If fuel is not replaced in a nuclear reactor, what happens to the power output over time? | AskScience Blog

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Tuesday, October 23, 2018

If fuel is not replaced in a nuclear reactor, what happens to the power output over time?

If fuel is not replaced in a nuclear reactor, what happens to the power output over time?


If fuel is not replaced in a nuclear reactor, what happens to the power output over time?

Posted: 23 Oct 2018 03:09 AM PDT

Assuming the cooling pumps continue running and the fuel rods are all just allowed to reach a point of being "spent", what happens if they aren't replaced? My understanding is that spent fuel is more radioactive, but does it produce a different amount of power than newer fuel rods? I'd imagine that spent means the power output is slowly tapering off but when I read that the fuel is more radioactive, that also seems to suggest that it may put out more power.

submitted by /u/willscuba4food
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Men and Women have different warning signs for a heart attack, why is that?

Posted: 23 Oct 2018 07:07 AM PDT

This image provided by u/vivaenmiriana in a thread about life saving facts points out different warning signs. What things might cause this difference in warning signs?

submitted by /u/meanblazinlolz
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Why is the set of real numbers between 0 and 1 uncountable, but not the set of all integers?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 08:54 PM PDT

The answer that I have found elsewhere is that the integers can be listed as such

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13...

and that the same cannot be done for the real numbers between 0 and 1. I don't see why this is true because I can list them as follows.

0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 0.01, 0.11, 0.21, 0.31...

Notice that there I have constructed the second list by taking the mirror image of the first list about the decimal point, so there is definitely a 1 to 1 mapping of integers to real numbers between 0 and 1.

The other reason usually given is that if you take a set which is assumed to contain all the real numbers between 0 and 1 then you can create a new number by making the first digit different than the first digit of the first number, the second digit different than the second digit of the second number and so on.

But you can also do this with the integers! Just create a new integer and make different than the first number in the ones place, different than the second number in the 10's place and so on.

Please help me see where I am wrong above.

submitted by /u/Hepheastus
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How have the researchers in this alcohol and dementia study accounted for sociodemographic and health related characteristics?

Posted: 23 Oct 2018 07:45 AM PDT

https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k2927

"We accounted for several sociodemographic and health related characteristics in the analysis, but residual confounding cannot be excluded as an explanation for the higher risk of dementia among abstainers. Indeed, this group is particular in that it is composed mainly of women from the lower socioeconomic group with higher prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors and disease at baseline, a pattern that has also been observed in other studies"

Figure 2's caption mentions Cox regression analysis

I suppose I am asking for a simplified explanation. I only have a high school education in maths and statistics. I want to understand whether the higher incidence of dementia in abstainers than light drinkers is due to alcohol in low amounts having some sort of protective effect against dementia or if it's not actually the case and just appears this way due to other factors.

I've seen the rule against homework questions and I can tell you this is definitely not homework. It is a rather uneducated person trying to get his head around science for the sake of his long term health. I know there will be more important factors in protecting myself from dementia than the likely small dementia difference between abstinence and light drinking but surely all protecting factors are important. Dementia is bad.

submitted by /u/grate1438
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How do electric potentials work around the heart in EKG??

Posted: 23 Oct 2018 06:58 AM PDT

Hi everyone. Medical student here who recently started studying EKG. If anyone could help me figure out why is it that every depolarization or repolarization wave ends up as an isoelectric line at the end??

Let me take the P wave as an example. As far as I understood from high school physics once atrial depolarization is finished the entire atria is depolarized while the the entire ventricle is in a polarized state which in turn would lead to a potential difference between the 2 areas of the heart which in turn would lead me to believe that the electrodes would pick up this difference(Let's use lead 2 for example). Yet the ECG shows a 0 difference voltage and thus an isoelectric line. I've been scratching my head for daaays trying to figure this out. Help me.... PLEASE.

submitted by /u/ayazasker
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If everything in outer space is moving away from everything else and constantly expanding, how can 2 galaxies collide?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 02:18 PM PDT

How/when did we learn that there was no oxygen in space?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 10:46 AM PDT

Why has nobody come close to Tesla's inventions that were created up to 100 years ago?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 03:49 PM PDT

Wireless energy in the late 1800s, an oscillator that could cause earthquakes, which was no more than a few feet long and wide. His free energy, his flying saucer designs. Still owning the record for largest man made lightening bolt etc.? Was he that smart?

submitted by /u/Bulbasaur_King
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Why is a pendulums period constant.. until it isn't?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 07:32 PM PDT

One of the labs I did years ago in highschool involved the measuring of a pendulums period. We all know that a pendulum has a period which is constant regardless of its amplitude. You hold a weight on a string off its axis and it will swing from period to period, and take exactly the same amount of time to move end to end, regardless of the energy put into the system, until you hold the weight a little bit too high, and it swings a little bit too far, and no longer keeps accurate time from end to end. What is happening that causes this phenomenon? I asked my physics teacher decades ago, but he said it was a bit too complicated to answer in class at that point, and I never got back to the question. This has been bothering me for years now, and if anyone can explain it, and explain the math behind the concept, I would be so grateful. Thank you!

submitted by /u/spoonguy123
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How does a quantum particle decohere into the environment if the environment is quantum too?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 09:32 PM PDT

My philosophy professor said we are not affected by quantum uncertainty at "our level" 30 orders of magnitude above the planck length and therefore the observer dependent states don't have bearing on free will. This is due to decoherence. I'm struggling to understand how this is the case.

submitted by /u/Africanus1990
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Why does decay happen as a first order reaction?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 04:17 PM PDT

I understand how to calculate half life. I am just wondering why the rate of the reaction changes over time?

submitted by /u/jimmyth3xplod3r
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How "strong" of a vacuum can you make by pulling a piston out of a cylinder?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 11:48 PM PDT

Asking for my dad - he sent the following explanation of his question, and I couldn't really answer: "Suppose you have a piston at the bottom of a cylinder, which has no opening at the bottom. When you draw the piston out, a vacuum is created.

It is easy to imagine that very quickly the pressure difference will become about 14.7 psi (atmospheric pressure) outside, and getting close to zero inside.

The question is, what happens next, if you continue to pull the piston? It is relatively easy to overcome 14.7 psi.

Is it impossible to pull it any further? Will there be another force holding the piston back? If so, what force?

Maybe, you can continue to pull the piston out—after a certain point the pressure differential becomes about 14.7 psi and that's all you have to overcome for the rest of the stroke. What I'm saying is the pressure difference can't be more than 14.7 psi, and yet you can continue to increase the volume inside the cylinder.

Or maybe the reduction of pressure close to a vacuum inside the cylinder becomes non linear compared to the increase in volume (contrary to Boyle's Law).

Apparently, a perfect vacuum is impossible. But the references I've found so far are not consistent on the meaning of "perfect vacuum." It could mean zero pressure, or it could mean no molecules of air, which might not be the same thing. I think "impossible" probably means it's difficult to extract every last molecule of gas from a chamber—the fewer they become, the harder it is to capture them."

submitted by /u/lasiusneglectus
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How to Compare Experimental data with Theory?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 12:58 PM PDT

I've got experimental data from a that shows the intensity of light against position for a diffraction pattern and a theoretical curve by imputing parameters into a function. I want to compare how good a fit the theoretical curve is to the experimental data. My demonstrator suggested a chi-square test but when I researched this it seemed to be for observed and expected frequency of results. Any help would be much appreciated.

submitted by /u/LegalBiscotti
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Solar panel reaction time from light to dark?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 06:42 AM PDT

Does a solar panel's voltage output drop to zero instantly if going from light to complete dark? Here's an example: In a completely dark room there is a 12 inch by 12 inch solar panel and a spotlight that puts out a 12 inch diameter beam of light. The spotlight is aimed directly on the solar panel and then switched on. The solar panel reaches its maximum output for the spotlight. The spotlight is then switched off. Does the solar panel's voltage output instantly drop to zero or does the reaction in the solar panel continue for some time?

submitted by /u/u3n3ts
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Why can cutting off the Brain's Oxygen supply sometimes cause euphoria?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 09:14 AM PDT

What is the maunderminimum?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 04:44 PM PDT

My co worker keeps talking about it and I'm curious. What is it?

submitted by /u/Daddydabs
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How do power outlet ethernet adapters work?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 06:48 AM PDT

I have looked all over the internet and am unable to find out how they actually work. You simple plug them into a power outlet, and assuming the outlet is on the same power circuit as your router, it can function as an ethernet port.

submitted by /u/Just4TehLulz
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Why do fish come to the water surface to breathe when there is heavy fog?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 09:13 AM PDT

I have a 1 acre pond with 19,000 fish of an average weight of 300 grams. In the last few days there has been heavy fog between 6:30 am to 8 am(approximately 27 °C). I have noticed that a large number of fish have come to the surface to breathe and go back into the water once the fog clears.

I have included a link to a video below:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/yCN1MLki2qFzDps36

submitted by /u/jonathanrjpereira
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Why does a water droplet hitting a extremely hot surface only produce a hissing sound at the start?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 07:01 AM PDT

At slightly lower temperatures, water boils off and continuously makes a sizzling sound for the duration its boiling. However this does not seem to be the case when the temperature of a surface is much higher than the boiling point of a liquid.

submitted by /u/tet2323
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How is dried permethrin on surfaces safe for cats when wet permethrin is dangerous?

Posted: 22 Oct 2018 07:09 AM PDT

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