This resulted in an under-developed nervous system, and a decrease in brain size which led to the animals not having the ability to think properly. The birds in particular such as the swallows as they presented with discolouration in their feathers, deformed tails and abnormally shaped air sacks.

Looking upwards from the Chernobyl disaster, scientists have discovered a type of fungi growing on the reactor called Cryptococcus neoformans. This fungi was discovered in 1991 in Chernobyl five years after the nuclear power plant exploded. However in 2007 scientists discovered that this type of fungi can decompose radiation such as the graphite found on the reactor in Chernobyl. Researchers discovered the reason why the fungi can process radiation is because it contains dark melanin pigment that absorbs the radiation. This leads to the fungi processing it to become an energy source. Although the radiation still lives on and will for many decades to come, the fungi is an element for hope in Chernobyl recovering in the future. The fungi is natures way of recovering the environment and turning whats destroying the environment, into an energy source to therefore make more fungi and continue the decomposing process of radiation.