GTK-WARNING **: UNABLE TO LOCATE THEME ENGINE IN MODULE_PATH: “PIXMAP”
BillGates@UbuntuLinux11-10:~$ sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-pixbuf
正在讀取套件清單... 完成
正在重建相依關係
正在讀取狀態資料... 完成
下列【新】套件將會被安裝：
gtk2-engines-pixbuf
升級 0 個，新安裝 1 個，移除 0 個，有 2 個未被升級。
需要下載 127 kB 的套件檔。
此操作完成之後，會多佔用 1,069 kB 的磁碟空間。
下載:1 http://tw.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/universe gtk2-engines-pixbuf i386 2.24.6-0ubuntu5 [127 kB]
取得 127 kB 用了 1s (90.9 kB/s)
選取了原先未被選取的套件 gtk2-engines-pixbuf。
（正在讀取資料庫 ... 155983 files and directories currently installed.)
正在解開 gtk2-engines-pixbuf （從 .../gtk2-engines-pixbuf_2.24.6-0ubuntu5_i386.deb）...
正在設定 gtk2-engines-pixbuf (2.24.6-0ubuntu5) ...
Friday, December 23, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
숫자쏭 가사
원엔 투엔 티엔 포엔..
원엔 투엔 티엔 포엔..
1 초라도 안 보이면
2 이렇게 초초한데
3 3초는 어떻게 기다려~~
이야 이야 이야 이야~~
4 사랑해 널 사랑해..
5 오늘은 말할꺼야
6 십억 지구에서 널 만난건..
7 럭(LUCKY)이야
사랑해 요기조기 한눈 팔지 말구..나를봐..
좋아해 나를 향해 웃는 미소 매일매일 보여줘~~
8 팔딱팔딱 뛰는 가슴
9 해줘 오 내 마음..
10 년이 가도 너를 사랑해..
언제나 이맘 변치 않을께~~~
유치원생(신인영) 가나다 트로트
한박자 쉬고! 두박자 쉬고!
세박자 마자 쉬고! 하나! 둘! 셋!
가! 가슴이 가슴이 울렁거려
나! 나는 정말 어떻해요?
다! 다줄게 내마음 내사랑을
라! 라랄랄라 노래할거야
하나! 둘! 셋!
마! 마법에 빠졌어
바! 바보같은 내 모습
사! 사랑해 너를
아! 아직도 너를
자! 자 이제 우리 함께
차!차!차!
카! 카메라로 내마음을 찍어봐
타! 타는 가슴 왜 모르니
파! 파란 하늘 저 멀리 외쳐봐요
하! 하늘 만큼 너를 사랑해
한박자 쉬고! 두박자 쉬고!
세박자 마자 쉬고! 하나! 둘! 셋!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Wikipedia needs donations to keep going
Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 679 servers and 95 staff. Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 450 million different people every month – with billions of page views.
Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.
When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.
If everyone reading this donated €5, we would only have to fundraise for one day a year. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.
This year, please consider making a donation of €5, €10, €20 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.
Thanks,
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder
Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.
When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.
If everyone reading this donated €5, we would only have to fundraise for one day a year. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.
This year, please consider making a donation of €5, €10, €20 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.
Thanks,
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
US Visa Classifications
A1 Visa Head of State or Government, Ambassador, public minister, career
diplomatic or consular officer assigned to the U.S., and members of immediate
family.
A2 Visa Foreign government officials on official business or employees of
diplomatic or consular missions in the U.S., and members of immediate family
A3 Visa Attendant, servant, or personal employee of A1 and A2 classes,
and members of immediate family.
B1 Visa Temporary visitor for business.
B2 Visa Temporary visitor for pleasure.
B1/B2 Visa Temporary visitor for business or pleasure.
C1 Visa Alien in transit through the U.S.
C2 Visa Alien in transit to the United Nations Headquarters District
under Section 11.(3), (4), or (5) of the Headquarters Agreement with the United
Nations.
C3 Foreign government officials, members of immediate family, attendant,
servant, or personal employee in transit.
C1/D Crew member/crew-list
E1 Treaty trader, spouse and children
E2 Treaty investor, spouse and children
F1 Student (academic or language training program)
F2 Dependent of F1
G1 Principal resident representative of recognized foreign member
government to international organization, his/her staff, and members of
immediate family on long-term assignment
G2 Other representative of recognized foreign member government to
international organization, and members of immediate family on temporary
assignment
G3 Representative of non-recognized foreign member government to
international organization, and members of immediate family
G4 International organization officer or employee and members of
immediate family
G5 Attendant, servant, or personal employee of G1, G2, G3, or G4 class
and members of immediate family
H-1B Visa applies to persons in a specialty occupation which requires the
theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge
requiring completion of a specific course of higher education. This
classification requires a labor attestation issued by the Secretary of Labor
(65,000). This classification also applies to Government-to-Government research
and development, or coproduction projects administered by the Department of
Defense (100).
H1C Registered nurses
H2A Temporary worker performing agricultural services unavailable in the
United States
H-2B Visa applies to temporary or seasonal nonagricultural workers. This
classification requires a temporary labor certification issued by the Secretary
of Labor (66,000).
H-3 applies to trainees other than medical or academic. This
classification also applies to practical training in the education of
handicapped children (50).
H4 Dependent of H1, H2 or H3
I Representative of foreign information media and dependents
J1 Exchange visitor
J2 Dependent of J1
L 1 Visa applies to intracompany transferees who, within the three
preceding years, have been employed abroad continuously for one year, and who
will be employed by a branch, parent, affiliate, or subsidiary of that same
employer in the U.S. in a managerial, executive, or specialized knowledge
capacity.
L2 Visa Dependent of L1
M1 Vocational student
M2 Dependent of M1
O-1 applies to persons who have extraordinary ability in the sciences,
arts, education, business, or athletics, or extraordinary achievements in the
motion picture and television field.
O-2 applies to persons accompanying an O-1 alien to assist in an artistic
or athletic performance for a specific event or performance.
O3 Dependent of O1 or O2
P-1 applies to individual or team athletes, or members of an
entertainment group that are internationally recognized (25,000).
P-2 applies to artists or entertainers who will perform under a
reciprocal exchange program.
P-3 applies to artists or entertainers who perform under a program that
is culturally unique (same as P-1).
P4 Dependent of P1, P2 or P3
Q-1 applies to participants in an international cultural exchange program
for the purpose of providing practical training, employment, and the sharing of
the history, culture, and traditions of the alien's home country.
R1 Religious worker
R2 Dependent of R1
TN Canadian or Mexican citizen working in a professional capacity under
the North American Trade Agreement
TD Spouse or child of TN
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
NoSQL: An Overview of NoSQL Databases
The acronym NoSQL was coined in 1998. Many people think NoSQL is a derogatory
term created to poke at SQL. In reality, the term means Not Only SQL. The idea
is that both technologies can coexist and each has its place. The NoSQL movement
has been in the news in the past few years as many of the Web 2.0 leaders have
adopted a NoSQL technology. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Amazon,
LinkedIn and Google all use NoSQL in one way or another. Let's break down NoSQL
so you can explain it to your CIO or even your co-workers.
exabyte is equal to one billion gigabytes (GB) of data. According to
Internet.com,
the amount of stored data added in 2006 was 161 exabytes. Just 4 years later in
2010, the amount of data stored will be almost 1,000 ExaBytes which is an
increase of over 500%. In other words, there is a lot of data being stored in
the world and its just going to continue growing.
Interconnected Data: Data continues to become more connected. The
creation of the web fostered in hyperlinks, blogs have pingbacks and every major
social network system has tags that tie things together. Major systems are built
to be interconnected.
Complex Data Structure: NoSQL can handle hierarchical nested data
structures easily. To accomplish the same thing in SQL, you would need multiple
relational tables with all kinds of keys. In addition, there is a relationship
between performance and data complexity. Performance can degrade in a
traditional
RDBMS as we store the massive amounts of data required in social networking
applications and the semantic web.
it's not relational. Like the name suggests, it's not a replacement for a RDBMS
but compliments it. NoSQL is designed for distributed data stores for very large
scale data needs. Think about Facebook with its 500,000,000 users or Twitter
which accumulates Terabits of data every single day.
In a NoSQL database, there is no fixed schema and no joins. A RDBMS "scales up"
by getting faster and faster hardware and adding memory. NoSQL, on the other
hand, can take advantage of "scaling out". Scaling out refers to spreading the
load over many commodity systems. This is the component of NoSQL that makes it
an inexpensive solution for large datasets.
that have adopted them. Some of the largest NoSQL technologies include:
interested in. After all, data stored in a huge database doesn't do anyone any
good if you can't retrieve and show it to end users or web services. NoSQL
databases do not provide a high level declarative query language like SQL.
Instead, querying these databases is data-model specific.
Many of the NoSQL platforms allow for RESTful interfaces to the data. Other
offer query APIs. There are a couple of query tools that have been developed
that attempt to query multiple NoSQL databases. These tools typically work
accross a single NoSQL category. One example is
SPARQL.
SPARQL is a declarative query specification designed for graph databases. Here
is an example of a SPARQL query that retrieves the URL of a particular blogger
(courtesy of IBM):
NoSQL. Apparently, the concept isn't getting as much traction in smaller
organizations. In a survey conducted by
Information Week, 44% of business IT
professionals haven't heard of NoSQL. Further, only 1% of the respondents
reported that NoSQL is a part of their strategic direction. Clearly, NoSQL has
its place in our connected world but will need to continue to evolve to get the
mass appeal that many think it could have.
term created to poke at SQL. In reality, the term means Not Only SQL. The idea
is that both technologies can coexist and each has its place. The NoSQL movement
has been in the news in the past few years as many of the Web 2.0 leaders have
adopted a NoSQL technology. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Amazon,
LinkedIn and Google all use NoSQL in one way or another. Let's break down NoSQL
so you can explain it to your CIO or even your co-workers.
NoSQL Emerged From a Need
Data Storage: The world's stored digital data is measured in exabytes. Anexabyte is equal to one billion gigabytes (GB) of data. According to
Internet.com,
the amount of stored data added in 2006 was 161 exabytes. Just 4 years later in
2010, the amount of data stored will be almost 1,000 ExaBytes which is an
increase of over 500%. In other words, there is a lot of data being stored in
the world and its just going to continue growing.
Interconnected Data: Data continues to become more connected. The
creation of the web fostered in hyperlinks, blogs have pingbacks and every major
social network system has tags that tie things together. Major systems are built
to be interconnected.
Complex Data Structure: NoSQL can handle hierarchical nested data
structures easily. To accomplish the same thing in SQL, you would need multiple
relational tables with all kinds of keys. In addition, there is a relationship
between performance and data complexity. Performance can degrade in a
traditional
RDBMS as we store the massive amounts of data required in social networking
applications and the semantic web.
What is NoSQL?
I guess one way to define NoSQL is to consider what its not. It's not SQL andit's not relational. Like the name suggests, it's not a replacement for a RDBMS
but compliments it. NoSQL is designed for distributed data stores for very large
scale data needs. Think about Facebook with its 500,000,000 users or Twitter
which accumulates Terabits of data every single day.
In a NoSQL database, there is no fixed schema and no joins. A RDBMS "scales up"
by getting faster and faster hardware and adding memory. NoSQL, on the other
hand, can take advantage of "scaling out". Scaling out refers to spreading the
load over many commodity systems. This is the component of NoSQL that makes it
an inexpensive solution for large datasets.
NoSQL Categories
The current NoSQL world fits into 4 basic categories.- Key-values Stores are based primarily on
Amazon's Dynamo Paper which was written in
2007. The main idea is the existence of a hash table where there is a unique key
and a pointer to a particular item of data. These mappings are usually
accompanied by cache mechanisms to maximize performance.
- Column Family Stores were created to store and process very large amounts
of data distributed over many machines. There are still keys but they point to
multiple columns. In the case of
BigTable (Google's Column Family NoSQL model), rows are
identified by a row key with the data sorted and stored by this key. The columns
are arranged by column family.
- Document Databases were inspired by
Lotus Notes and are similar to key-value stores. The model is basically
versioned documents that are collections of other key-value collections. The
semi-structured documents are stored in formats like
JSON.
- Graph Databases are built with nodes, relationships between notes and the
properties of nodes. Instead of tables of rows and columns and the rigid
structure of SQL, a flexible graph model is used which can scale across many
machines.
Major NoSQL Players
The major players in NoSQL have emerged primarily because of the organizationsthat have adopted them. Some of the largest NoSQL technologies include:
- Dynamo:
Dynamo was created by Amazon.com and is the most prominent Key-Value NoSQL
database. Amazon was in need of a highly scalable distributed platform for their
e-commerce businesses so they developed Dynamo.
Amazon S3 uses Dynamo as the storage mechanism.
- Cassandra: Cassandra was open sourced by Facebook and is a column
oriented NoSQL database.
- BigTable: BigTable is Google's proprietary column
oriented database. Google allows the use of BigTable but only for the Google App
Engine.
- SimpleDB:
SimpleDB is another Amazon database. Used for Amazon EC2 and S3, it is part
of Amazon Web Services that charges fees depending on usage.
- CouchDB:
CouchDB along with MongoDB are open source document oriented NoSQL
databases.
- Neo4J: Neo4j
is an open source graph database.
Querying NoSQL
The question of how to query a NoSQL database is what most developers areinterested in. After all, data stored in a huge database doesn't do anyone any
good if you can't retrieve and show it to end users or web services. NoSQL
databases do not provide a high level declarative query language like SQL.
Instead, querying these databases is data-model specific.
Many of the NoSQL platforms allow for RESTful interfaces to the data. Other
offer query APIs. There are a couple of query tools that have been developed
that attempt to query multiple NoSQL databases. These tools typically work
accross a single NoSQL category. One example is
SPARQL.
SPARQL is a declarative query specification designed for graph databases. Here
is an example of a SPARQL query that retrieves the URL of a particular blogger
(courtesy of IBM):
PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/>
SELECT ?url
FROM <bloggers.rdf>
WHERE {
?contributor foaf:name "Jon Foobar" .
?contributor foaf:weblog ?url .
}
Future of NoSQL
Organizations that have massive data storage needs are looking seriously atNoSQL. Apparently, the concept isn't getting as much traction in smaller
organizations. In a survey conducted by
Information Week, 44% of business IT
professionals haven't heard of NoSQL. Further, only 1% of the respondents
reported that NoSQL is a part of their strategic direction. Clearly, NoSQL has
its place in our connected world but will need to continue to evolve to get the
mass appeal that many think it could have.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
喜見外弟又言別
十年離亂後，長大一相逢。
問姓驚初見，稱名憶舊容。
別來滄海事，語罷暮天鐘。
明日巴陵道，秋山又幾重。
十多年的動亂流離以後，長大成人才相逢。初見時驚訝地問你的姓，說起名字才想起舊時的容貌。相互談起分別以後世事的變遷，熱烈交談停下來時已是黃昏，晚鐘敲響。明天你又要踏上去巴陵的道路，不知又要相隔多少重秋山？
注釋：語罷：交談結束。
巴陵：在今湖南嶽陽一帶。
賞析：詩人與表弟久別重逢又匆匆話別，反映了動亂年代人們的聚散離合。詩人用白描的手法，準確細緻地描寫了他與表弟重逢的情景，表達了哀傷離別的情感。全詩語言凝練，樸素自然，層次分明，生動形象，別具一格。
問姓驚初見，稱名憶舊容。
別來滄海事，語罷暮天鐘。
明日巴陵道，秋山又幾重。
作者：李益
十多年的動亂流離以後，長大成人才相逢。初見時驚訝地問你的姓，說起名字才想起舊時的容貌。相互談起分別以後世事的變遷，熱烈交談停下來時已是黃昏，晚鐘敲響。明天你又要踏上去巴陵的道路，不知又要相隔多少重秋山？
注釋：語罷：交談結束。
巴陵：在今湖南嶽陽一帶。
賞析：詩人與表弟久別重逢又匆匆話別，反映了動亂年代人們的聚散離合。詩人用白描的手法，準確細緻地描寫了他與表弟重逢的情景，表達了哀傷離別的情感。全詩語言凝練，樸素自然，層次分明，生動形象，別具一格。
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Chinese 天语K-Touch W700
阿里云手机是由阿里巴巴旗下子公司阿里云、国产手机商天语及芯片公司Nvidia（官方中文名称英伟达）三方共同打造。其中阿里云是主导方，阿里云手机是定制搭载阿里云手机操作系统的天语手机，型号为W700，基于Android 2.2，采用Nvidia Tegra2双核芯片，三者关系从曝光的真机背面标志也不难看出。
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Oracle GlassFish Server 3.1
Oracle GlassFish Server is the world's first implementation of the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) 6 specification. Built using the GlassFish Server Open Source Edition, Oracle GlassFish Server delivers a flexible, lightweight and production-ready Java EE 6 platform
Oracle GlassFish Server is part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware application grid portfolio and is ideally suited for applications requiring lightweight infrastructure with the most up-to-date implementation of enterprise Java. Oracle GlassFish Server complements Oracle WebLogic Server, which is designed to run the broader portfolio of Oracle Fusion Middleware and large-scale enterprise applications.
Oracle GlassFish Server is part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware application grid portfolio and is ideally suited for applications requiring lightweight infrastructure with the most up-to-date implementation of enterprise Java. Oracle GlassFish Server complements Oracle WebLogic Server, which is designed to run the broader portfolio of Oracle Fusion Middleware and large-scale enterprise applications.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange: Facebook an ‘appalling spying machine’
Every Facebook post is directly helping the US intelligence agencies spy on American citizens, says WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Facebook is “the most appalling spying machine ever invented,” according WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who recently spoke with Russia Today, while awaiting extradition from England to Sweden on sexual assault charges.
Assange asserts that Google, Yahoo and other US-based technology companies are also complicit in the US government’s aims to keep watch over the world’s citizens.
“Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all these major US organizations have built-in infaces for US intelligence,” he said. “It’s not a matter of serving a subpoena, they have an interface they have developed for US Intelligence to use. Now, is the case that Facebook is run by US Intelligence? No, it’s not like that. It’s simply that US Intelligence is able to bring to bear legal and political pressure to them. It’s costly for them to hand out individual records, one by one, so they have automated the process.”
Assange goes on to say that anytime anyone adds information to their Facebook profile they “are doing free work for US intelligence agencies.”
The WikiLeaks founders’ proclamations of tech giants’ Big Brother operations follows recent revelations that Apple, Microsoft and Google collect location-related information about customers who use devices that run their iOS, Windows Phone 7 and Android mobile operating systems.
Revelations about so-called Location-gate sparked outrage (and a lawsuit) among customers, who were appalled that their mobile devices were used to keep track of their approximate movements. The uproar caused Apple CEO Steve Jobs to respond to the criticism, saying that “Apple is not tracking your iPhone.” Instead, “Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years,” according to statement posted on the company’s website.
With the public becoming seemingly more wary of its supposedly “private” data being used by corporations, is Facebook the next to face its collective wrath?
Watch the full Assange interview below (Facebook comments begin around the 2:00 mark):
Facebook is “the most appalling spying machine ever invented,” according WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who recently spoke with Russia Today, while awaiting extradition from England to Sweden on sexual assault charges.
“Here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other, and their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US Intelligence,” said Assange during the interview.
Assange asserts that Google, Yahoo and other US-based technology companies are also complicit in the US government’s aims to keep watch over the world’s citizens.
“Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all these major US organizations have built-in infaces for US intelligence,” he said. “It’s not a matter of serving a subpoena, they have an interface they have developed for US Intelligence to use. Now, is the case that Facebook is run by US Intelligence? No, it’s not like that. It’s simply that US Intelligence is able to bring to bear legal and political pressure to them. It’s costly for them to hand out individual records, one by one, so they have automated the process.”
Assange goes on to say that anytime anyone adds information to their Facebook profile they “are doing free work for US intelligence agencies.”
The WikiLeaks founders’ proclamations of tech giants’ Big Brother operations follows recent revelations that Apple, Microsoft and Google collect location-related information about customers who use devices that run their iOS, Windows Phone 7 and Android mobile operating systems.
Revelations about so-called Location-gate sparked outrage (and a lawsuit) among customers, who were appalled that their mobile devices were used to keep track of their approximate movements. The uproar caused Apple CEO Steve Jobs to respond to the criticism, saying that “Apple is not tracking your iPhone.” Instead, “Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years,” according to statement posted on the company’s website.
With the public becoming seemingly more wary of its supposedly “private” data being used by corporations, is Facebook the next to face its collective wrath?
Watch the full Assange interview below (Facebook comments begin around the 2:00 mark):
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Dassault Rafale
在二次大戰法國亡國期間，流亡英國的戴高樂飽嚐盟國間的人情冷暖，故深知國家獨立自主的重要性；而軍事力量的獨立自主，則是國家獨立自主的首要前提。因此在冷戰的數十年間，法國雖然在政策上是與以美國為首的北約組織(NATO)保持偕同作戰關係，但在實質戰略架構上卻始終刻意與NATO保持一些距離，以獲得國防的自主性。而在武器的研發方面，法國一向堅持一國所需的絕大部分主要武器系統都能完全自力研發，並建立本身完整的武裝力量(包括核武)。此一獨立自主政策使得法國建立全歐洲 國家中最完整的國防工業研發體系，絕大多數關鍵性武器都實現了自主研發生產 ，在許多方面還足以在美蘇兩強之外獨樹一幟，以一個單一中型國家的力量而言，實在令人刮目相看。此為戴高樂級的主力戰鬥機種，也是法國航空科技最新力作。飆風戰機由曾研製幻象系列戰機的達梭飛機公司製造，也是另一項法國國防產業的驕傲。本來法國也打算參與歐洲多國合作的EFA戰機(日後改稱EF-2000)計畫，但由於本身意見不被其他合作國採納，遂回到法國一貫的「國防自主政策」，自力研發新一代戰機，這就是飆風的由來。飆風擁有先進的航電、發動機、線傳飛控以及優秀的氣動力佈局，飛行性能與戰力十分優秀。在設計之初，飆風就被規劃為空軍、海軍的通用機種，而飆風M/N就是飆風系列的艦載衍生型；其中，飆風M是單座機，飆風N則是雙座型。最初飆風艦載型只有單座的M型，但1999年以美國為首的西方多國空襲南斯拉夫的經驗顯示，雙座機型在低空、惡劣天候、高威脅環境執行對地打擊作戰任務時，任務效率與存活率都遠高出單座機，因此法國國防部將原先60架飆風M的訂單改為25架飆風M與35架雙座的飆風N，首架飆風N原型機將於2005年推出。
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Spring Scream 2011
Address : Kenting National Park
Date : April 1st 2011 ~ April 4th 2011
Country : Taiwan
Evaluation : ★★★★★
URL: http://www.springscream.com/
Date : April 1st 2011 ~ April 4th 2011
Country : Taiwan
Evaluation : ★★★★★
URL: http://www.springscream.com/
Monday, March 28, 2011
Warren Buffett Warns of Bubble
Warren Buffett may not be the biggest user of Facebook and Twitter.
But one of the world's richest men does know a thing of two about the value of a dollar and when he believes the valuation of some of tech's hottest companies is overvalued, it's news.
Buffett issued a warning this week that he believes a bubble is building in the social-networking world.
"It's extremely difficult to value social-networking-site companies," Buffett said, according to Bloomberg News. "Some will be huge winners, which will make up for the rest."
The billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway didn't name specific social-networking companies he was concerned about.
But with sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Zynga drawing valuations in the billions, other sites have launched to try to follow in their footsteps.
Does Buffett's warning indicate another dot-com crash is in the Silicon Valley's future? Not likely since he says he believes some of the companies will survive and make up for the overvaluation of others.
But one of the world's richest men does know a thing of two about the value of a dollar and when he believes the valuation of some of tech's hottest companies is overvalued, it's news.
Buffett issued a warning this week that he believes a bubble is building in the social-networking world.
"It's extremely difficult to value social-networking-site companies," Buffett said, according to Bloomberg News. "Some will be huge winners, which will make up for the rest."
The billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway didn't name specific social-networking companies he was concerned about.
But with sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Zynga drawing valuations in the billions, other sites have launched to try to follow in their footsteps.
Does Buffett's warning indicate another dot-com crash is in the Silicon Valley's future? Not likely since he says he believes some of the companies will survive and make up for the overvaluation of others.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Thorium: An Alternative to Uranium
FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. (Resourceinvestor.com) -- Thorium, one of the “rare earth metals,” is an alternative to uranium as fuel for the construction of nuclear reactors designed for the purpose of producing electricity.
Thorium was, in fact, tested for this purpose at the very beginning of the design of nuclear power plants for generating electricity for powering submarines. It was used in the fuel for the world’s first land sited nuclear power plant located at Shippingport, Pennsylvania. That first plant was built under the aegis of the “Atoms for Peace” program championed by then President Eisenhower.
The reasons for trying to use thorium were as urgent in 1955, as they are critical now. They are, simply, to reduce sharply both the amount of radioactive “waste” generated by nuclear power plants and to impair the capability of nuclear power plants to produce readily extractable weapons grade fissile materials such as plutonium-239 and uranium-235.
Thorium’s backers make a compelling case for a running ‘switch’ from uranium based fuel to thorium based fuel in existing Russian reactors and in the construction of new reactors with a mainly thorium based fuel in place of uranium.
Thorium has been determined to be three to four times more abundant than uranium in nature. The world’s total economically extractable reserves have been recently estimated at 1,200,000 tonnes (metric tonne units). Australia with 300,000 tonnes of reserves, leads the world in this category, followed by India (290,000 tonnes), Norway (170,000 tonnes), the U.S. (160,000 tonnes), Canada (100,000 tonnes), South Africa (35,000 tonnes) and Brazil (16,000 tonnes), with all others totalling 95,000 tonnes.
The most common ore of thorium, the phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains up to 12% of thorium oxide, also contains the economically extractable other rare earth metals, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, yttrium and iridium. An immediate benefit therefore of producing thorium would be the creation of additional supplies of strategic materials for:
Chemical catalysis (cerium: used in the petroleum industry and emissions control catalysts for gasoline and diesel fueled vehicles);
Battery manufacturing (lanthanum: used in the production of nickel metal hydride rechargeable batteries for hybrid vehicles and portable electronic devices);
Small powerful magnets (neodymium: used to make the magnets used in miniature electric motors such as the 41 of these used in a typical automobile), and;
High temperature corrosion resistant alloys (iridium: used in surgical devices, thermocouples and automotive emission catalysts).
These other rare earth metals are no longer mined in the U.S. due to the fact that the mining of monazite for them produces a “waste” product of thorium!
The Southwest Biodiversity Institute, an environmental organization, has in fact led the charge that stopped rare-earth mining in the U.S. during the last 10 years. The rare earth metals that we do use in the U.S. are today imported principally from the Peoples Republic of China.
Thorium-232, the isotope that makes up 99%+ of natural thorium is mildly radioactive but its half-life in three times the life of the earth. The main feature of the nuclear chemistry of thorium that makes it attractive is the fact that thorium-232 can be converted by bombardment with slow neutrons into uranium-233, which is not only fissile, but also more efficient at producing further slow neutrons to maintain a chain reaction than U-235, the “natural isotope,” used for weapons and reactor fuel. Additionally it must be noted that U-235 makes up only 0.7% of the total of natural uranium, which is primarily non-fissile uranium-238.
Reactor fuel is today entirely made from uranium (enriched to between 8% and 20 % in U-235 in processes developed during WWI for the production of “bomb grade-up to 80% U-235”) and plutonium (Pu-239, which is chemically extracted from spent fuel and then fed back into a new reactor cycle), because, historically, these reactors were designed to “breed” plutonium, ostensibly so that the reactors would actually produce more fuel than they consume. In fact this focus on the use of highly enriched uranium as a fuel to make plutonium has resulted in a steady supply of weapons grade plutonium from which nearly all “modern” nuclear weapons are made. Thorium like uranium can be mixed with plutonium to make reactor fuel, but thorium has two major advantages over uranium:
Thorium can be used to “burn” up existing stocks of weapons grade plutonium, and;
Thorium reactors can be designed so that they do not produce weapons grade fissile material.
Thorium can be blended with weapons-grade plutonium to make fuel for nuclear reactors that convert the plutonium to a grade not suitable for the manufacture of fission weapons. This process allows us to use and therefore reduce or eliminate the radioactive thorium waste from rare earth processing thus allowing more rare earths to be produced for environmentally friendly uses such as emissions control catalysts and the batteries for hybrid vehicles. In addition this allows us to make a civilian-use asset out of weapons grade plutonium from the decommissioning of weapons rather than a dangerous liability.
The projected cost for disposing of weapons grade plutonium by methods in use today is estimated at $2-$5 billion per tonne. The United States and Russia have most of the weapons-grade plutonium in the world, and have mutually agreed to reduce their inventories. It has been stated that making new reactor fuel from thorium/weapons-grade plutonium is the fastest, most effective and cheapest means to dispose of the weapons-grade plutonium. Both the Russian and the U.S. governments are developing programs that emphasize thorium for this purpose.
In addition the world is awash in plutonium produced in civilian breeder reactors (there are a total of 1,700 tonnes of reactor-grade [mixed isotopes] plutonium in existence). Some of this reactor grade plutonium has already been separated and stored as spent fuel. Unfortunately this material could be used to make very inefficient but very dirty nuclear weapons. Thorium/reactor-grade plutonium fuel may be a more economical and effective way to dispose of reactor-grade plutonium than the current recycling process used. For example, the resultant ash from ‘burning’ thorium plutonium is 1/3 less volume than that generated today.
There is now one American company working actively in the thorium/uranium fuel approach to reducing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Novastar Resource, Ltd. [OTCBB:NVAS], originally a mining company focusing on thorium, other rare earth metals and platinum group metals. Novastar has recently acquired Thorium Power, a Washington D.C.-based company that has developed nuclear fuel designs to stop the production of weapons-grade plutonium and eliminate existing plutonium stockpiles from both weapons-grade and spent reactor-grade plutonium.
Reactors have been built and are operating on thorium/uranium fuel in India and in Russia. It is the abundance of uranium and the desire for weapons that prevents thorium/uranium-fuelled reactors from becoming commonplace. I hope that the Iranian crisis wakes people up in the world’s capitals to the clear and present danger being presented. It is important to not brush off this approach to reducing proliferation by citing environmental constraints or the need for “more research.” All the outstanding environmental, political, chemical and engineering problems of proliferation can be solved if they are looked at holistically instead of myopically.
FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. (Resourceinvestor.com) -- Thorium, one of the “rare earth metals,” is an alternative to uranium as fuel for the construction of nuclear reactors designed for the purpose of producing electricity.
Thorium was, in fact, tested for this purpose at the very beginning of the design of nuclear power plants for generating electricity for powering submarines. It was used in the fuel for the world’s first land sited nuclear power plant located at Shippingport, Pennsylvania. That first plant was built under the aegis of the “Atoms for Peace” program championed by then President Eisenhower.
The reasons for trying to use thorium were as urgent in 1955, as they are critical now. They are, simply, to reduce sharply both the amount of radioactive “waste” generated by nuclear power plants and to impair the capability of nuclear power plants to produce readily extractable weapons grade fissile materials such as plutonium-239 and uranium-235.
Thorium’s backers make a compelling case for a running ‘switch’ from uranium based fuel to thorium based fuel in existing Russian reactors and in the construction of new reactors with a mainly thorium based fuel in place of uranium.
Thorium has been determined to be three to four times more abundant than uranium in nature. The world’s total economically extractable reserves have been recently estimated at 1,200,000 tonnes (metric tonne units). Australia with 300,000 tonnes of reserves, leads the world in this category, followed by India (290,000 tonnes), Norway (170,000 tonnes), the U.S. (160,000 tonnes), Canada (100,000 tonnes), South Africa (35,000 tonnes) and Brazil (16,000 tonnes), with all others totalling 95,000 tonnes.
The most common ore of thorium, the phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains up to 12% of thorium oxide, also contains the economically extractable other rare earth metals, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, yttrium and iridium. An immediate benefit therefore of producing thorium would be the creation of additional supplies of strategic materials for:
Chemical catalysis (cerium: used in the petroleum industry and emissions control catalysts for gasoline and diesel fueled vehicles);
Battery manufacturing (lanthanum: used in the production of nickel metal hydride rechargeable batteries for hybrid vehicles and portable electronic devices);
Small powerful magnets (neodymium: used to make the magnets used in miniature electric motors such as the 41 of these used in a typical automobile), and;
High temperature corrosion resistant alloys (iridium: used in surgical devices, thermocouples and automotive emission catalysts).
These other rare earth metals are no longer mined in the U.S. due to the fact that the mining of monazite for them produces a “waste” product of thorium!
The Southwest Biodiversity Institute, an environmental organization, has in fact led the charge that stopped rare-earth mining in the U.S. during the last 10 years. The rare earth metals that we do use in the U.S. are today imported principally from the Peoples Republic of China.
Thorium-232, the isotope that makes up 99%+ of natural thorium is mildly radioactive but its half-life in three times the life of the earth. The main feature of the nuclear chemistry of thorium that makes it attractive is the fact that thorium-232 can be converted by bombardment with slow neutrons into uranium-233, which is not only fissile, but also more efficient at producing further slow neutrons to maintain a chain reaction than U-235, the “natural isotope,” used for weapons and reactor fuel. Additionally it must be noted that U-235 makes up only 0.7% of the total of natural uranium, which is primarily non-fissile uranium-238.
Reactor fuel is today entirely made from uranium (enriched to between 8% and 20 % in U-235 in processes developed during WWI for the production of “bomb grade-up to 80% U-235”) and plutonium (Pu-239, which is chemically extracted from spent fuel and then fed back into a new reactor cycle), because, historically, these reactors were designed to “breed” plutonium, ostensibly so that the reactors would actually produce more fuel than they consume. In fact this focus on the use of highly enriched uranium as a fuel to make plutonium has resulted in a steady supply of weapons grade plutonium from which nearly all “modern” nuclear weapons are made. Thorium like uranium can be mixed with plutonium to make reactor fuel, but thorium has two major advantages over uranium:
Thorium can be used to “burn” up existing stocks of weapons grade plutonium, and;
Thorium reactors can be designed so that they do not produce weapons grade fissile material.
Thorium can be blended with weapons-grade plutonium to make fuel for nuclear reactors that convert the plutonium to a grade not suitable for the manufacture of fission weapons. This process allows us to use and therefore reduce or eliminate the radioactive thorium waste from rare earth processing thus allowing more rare earths to be produced for environmentally friendly uses such as emissions control catalysts and the batteries for hybrid vehicles. In addition this allows us to make a civilian-use asset out of weapons grade plutonium from the decommissioning of weapons rather than a dangerous liability.
The projected cost for disposing of weapons grade plutonium by methods in use today is estimated at $2-$5 billion per tonne. The United States and Russia have most of the weapons-grade plutonium in the world, and have mutually agreed to reduce their inventories. It has been stated that making new reactor fuel from thorium/weapons-grade plutonium is the fastest, most effective and cheapest means to dispose of the weapons-grade plutonium. Both the Russian and the U.S. governments are developing programs that emphasize thorium for this purpose.
In addition the world is awash in plutonium produced in civilian breeder reactors (there are a total of 1,700 tonnes of reactor-grade [mixed isotopes] plutonium in existence). Some of this reactor grade plutonium has already been separated and stored as spent fuel. Unfortunately this material could be used to make very inefficient but very dirty nuclear weapons. Thorium/reactor-grade plutonium fuel may be a more economical and effective way to dispose of reactor-grade plutonium than the current recycling process used. For example, the resultant ash from ‘burning’ thorium plutonium is 1/3 less volume than that generated today.
There is now one American company working actively in the thorium/uranium fuel approach to reducing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Novastar Resource, Ltd. [OTCBB:NVAS], originally a mining company focusing on thorium, other rare earth metals and platinum group metals. Novastar has recently acquired Thorium Power, a Washington D.C.-based company that has developed nuclear fuel designs to stop the production of weapons-grade plutonium and eliminate existing plutonium stockpiles from both weapons-grade and spent reactor-grade plutonium.
Reactors have been built and are operating on thorium/uranium fuel in India and in Russia. It is the abundance of uranium and the desire for weapons that prevents thorium/uranium-fuelled reactors from becoming commonplace. I hope that the Iranian crisis wakes people up in the world’s capitals to the clear and present danger being presented. It is important to not brush off this approach to reducing proliferation by citing environmental constraints or the need for “more research.” All the outstanding environmental, political, chemical and engineering problems of proliferation can be solved if they are looked at holistically instead of myopically.
Thorium was, in fact, tested for this purpose at the very beginning of the design of nuclear power plants for generating electricity for powering submarines. It was used in the fuel for the world’s first land sited nuclear power plant located at Shippingport, Pennsylvania. That first plant was built under the aegis of the “Atoms for Peace” program championed by then President Eisenhower.
The reasons for trying to use thorium were as urgent in 1955, as they are critical now. They are, simply, to reduce sharply both the amount of radioactive “waste” generated by nuclear power plants and to impair the capability of nuclear power plants to produce readily extractable weapons grade fissile materials such as plutonium-239 and uranium-235.
Thorium’s backers make a compelling case for a running ‘switch’ from uranium based fuel to thorium based fuel in existing Russian reactors and in the construction of new reactors with a mainly thorium based fuel in place of uranium.
Thorium has been determined to be three to four times more abundant than uranium in nature. The world’s total economically extractable reserves have been recently estimated at 1,200,000 tonnes (metric tonne units). Australia with 300,000 tonnes of reserves, leads the world in this category, followed by India (290,000 tonnes), Norway (170,000 tonnes), the U.S. (160,000 tonnes), Canada (100,000 tonnes), South Africa (35,000 tonnes) and Brazil (16,000 tonnes), with all others totalling 95,000 tonnes.
The most common ore of thorium, the phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains up to 12% of thorium oxide, also contains the economically extractable other rare earth metals, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, yttrium and iridium. An immediate benefit therefore of producing thorium would be the creation of additional supplies of strategic materials for:
Chemical catalysis (cerium: used in the petroleum industry and emissions control catalysts for gasoline and diesel fueled vehicles);
Battery manufacturing (lanthanum: used in the production of nickel metal hydride rechargeable batteries for hybrid vehicles and portable electronic devices);
Small powerful magnets (neodymium: used to make the magnets used in miniature electric motors such as the 41 of these used in a typical automobile), and;
High temperature corrosion resistant alloys (iridium: used in surgical devices, thermocouples and automotive emission catalysts).
These other rare earth metals are no longer mined in the U.S. due to the fact that the mining of monazite for them produces a “waste” product of thorium!
The Southwest Biodiversity Institute, an environmental organization, has in fact led the charge that stopped rare-earth mining in the U.S. during the last 10 years. The rare earth metals that we do use in the U.S. are today imported principally from the Peoples Republic of China.
Thorium-232, the isotope that makes up 99%+ of natural thorium is mildly radioactive but its half-life in three times the life of the earth. The main feature of the nuclear chemistry of thorium that makes it attractive is the fact that thorium-232 can be converted by bombardment with slow neutrons into uranium-233, which is not only fissile, but also more efficient at producing further slow neutrons to maintain a chain reaction than U-235, the “natural isotope,” used for weapons and reactor fuel. Additionally it must be noted that U-235 makes up only 0.7% of the total of natural uranium, which is primarily non-fissile uranium-238.
Reactor fuel is today entirely made from uranium (enriched to between 8% and 20 % in U-235 in processes developed during WWI for the production of “bomb grade-up to 80% U-235”) and plutonium (Pu-239, which is chemically extracted from spent fuel and then fed back into a new reactor cycle), because, historically, these reactors were designed to “breed” plutonium, ostensibly so that the reactors would actually produce more fuel than they consume. In fact this focus on the use of highly enriched uranium as a fuel to make plutonium has resulted in a steady supply of weapons grade plutonium from which nearly all “modern” nuclear weapons are made. Thorium like uranium can be mixed with plutonium to make reactor fuel, but thorium has two major advantages over uranium:
Thorium can be used to “burn” up existing stocks of weapons grade plutonium, and;
Thorium reactors can be designed so that they do not produce weapons grade fissile material.
Thorium can be blended with weapons-grade plutonium to make fuel for nuclear reactors that convert the plutonium to a grade not suitable for the manufacture of fission weapons. This process allows us to use and therefore reduce or eliminate the radioactive thorium waste from rare earth processing thus allowing more rare earths to be produced for environmentally friendly uses such as emissions control catalysts and the batteries for hybrid vehicles. In addition this allows us to make a civilian-use asset out of weapons grade plutonium from the decommissioning of weapons rather than a dangerous liability.
The projected cost for disposing of weapons grade plutonium by methods in use today is estimated at $2-$5 billion per tonne. The United States and Russia have most of the weapons-grade plutonium in the world, and have mutually agreed to reduce their inventories. It has been stated that making new reactor fuel from thorium/weapons-grade plutonium is the fastest, most effective and cheapest means to dispose of the weapons-grade plutonium. Both the Russian and the U.S. governments are developing programs that emphasize thorium for this purpose.
In addition the world is awash in plutonium produced in civilian breeder reactors (there are a total of 1,700 tonnes of reactor-grade [mixed isotopes] plutonium in existence). Some of this reactor grade plutonium has already been separated and stored as spent fuel. Unfortunately this material could be used to make very inefficient but very dirty nuclear weapons. Thorium/reactor-grade plutonium fuel may be a more economical and effective way to dispose of reactor-grade plutonium than the current recycling process used. For example, the resultant ash from ‘burning’ thorium plutonium is 1/3 less volume than that generated today.
There is now one American company working actively in the thorium/uranium fuel approach to reducing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Novastar Resource, Ltd. [OTCBB:NVAS], originally a mining company focusing on thorium, other rare earth metals and platinum group metals. Novastar has recently acquired Thorium Power, a Washington D.C.-based company that has developed nuclear fuel designs to stop the production of weapons-grade plutonium and eliminate existing plutonium stockpiles from both weapons-grade and spent reactor-grade plutonium.
Reactors have been built and are operating on thorium/uranium fuel in India and in Russia. It is the abundance of uranium and the desire for weapons that prevents thorium/uranium-fuelled reactors from becoming commonplace. I hope that the Iranian crisis wakes people up in the world’s capitals to the clear and present danger being presented. It is important to not brush off this approach to reducing proliferation by citing environmental constraints or the need for “more research.” All the outstanding environmental, political, chemical and engineering problems of proliferation can be solved if they are looked at holistically instead of myopically.
FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. (Resourceinvestor.com) -- Thorium, one of the “rare earth metals,” is an alternative to uranium as fuel for the construction of nuclear reactors designed for the purpose of producing electricity.
Thorium was, in fact, tested for this purpose at the very beginning of the design of nuclear power plants for generating electricity for powering submarines. It was used in the fuel for the world’s first land sited nuclear power plant located at Shippingport, Pennsylvania. That first plant was built under the aegis of the “Atoms for Peace” program championed by then President Eisenhower.
The reasons for trying to use thorium were as urgent in 1955, as they are critical now. They are, simply, to reduce sharply both the amount of radioactive “waste” generated by nuclear power plants and to impair the capability of nuclear power plants to produce readily extractable weapons grade fissile materials such as plutonium-239 and uranium-235.
Thorium’s backers make a compelling case for a running ‘switch’ from uranium based fuel to thorium based fuel in existing Russian reactors and in the construction of new reactors with a mainly thorium based fuel in place of uranium.
Thorium has been determined to be three to four times more abundant than uranium in nature. The world’s total economically extractable reserves have been recently estimated at 1,200,000 tonnes (metric tonne units). Australia with 300,000 tonnes of reserves, leads the world in this category, followed by India (290,000 tonnes), Norway (170,000 tonnes), the U.S. (160,000 tonnes), Canada (100,000 tonnes), South Africa (35,000 tonnes) and Brazil (16,000 tonnes), with all others totalling 95,000 tonnes.
The most common ore of thorium, the phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains up to 12% of thorium oxide, also contains the economically extractable other rare earth metals, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, yttrium and iridium. An immediate benefit therefore of producing thorium would be the creation of additional supplies of strategic materials for:
Chemical catalysis (cerium: used in the petroleum industry and emissions control catalysts for gasoline and diesel fueled vehicles);
Battery manufacturing (lanthanum: used in the production of nickel metal hydride rechargeable batteries for hybrid vehicles and portable electronic devices);
Small powerful magnets (neodymium: used to make the magnets used in miniature electric motors such as the 41 of these used in a typical automobile), and;
High temperature corrosion resistant alloys (iridium: used in surgical devices, thermocouples and automotive emission catalysts).
These other rare earth metals are no longer mined in the U.S. due to the fact that the mining of monazite for them produces a “waste” product of thorium!
The Southwest Biodiversity Institute, an environmental organization, has in fact led the charge that stopped rare-earth mining in the U.S. during the last 10 years. The rare earth metals that we do use in the U.S. are today imported principally from the Peoples Republic of China.
Thorium-232, the isotope that makes up 99%+ of natural thorium is mildly radioactive but its half-life in three times the life of the earth. The main feature of the nuclear chemistry of thorium that makes it attractive is the fact that thorium-232 can be converted by bombardment with slow neutrons into uranium-233, which is not only fissile, but also more efficient at producing further slow neutrons to maintain a chain reaction than U-235, the “natural isotope,” used for weapons and reactor fuel. Additionally it must be noted that U-235 makes up only 0.7% of the total of natural uranium, which is primarily non-fissile uranium-238.
Reactor fuel is today entirely made from uranium (enriched to between 8% and 20 % in U-235 in processes developed during WWI for the production of “bomb grade-up to 80% U-235”) and plutonium (Pu-239, which is chemically extracted from spent fuel and then fed back into a new reactor cycle), because, historically, these reactors were designed to “breed” plutonium, ostensibly so that the reactors would actually produce more fuel than they consume. In fact this focus on the use of highly enriched uranium as a fuel to make plutonium has resulted in a steady supply of weapons grade plutonium from which nearly all “modern” nuclear weapons are made. Thorium like uranium can be mixed with plutonium to make reactor fuel, but thorium has two major advantages over uranium:
Thorium can be used to “burn” up existing stocks of weapons grade plutonium, and;
Thorium reactors can be designed so that they do not produce weapons grade fissile material.
Thorium can be blended with weapons-grade plutonium to make fuel for nuclear reactors that convert the plutonium to a grade not suitable for the manufacture of fission weapons. This process allows us to use and therefore reduce or eliminate the radioactive thorium waste from rare earth processing thus allowing more rare earths to be produced for environmentally friendly uses such as emissions control catalysts and the batteries for hybrid vehicles. In addition this allows us to make a civilian-use asset out of weapons grade plutonium from the decommissioning of weapons rather than a dangerous liability.
The projected cost for disposing of weapons grade plutonium by methods in use today is estimated at $2-$5 billion per tonne. The United States and Russia have most of the weapons-grade plutonium in the world, and have mutually agreed to reduce their inventories. It has been stated that making new reactor fuel from thorium/weapons-grade plutonium is the fastest, most effective and cheapest means to dispose of the weapons-grade plutonium. Both the Russian and the U.S. governments are developing programs that emphasize thorium for this purpose.
In addition the world is awash in plutonium produced in civilian breeder reactors (there are a total of 1,700 tonnes of reactor-grade [mixed isotopes] plutonium in existence). Some of this reactor grade plutonium has already been separated and stored as spent fuel. Unfortunately this material could be used to make very inefficient but very dirty nuclear weapons. Thorium/reactor-grade plutonium fuel may be a more economical and effective way to dispose of reactor-grade plutonium than the current recycling process used. For example, the resultant ash from ‘burning’ thorium plutonium is 1/3 less volume than that generated today.
There is now one American company working actively in the thorium/uranium fuel approach to reducing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Novastar Resource, Ltd. [OTCBB:NVAS], originally a mining company focusing on thorium, other rare earth metals and platinum group metals. Novastar has recently acquired Thorium Power, a Washington D.C.-based company that has developed nuclear fuel designs to stop the production of weapons-grade plutonium and eliminate existing plutonium stockpiles from both weapons-grade and spent reactor-grade plutonium.
Reactors have been built and are operating on thorium/uranium fuel in India and in Russia. It is the abundance of uranium and the desire for weapons that prevents thorium/uranium-fuelled reactors from becoming commonplace. I hope that the Iranian crisis wakes people up in the world’s capitals to the clear and present danger being presented. It is important to not brush off this approach to reducing proliferation by citing environmental constraints or the need for “more research.” All the outstanding environmental, political, chemical and engineering problems of proliferation can be solved if they are looked at holistically instead of myopically.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
東京都の水道水「２日間は注意を」 摂取制限解除で
東京都水道局の金町浄水場（葛飾区）で、水道水から乳児の摂取制限を超える放射性ヨウ素が検出された問題で、都は２４日、水道水１キログラム当たりの放射性ヨウ素が７９ベクレルに減少したと発表した。食品衛生法で定めた１歳未満の乳児の暫定基準値の１００ベクレル範囲内に改善したため、都は摂取制限を解除。ただ、配水管などに水が残っている可能性もあり「２日間は注意をしてほしい」と呼びかけた。
暫定基準値は、長期にわたり摂取した場合の健康影響を考慮して設定されており、都は「降雨による影響があったとみられ、長期的に制限を超えて摂取する可能性は低くなった」として解除を決めた。
都では２３日の時点で、金町浄水場の水を使っている東京２３区と武蔵野、三鷹、町田、多摩、稲城の５市で乳児が飲むのを控えるよう要請。該当地域の乳児（約８万人）のいる家庭に対し、１人当たり３本、計２４万本のペットボトル（５５０ミリリットル）の配布を２４日午前から開始。２５日もさらに２４万本を追加で配布する予定。
２２日午前９時に３カ所の浄水場で実施した検査では、小作浄水場（羽村市）で３２ベクレル、朝霞浄水場（埼玉県朝霞市）では検出されなかった。金町浄水場では２３日午前９時の採取でも水道水１キログラムあたり１９０ベクレルを検出していた。
石原慎太郎知事は２４日の記者会見で「摂取を控える必要はない。値は上下すると思うが、一時的に上回っても長期間で範囲内だったら構わない」と冷静な行動を求めた。
暫定基準値は、長期にわたり摂取した場合の健康影響を考慮して設定されており、都は「降雨による影響があったとみられ、長期的に制限を超えて摂取する可能性は低くなった」として解除を決めた。
都では２３日の時点で、金町浄水場の水を使っている東京２３区と武蔵野、三鷹、町田、多摩、稲城の５市で乳児が飲むのを控えるよう要請。該当地域の乳児（約８万人）のいる家庭に対し、１人当たり３本、計２４万本のペットボトル（５５０ミリリットル）の配布を２４日午前から開始。２５日もさらに２４万本を追加で配布する予定。
２２日午前９時に３カ所の浄水場で実施した検査では、小作浄水場（羽村市）で３２ベクレル、朝霞浄水場（埼玉県朝霞市）では検出されなかった。金町浄水場では２３日午前９時の採取でも水道水１キログラムあたり１９０ベクレルを検出していた。
石原慎太郎知事は２４日の記者会見で「摂取を控える必要はない。値は上下すると思うが、一時的に上回っても長期間で範囲内だったら構わない」と冷静な行動を求めた。
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
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