User:Macquigg/Sandbox

Draft articles
User:Macquigg/Sandbox/ThorCon_nuclear_reactor_SANDBOX - sandbox edits Draft:ThorCon_nuclear_reactor - abandoned in favor of improving the existing article.

User:Macquigg/Sandbox/FC-MSR_nuclear_reactor - my favorite, but lacking in data.

User:Macquigg/Sandbox/Nuclear power reconsidered

User:Macquigg/Sandbox/Renewable power

User:Macquigg/Sandbox/Offshore oil spill prevention

User:Macquigg/Sandbox/Blowout preventer

Idea box


As I work on the oil spill article, and learn about the failures of existing systems, I cannot help but think of solutions. Here is a collection of these ideas, which will remain on this page until someone can tell me why they won't work. Then I will move the bad ideas to the discard section below, and explain the reasons why.

Note: I do understand that the main problem is not technology, existing systems should be good enough, etc., but I believe engineers have a responsibility to do more than provide systems that will work if everyone does their job. If we want to drill a thousand wells with less than one in a thousand chance of disaster over a period of thirty years, we need to anticipate human failures, and do what we can to compensate for those failures in our designs.

Unsinkable rig
Nobody seems to know what caused the rig to sink, but the best theory is that the deck box filled with tons of water from the fireboats. Another plausible theory is that the ballast valves did not fail shut when the control system was blown away. Another is that some of the structural steel got so hot that part of the rig collapsed, tearing open the columns or pontoons shown in Figure 1, and letting too much water in. Whatever the exact cause in this incident, we need a rig designed so that it won't sink, even with a raging fire on the deck. At the very least, any compartments that might get filled with water should have drainage. Valves on the pontoons should fail shut. Connections should be provided so an external pump can pull water out of the pontoons, and provide more buoyancy if needed. Critical structural elements must be designed to withstand the heat (see fire-resistant I-beams below). In an emergency, all electrical systems should shut down, with exceptions for just those systems guaranteed not to spark an explosion.

Diverter to send oil and gas downwind
This needs to work without any action by a crew member in the panic of evacuation. Flaps should close around the drill pipe when there is more than a few psi inside. The only mechanism needed is some way to keep the side outlet always pointed downwind.

Fire resistant I-beam
This was actually an idea to save a tall building from a terrorist attack, but it went nowhere. So here it is again. Might be too costly to do this for all the structure in an oil platform, but it would make sense for a few critical pieces that keep the rig from sinking when there is a fire. Figure 2 shows the details. A 1/4 inch copper tube runs along the inside of each I-beam. When the beam gets hot, wax melts out of small holes in the tube, and water flows onto the hot steel. The tubes need to be connected to a water tank, and that may be the weakest link. The tank would have to be maintained for years, in preparation for an accident that will probably never happen. If there is ever a leak, there will be great temptation to disconnect the water.

Multiple well heads
This just seems so obvious, I can't understand why it hasn't been done (as far as I know). Underwater wells could have multiple well heads, allowing the oil to be diverted while equipment at the main well head is repaired. This does not require drilling "relief wells", just some extra pipe and valves to the alternate well heads. Ideally, the spacing between the well heads should be sufficient that it would take a small nuke to damage them all simultaneously. Also, the well heads should be designed so that a riser can replace a cap with one quick sliding motion.

A better BOP
We still don't know what caused the BOP to fail. It could have been a dead battery, a hydraulic system low on pressure from a slow leak that was ignored, or perhaps some other immediate cause we haven't thought of. Regardless of the cause, we need more redundancy in the system. Here is what I can think of, without having access to the drawings on the failed BOP.

1) The hydraulic systems should have no common points of failure. That means separate supplies for each critical valve.

2) There should be connectors on the side of the BOP for each valve, so that each can be driven by an external hydraulic system.

3) The flange to the riser and all other external flanges should have a quick disconnect mechanism, so that new pipes can be connected, even with the oil flowing.

4) There should be planned breakage points, so that a falling riser pipe, or any other unexpected stress causes separation at a planned point in the system.

Sleeve for emergency connection of riser pipe
This is in addition to the quick-connects already described above (see Figure 3). If for some reason a quick-connect is not usable, this sleeve will work on even a bent and torn piece of riser pipe, jammed with drill pipes inside, spewing oil and gas, and forming hydrates the instant the gas hits water. The idea is to bring the new riser close to the torn end of the old one, and slowly squeeze this sleeve around the two ends. As the gaps narrow, the hydrates will be flushed out. Finally, explosive charges are detonated to drive strong spikes into the old riser pipe.

Note for students: This is a good example of the benefits of a "can-do" attitude in engineering. The idea was originally suggested by Doc Ellen, who thought we could use something like a "stent" to capture the oil from the broken "artery". Insiders scoffed at the idea, but I thought it had some merit. Putting the sleeve outside instead of inside the pipe allowed for squeezing the torn end back into a circular shape. Adding the spikes allowed for the enormous forces we might expect to pop any new connection off the end.

Data recorders on critical safety systems
Anything requiring regular maintenance or testing should have something like an airline "black box" that records all significant events. On the BOP, for example, we could record the time and date and pressure readings on every actuation of every device. If the regulations require testing a ram at full pressure once a month, the existence of a recorder will avoid any temptation to just fill out a form without actually doing the test.

An untouchable regulatory agency
Safety technology is only as good as the people who use it. Private enterprise has a conflict of interest between safety and short-term operational efficiency. An oversight mechanism is needed to ensure that safety is given sufficient priority, in spite of business pressures.

Regulatory agencies, unfortunately, are subject to "regulatory capture", the process by which regulated industries gain control of the agency intended to regulate them. Regulatory capture has been a problem for as long as regulatory agencies have existed. {19th century railroads, Interstate Commerce Commission}

One way we might ensure vigorous and independent oversight is to provide "tenure" for regulators, much the way that university professors are now granted tenure, once they have proven their ability to get research funding. The justification for tenure is that society needs independent thinkers who cannot be fired for unpopular opinions. Surely protecting our regulators in this way is even more important than protecting faculty at a university.

An agency specifically set up to regulate offshore oil drilling could have at least its senior staff granted tenure. Imagine a situation where industry controls the entire political process, congressional committees, cabinet-level appointees, etc. A group of tenured regulators could be "untouchable", at least for a few years. Even if the politicos refused to enforce rules, the regulators could publish their reports, talk to the press, and make things so uncomfortable for industry, that it will be less costly to just follow the rules.

Think of Chicago in the 1930's. The entire city government, administrators, police, even judges, had been captured by the Mafia. Honest government agents who tried to go after the criminals had to face threats even to their families. Yet they were able to take down Al Capone, one of the most brutal mobsters in Chicago. The conflict now between regulation and profits is nowhere near that intense. Still Eliot Ness should serve as an inspiration for regulators who want to do the right thing, but are feeling some pressure.

Better shear rams
Ram-type blowout preventers fail because the blunt tips of the ram don't shear the pipe. How about something like this instead?


 * Breaking the hymen of a pipe is only half the battle; you need complete penetration and enclosure. Diagram implies two triangular points meeting in cylinder, which obviously can not encompass circumference of pipe. >O<   Might get funding if you had showed receptive female sheath for shaft on opposite side of pipe.    Ramshafttm   At least show the inverse beveled triangular point on the left, but that's kinda gay compared to what I have in mind.  Paulscrawl (talk) 04:19, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I could easily flip that piece and show both sides. Sketchup has some nice features to line up the mating surfaces in 3D. After studying some more on existing designs, I think I understand now why they don't do it this way. It's a tradeoff of larger shearing force vs longer stroke length. MMS report 455, graph 4, shows that a 40% increase in hydraulic pressure would have given 100% pass on all shear rams tested. Using a sharp point on the ram, like my sketch above, would maybe double the stroke length, and the total volume of fluid that must be used in driving surface 3 above. Maybe some combination of a slightly sharper tip, and a slight increase in hydraulic fluid volume would be the optimum. I have to believe, however, that the engineers who designed this knew how to solve these simple problems, and the real problem is just that the drilling companies are cutting corners by not ordering rams with enough force to easily shear the pipe they are actually using. Before we jump to the conclusion that this is criminal negligence, however, we need to look at the big picture, including how many other redundant cutoffs they have in a typical BOP. The Deepwater Horizon had two shears, two pipe rams, and two annular cutoffs. Whatever caused all of these to fail simultaneously would probably not have been avoided by using a stronger shear ram. --Dave (talk) 17:43, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Regulatory agencies as a reliable source
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:ThorCon_nuclear_reactor I would like to see an article on each of several new reactor designs, with enough detail to answer many of the questions raised by anti-nuclear advocates. Are all molten salt reactors a proliferation risk? That depends on the specific design. We need these details. I have started one of these articles, but I am running into a wall of opposition. The clearest source of design details is the companies themselves, usually on their website. That was the first reject, not independent enough. Then I found the same data in documents submitted to the IAEA, not as clear, but much more thorough. That got another reject. Even though the data was reviewed and published by independent experts at the IAEA, it still ultimately came from the company. I don't think there is any better source of this information. I have written a response to the second reviewer (See the notice at the top of the article.) Can I get some advice, before submitting it again? I have read the policy on reliable sources, and it is not clear to me why this reject, or how this question can be resolved. David MacQuigg 21:49, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * , what you need is reliable independent published sources that discuss the reactor. Your own comment "I contacted ThorCon and got the following comment from Robert Hargraves: 'There were dozens of interactions between IAEA editors and me. The tables of tech specs were required by IAEA and filled in by me and checked by others. There can be no more accurate source.'" makes it clear that the IAEA sources are not independent of the designer of the reactor. Maproom (talk) 22:19, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The point of the comment was to show that there WAS an actual review by the IAEA. They don't just accept without question the information submitted by companies wanting to build nuclear reactors. Regulatory agencies answer to the government. Their mission is public safety. Their reviews are done by experts independent of the companies submitting applications.
 * If not a regulatory agency, what would be a better source of information on a reactor design? Would an article in Popular Mechanics be acceptable? David MacQuigg 22:53, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Macquigg, you need two different types of sources. To show that the article is about a topic already well-enough known to have a Wikipedia article you need two or three sources which are reliable, independent of the company, and have some in-depth discussion of the reactor. ThorCon is discussed in the technical literature of molten salt reactors and turns up in multiple places, such as here and here. However it is perfectly acceptable to also use published company sources for what the reactors do and the design details, from their website or in articles they have written in the industrial literature. These primary sources are fine for such factual statements and are likely to be the most accurate. We use NASA for details about rockets and spacecraft for example. But all sources have to be published. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:16, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @StarryGrandma Thank you. This is very helpful. I was aware of the first link. The second is also good to establish that this reactor is well-known in the technical community. Thank you also for the clarification that I can use the company website for the design details. I will keep the link to the IAEA document for those who want more detail and have the time to wade through it.
 * Now I need to convey this information to the next person who responds when I click SUBMIT. Should I just copy your comments into the template at the top of the article? David MacQuigg 01:20, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * {{u|David MacQuigg]],That comment alone will not help you. You need to show notability, which requires independent secondary sources taking an interest in the subject. IAEA and primary docs may be WP:DUE once the article establishes notability, but they are useless for establishing notability itself.Slywriter (talk) 16:32, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Slywriter Are you saying the two links cited by @StarryGrandma are NOT sufficient to show notability? David MacQuigg 16:42, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * {{u|David MacQuigg}}The 2nd is sourced to ThorCon for the very limited mentions it makes of the company. The second also seems to be using the company as its source. So I don't see how either contribute to notability of Thorcon. Another reviewer may find differently.Slywriter (talk) 16:54, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Slywriter, @Macquigg it turns out that TMSR-500 is the existing article about the reactor. The two sources I mentioned were to show that the reactor turns up frequently in the technical literature; there are more as well as the news media coverage. The point is that sources for facts don't have to be the same sources that show notability. StarryGrandma (talk) 17:34, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * {{u|StarryGrandma}}, agreed though getting the draft accepted is not as simple as referring to your comment and expecting a reviewer to accept that as proof of notability nor would those two sources necessarily convinced every reviewer. Though all moot, as the article already exists and the technical information should be incorporated there. Name change might be justified but I haven't done any review of which is common name.Slywriter (talk) 17:59, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Slywriter@StarryGrandma
 * On the question of notability, can I appeal to common sense? Understanding some important details of these new reactor designs is super important to the debate going on now over renewables vs nuclear. ThorCon is one of the leading contenders (not my favorite), but certainly worthy of coverage.
 * On the question of reliable sources, can we accept company websites as authoritative on the details of their own designs? If there is a challenge, we can dig deeper. If that still doesn't resolve any question of fact, let's have a brief point-counterpoint on the talk page. See the examples in the draft I submitted.
 * On the existing article, TMSR-500 appears to be an old name. I don't see it anywhere on ThorCon's current website, or in their filing with the IAEA. The old article seems too promotional to me. We need a short, factual article, focused on the issues of safety, waste management, weapons proliferation, and cost. Everything else is readily available on the company's website. If there is something you think is important in that old article, let's merge it into the current draft.
 * I will be writing articles on a few other reactors, the ones I find most interesting. I suggest we try to establish a common format, so readers can easily compare one to another. Surely the four issues I listed should be prominent. David MacQuigg 22:44, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * , you are free to edit the existing article and are encouraged to clean up(even remove) the promotional materials added by a connected editor. You are also free to move the page to what you think is a better name either by using the Move feature or requesting at WP:RM. So with that established, notability is not currently being questioned since the article already exists in main space. What's not going to happen is your article being approved when an existing article already exists. Also please see WP:Advocacy as we are here to inform readers, not lead them by the nose to a desired outcome. Additionally Talk pages are for discussing the editing of an article and not for further discussions or information on the subject or related topics.Slywriter (talk) 23:33, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Macquigg, it was originally titled Thorcon and was about the reactor. Occasionally it tried to be an article about the company. It was moved to the current title in 2020 and certainly can be renamed. A standard organized form is a good approach. You could start by writing an article about one of the other reactors, then step by step modify the existing article about ThorCon into that form. Since we are an encyclopedia the article needs the history of the project, who it is being built for, etc. as well as the technical material. It is the former that will show the project is notable in the Wikipedia sense and provide the references that demonstrate notability. There is an in depth, though rather negative, analysis of the reactor done by the Union of Concerned Scientists, and their assessment should be included. I've added the reference as Further reading here. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:53, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Slywriter@StarryGrandma
 * I worry about getting into an edit war with whoever wrote the TMSR-500 article, but I will give it a try. There is nothing provably wrong with the existing article, so it will probably end up like the mush I see in other articles on nuclear power.
 * I have no desire to "lead them by the nose". If that remark is in response to the draft, I would sure like to know what you are seeing.
 * If the talk pages should include only editorial, not substantive issues, I will need to remove the point-counterpoint summaries on the current talk page. How about we make a sub-page: "Thorcon nuclear reactor/Q&A" where both sides can have their say, and keep the controversies off the main page.
 * I agree, the UCS analysis should be included, but not without fact-checking. Also UCS is far from neutral on anything related to nuclear power. I guess you didn't see that I included their statement about this reactor on the Talk page, followed by a statement from the company that seems to settle the matter. I think the only legitimate challenge to this would have to be a statement from a nuclear engineer, not affiliated with UCS or any other advocacy group, saying that while the ThorCon design does not have the alleged problem, it won't work as designed. If true, the company will have a big problem with getting approval by the regulatory agencies. If the question can't be resolved between neutral experts, our readers should see that. David MacQuigg 01:22, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * , my lead them by the nose is based on your comments here. Even now, you are looking to provide analysis to the article through Talk or Sub-page. Wikipedia is fundamentally not the place for such analysis or discussion. Wikipedia provides the facts, the rest of the internet provides the conversation. Most importantly, we never engage in orginal research.
 * On the edit-war, we have policies to prevent that. You can be WP:BOLD and wholesale remove what's there. Just be ready to discuss on talk page if someone reverts. Just because the connected editor found favorable facts in 'reliable sources' does not mean they are WP:DUE for inclusion and the talk page shows other editors had concerns with the article even after cleaning up. Though some of the sources may be useful as general references or basic facts so they can support notability since your draft is currently based entirely on primary sources.Slywriter (talk) 01:38, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Slywriter, you say I am "looking to provide analysis to the article". I don't understand that, and I still don't understand how I am leading the reader "by the nose". The "analysis" you refer to (I am guessing} is the point-counterpoint on the Talk page. I see my role in this as being that of a reporter, gathering the most important facts, and getting exact quotes from each side where there is disagreement on the facts. I am not a nuclear engineer, so I would not even try to inject my analysis into this debate.
 * "we never engage in orginal research" I am guessing this refers to my digging up quotes from both sides?
 * What is the best way to handle the point-counterpoint I have shown on the Talk page? David MacQuigg 04:24, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * , digging up quotes is perfectly fine. Providing both sides of an issue as long as its not false balance is also great practice. The concern was statement here about the importance of this issue, followed by seeing a talk page that has a mission statement, point-counterpoint companion to the article and then a link to a facebook discussion. They gave the impression of trying to start a conversation and that's not what wikipedia is for. If I misunderstood the intent then my apologies.
 * Anything the reader needs should be in the article with sources or listed as further reading they can explore themselves. The talk page is not a resource for readers. So to the specific question, the point-counterpoint should be incorporated into the article along with all the relevant content from your draft and any corporate double-speak should be eliminated. You are on the right track with content and your reporter belief is mostly correct though unlike journalists wikipedia prefers boring, dry facts over sensationalism.Slywriter (talk) 12:46, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Slywriter OK, I am encouraged. I agree, no false balance (he-said, she-said, ignoring facts), and no sensationalism. That is not what I think of when I say "journalist".
 * I see now that the point-counterpoint on the talk page does not belong on a page focused on editorial issues, and where personal opinions on these issues are freely stated. I have moved this to a Critiques section in the main article.
 * As for the link to a FaceBook discussion (in the point-counterpoint on Waste Management), this is early-draft. Maybe I can dig further and find something quotable in the UCS "Advanced isn't better" paper. I could add a note at the top of that section - "Please help us find a better source for this critique of the ThorCon reactor. Loose talk on FaceBook is not good enough for a quote in Wikipedia. Does this reactor have any problems with waste management?"
 * "boring dry facts" yes. I assume the reader came here to learn something. We don't need to draw them in. David MacQuigg 14:47, 18 March 2022 (UTC)