Highest Rated Comments


firebyte11 karma

What will you do to ensure that we continue to get Fibre to the Home if the Coalition is indeed elected?

firebyte6 karma

  • Existing Light Water Reactors will freely remain 'on' once they are 'started' and require systems to control the reaction: by using water, control rods, emergency cooling systems, etc, to keep a grip on the reaction at a safe level. These reactions can 'run away' and create insane amounts of energy that can't be contained in the systems designed to contain it. This would then literally lead to an explosion of energy, similar to what was witnessed at Fukushima and Chernobyl: safety systems were inoperable due to damage from the tidal wave and disabled to run 'tests' respectively.

  • Liquid Thorium based reactors won't react on their own and therefore require systems to maintain a reaction. 'Walking away' from the reaction simply stops the reaction, not creating those insane power levels to break past containment systems and release radioactive material into the atmosphere.

So had a liquid thorium reactor been in use at Fukushima at the time of the tsunami, the reaction would have stopped and have remained safely contained because the systems driving the reaction would have been taken out.

TL;DR: Picture a person (the systems in a thorium reactor) peddling a bike that is powering a lamp (the thorium reaction itself). By knocking that person off the bike, power is removed from the lamp which extinguishes the light (power generated from the reactor) coming from it.

One of Kirk's colleagues puts it in very simple terms in the video documentary linked.

firebyte2 karma

if you vote above the line for the greens and I don't get elected (bummer), here's where your vote will go

How difficult would it be to pass an amendment to remove the requirement to number every preference below the line (if voters chose to) for the senate? The change would allow voters to number up to the number of candidates they wish to vote for and not spend so much time filling in all of the other boxes.

I think that many are turned off 'below the line' voting because of this requirement, being easier to place a 1 in the box above the line.