Here’s a fun fact: Spent nuclear fuel – the stuff intended for permanent disposal at Yucca Mountain – retains 95 percent of its energy content.

That’s really remarkable. There is so much potential in nuclear technology, it’s a real shame that so little technical innovation has been done in the field.

I’m now curious about whether the Government of Canada is paying attention to this. So far all I’ve seen the Government doing is spending a bunch of money on advertising starring Rick Mercer. Now I like Mr. Mercer, but the ads just seem so very silly. Take the “one tonne challenge”?

The CEO of the company even posted a letter on the swimwear line’s website with some interesting comments. I won’t quote the whole letter (although I do suggest reading it), but I did want to include this portion:

I should temper this letter by saying that I completely understand that most of Canada does not receive a lot of education on Newfoundland. Being from Winnipeg originally, my move to Newfoundland in 1998 really opened my eyes. … This province has bent over and taken it from the feds for too long, and it is about time that someone stood up against it. I encourage everyone out there to read up on the subject, and not fall into the trap of believing stereotypes.

Of course, not everyone is happy about the situation. Many feel that it’s improper to use the Maple Leaf for partisan politics. But, regardless of what anyone thinks the national flag represents both the nation and the government. It’s difficult to truly protest the actions of the federal government while prominently displaying the chief symbol of its authority. (And, I must note, that it’s a little hypocritical for the leader of our present government to reprimand someone else for making the national flag a political tool. If it’s permissible to promote the federal government with the flag, I think it’s also okay to protest against that government with it.)

I may or may not post more about my own views of this situation, but at this point I will say that I’m happy to see the people of Newfoundland and Labrador asserting themselves about the offshore revenue issue. It’s clearly impossible to remove the Maple Leaf without angering many other Canadians. I would hope, however, that the majority will look past the flag and see the more important question. In the words of His Worship Andy Wells, Mayor of St. John’s, as reported by CTV.ca, “The majority of Newfoundlanders support Premier Williams’ position on this issue — it’s part of a larger problem we have with our whole relationship with Canada.”

Update (30 Jan 2005): The Unabashedly Canadian site was put back online as of 13 January 2005. The original letter was archived and I have changed the link above.

The really neat thing about this reactor is that it’s small and modular (which makes it inexpensive to build) and has no super-heated heavy water (which makes it safer). Apparently, this new Chinese reactor is incredibly fault tolerant: things can go wrong without rapidly escalating to terribly wrong.

In the event of a catastrophic cooling-system failure … the core temperature climbs to only about 1,600 degrees Celsius – comfortably below the balls’ 2,000-plus-degree melting point – and then falls. This temperature ceiling makes HTR-10 what engineers privately call walk-away safe. As in, you can walk away from any situation and go have a pizza.

This unusual margin of safety isn’t merely theoretical. INET‘s engineers have already done what would be unthinkable in a conventional reactor: switched off HTR-10’s helium coolant and let the reactor cool down all by itself. Indeed, [project director Zhang Zuoyi] plans a show-stopping repeat performance at an international conference of reactor physicists in Beijing in September. “We think our kind of test may be required in the market someday,” he adds.

The article also has an enlightening recap of why it has taken this long for someone to serious develop this kind of reactor technology. It’s a shame that it’s taken until now, but this article made me very optimistic about the potential of nuclear energy.

I picked up this link from the Chaos Manor Mail.

BBC News: UK scientists have developed a process for making hydrogen from sunflower oil which could prove an important future source of eco-friendly energy.

I found this on Adam Curry’s weblog.