Regardless of your personal feelings about nuclear power, it is a dominant means of electrical power generation in the industrialized world. With the growing public and political pressure against the burning of fossil fuels, and with alternative energy sources such as wind and solar only being capable of generating power during daylight or when the wind blows, nuclear energy is experiencing a resurgence as an alternative to fossil fuel plants as a means of producing more of our baseline energy needs.
As such, I think it’s important for people to understand some basic science and engineering principles behind nuclear power, as knowledge is the most powerful thing in the world. It’s been a long time since I’ve written much about nuclear power, but the time has definitely come to revisit the topic.
Let’s start with the most basic question: Big picture, how does a nuclear power plant generate electricity?
The tongue-in-cheek answer that is thrown around by people in the industry is this: “Hot rock make steam make turbine go roundy-roundy.”
Let’s break that down into a little bit more detail.
You’re probably aware that friction between two things creates heat, like when your brakes get hot because two surfaces are rubbing together. For the brakes on your car, there is an energy conversion process going on. The energy of the motion of your car (kinetic energy) is being turned into heat energy via friction. So, your car stops, but your brakes get hot (and wear away part of your brake pads every time you stop).
Something similar happens inside a nuclear reactor. Every atom in a reactor core that fissions breaks up into chunks, and each of these chunks is sent flying for a very short distance by the little fission blast. These chunks are slowed down by interaction with other matter in the reactor, and that interaction converts the motion energy of the chunk into heat. Since there are a LOT of these tiny interactions going on, it creates a lot of heat overall. Therefore, we have our hot rock.
What happens when you throw water onto a hot rock, like in a sauna? Most of it flashes to steam. If you contain that steam within an enclosed container, it will build pressure. Something similar happens in a nuclear power plant: Our hot rock is cooled by passing another substance over it (usually water, but other things work, too, but that’s beyond the scope of this post). When that water heats up inside it’s container, it builds pressure. Actually, a LOT of pressure.
If you’ve ever seen a windmill operate, then this next part will make obvious sense. Just as a windmill’s blades turn when wind runs through it, the blades of a turbine are constructed so that when high pressure steam is passed over them, it forces the turbine to turn. Since we’re talking about really high steam pressure, we’re also talking about spinning our turbine really fast.
The other end of that turbine shaft is what’s connected to the electric generator. The speed of the generator has to be regulated in order to maintain the proper output voltage and frequency for transmission to your home, which is done via steam regulators and controlling the rate of the nuclear reaction to produce no more steam than is really necessary.
It should be noted that many of the components of a nuclear power plant are almost identical to any other power plant. Almost all power plants rely on a steam cycle system (often referred to as the “secondary system”), and the steam system components could literally be moved from one plant to another, hooked up, and be up in running. What makes each plant unique is what makes the steam. You can boil water with many heat sources: burning coal, burning natural gas, burning oil, burning methane from biofuels, etc. A nuclear reactor is just another means of creating heat to boil water, but with no greenhouse emissions (yes, there are obviously other issues — we’ll get into those in future posts).
I hope this was useful to somebody out there on the Interwebs. I’ll add to this series over time, delving into different aspects of the primary plant, including everybody’s favorite issue, that of radioactive waste. For the really geeky, I’ll get into reactor physics, stuff like neutron capture cross sections, the neutron lifecycle, fission fragment ratios, reactor poisons, and one of my favorite subjects – reactor startup delays due to decay product buildup (I always thought it kind of funny that operating our reactors created something that prevented us from starting our reactors once we shut them down…yeah, I’m a nerd).
Until my next post, be great, be happy!
~Jassen Bowman
Just a few of the many things changing in the IJS…….
1. Spin position variations can no longer be repeated for level credit. Do a hair cutter in your layback, and you can’t repeat it in your combination spin.
2. Goodbye original dance in ice dancing.
3. ….and more, this is really a test post.
Great article on the MSNBC blog about the tax resolution industry in general, and companies advertising “pennies on the dollar” settlements for IRS tax debt. Well worth reading, as are the comments, actually.
Most of the comments are from people that either got ripped off by a tax resolution firm, or tell about how they just did themselves, and others responded to THOSE comments asking about HOW to do it themselves.
Being in the tax resolution industry, having it be my livelihood, you would think I wouldn’t WANT people to know how to do it themselves, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
Let’s say you owe the IRS $15,000. You can generally resolve this yourself in one phone call. Granted, it’s an hour or two hour long phone call, but it’s still just one phone call. Instead of paying me $1500 to do that for you, you really are better off applying that $1500 towards the tax debt itself.
Those of us that honestly try to do right by our clients and work ethically and charge reasonable fees for our services always have, and always will, have this black cloud hanging over us because of the scumbags in our industry that rip people off. From charging unconscionably high fees, to collecting fees and then never DOING anything (which is what the class action suit against JK Harris was all about), to just doing mediocre work in the interest of ramming as many clients through the door as possible to maximize profits, the industry as a whole does have a bad rap, and understandably so.
One of the commenters on the MSNBC blog article just wanted to know who to contact at the IRS to resolve their tax issues. I posted this comment on their blog and hope the person sees it, since nobody else volunteered the information. I’ll repost it here for my readers:
For personal tax matters, call ACS at 800-429-7650. For business taxes, call 800-829-3903. The hold times are lengthy – expect to wait 30 minutes to an hour.
If you owe LESS than $10,000 in personal income taxes, ask for a Guaranteed Installment Agreement. They’re required to give it to you — just tell them what you can afford and get it set up.
If you owe between $10k and $25k in taxes, ask for a “Streamline Installment Agreement”. The person on the phone may need to have a call center floor supervisor approve it, but they’re painless.
While you’re on the phone, ask for penalties to be removed, and explain WHY you weren’t able to pay the tax on time. You might be surprised and just have them remove some penalties without having to send in a written request.
If you’re interested in seeing whether you qualify for an Offer in Compromise, download Form 656-B from the IRS web site — there is a worksheet on pages 9-11 that walks you through how to calculate your Offer amount. If you owe LESS than that amount, then you are NOT an Offer candidate – no matter what some sales guy tells you.
Bottom line is that you’re always going to be better off talking to a licensed professional, rather than a sales person that most likely doesn’t know much about actual tax code. Look at it this way: If you get a DUI and want to fight it in court, do you want a consultation with a sales guy at the law firm, or with an actual lawyer?
There are plenty of industries where the salesperson actually is a licensed professional, such as when you’re buying life insurance or working with a real estate agent to buy a house. The tax resolution industry, however, does NOT operate that way. There is a 99.9% chance that the sales guy on the other end of the phone is NOT a licensed taxpayer representative, and to be 100% honest, I have yet to meet a sales person in our industry (which we refer to as “openers” and “closers”, just so you know) that really knew much about taxes, beyond what they are told to say in their script, let alone be a licensed representative. I’m in no way trying to disparage the profession of sales, as I’ve been in it myself for years, but when it comes to owing money to the government, your salesperson needs to be a subject matter expert in order to really determine what services you actually need.
If you want to discuss your case (for free, what a concept, eh?) with a licensed person, feel free to send me an email, or call me directly at 866-627-7654.
Until next time,
Jassen Bowman, EA
(866) 627-7654
Expecting a tax refund this year after you filed your tax return last month? You did file your tax return last month, right? A couple quick things about that.
First, if you have filed an IRS Offer in Compromise and it is pending approval, or it has been accepted, you MUST file your tax returns on time and paid in full for a period of 5 years. If you fail to do this, your Offer in Compromise will be denied or, if already approved, REVOKED, and your full tax liability reinstated.
Second, if you filed your tax return and are waiting for that refund check, you’re going to be waiting for a very long time. One of the conditions of filing an Offer in Compromise is that the IRS will intercept (i.e., take) your tax refunds on any tax returns you file. They will do this through December 31st of the year in which your Offer in Compromise is ACCEPTED. Since it takes usually 6+ months for an Offer in Compromise to work it’s way through the complete bureaucracy of the IRS and negotiate it’s final acceptance, you really don’t want your Offer in Compromise to span multiple years.
If you are thinking about filing an Offer in Compromise anytime soon, do it NOW. Then, try to get it DONE before the end of this year. That way, you will get to keep any tax refund you might be due to get when you file your tax return next year.
If you need assistance with your Offer in Compromise, or have any questions about the Offer program, give me a call, toll free, at (866) 627-7654.
Until next time,
Jassen Bowman, EA
Until 6 months ago, when I embarked on this Olympic shooting adventure, I was a beginning adult freestyle skater. As of Saturday, I am again. Trying to make the Olympic shooting team has been downsized to 3 days a week of my time, as I will be trying to make the team in the fall instead of spring now.
I will be doing ONE figure skating competition this year: Vail.
As of yesterday, I am down to 218 pounds. I haven’t weighed 218 since I passed it on the way UP to 260, about 7 years ago.
I am also working on this Couch to 5k program, in order to get back into running form. What running form? Most believe would find this hard to believe, but “back in the day” when I was in the military, I was a runner. Half marathons, to be exact. I really want to return to that form, and really want to do well on this Warrior Dash thing in August.
Tonight is a light interval thingy – run 1 minute, walk 2, repeat 10 times for 30 minutes.
Tomorrow is a Turbulence Training workout. Ugh, I hate those. Dang you, Craig Ballantyne!