Do Not Deliver

Perhaps I might be considered old-fashioned, but “E‑Newspapers: Digital Deliverance?” [News, February] does not appear likely to deliver me to any place where I would like to be.

I frequently spend a good part of my afternoons downstairs in my office, on my computer, these days organizing all the information necessary for my tax returns, after having been driven substantially mad by the complexities of Medicare, Part D. When I have had enough, I come upstairs.

I sit in a lounge seat, with the back inclined to about 20 degrees from plumb. To my right is a small table with either a martini or a beer, and some foodstuffs of which my cardiologist would disapprove if I dared tell him.

I pick up either the day’s newspaper or a recent magazine and read it, oblivious to the crumbs and liquids that I am spilling on it. It will go to the dump anyway, after I have clipped out anything of interest.

There is no way that I will touch any gadget more complicated than the TV remote control, although after dinner I may have recovered sufficiently to go down and do a bit more work.

“Deliverance?” From what? Apparently, from comfort.

Matthew W. Slate

IEEE Life Member

Sudbury, Mass.

In the Wastelands

I read Peter Fairley’s article on reprocessing nuclear waste [“Nuclear Waste Land,” February] with interest and thought it was well‑written and informative. Nevertheless, I thought one statement was a little misleading—about the loss of 83 cubic meters of material over nine months at Sellafield. This loss was identified by the operators and reported to the safety authorities once it had been confirmed, not the other way around. The material was collected in a secondary containment cell and returned to the process as specified by the plant design, and at no time were plant personnel or the general public subject to an increase in dose uptake as a result of this lapse.

Certainly this was a failure in operation and resulted in a fine. But to refer to this in the same paragraph with a statement about accidents that “polluted rivers and contaminated hundreds of thousands of acres” could mislead your readers.

Joseph Wilkinson

IEEE Member

Whitehaven, England

The author responds: Sellafield’s operator, the British Nuclear Group, rated its May 2005 discovery of leaking spent fuel dissolved in nitric acid a “serious incident” and immediately suspended reprocessing. BNG did not receive a green light to restart from UK regulators until this past January and, as this issue went to press, the plant had yet to do so.

There is one solution to permanent disposal of nuclear waste that I have not seen publicly covered in any article on disposal: dropping secure canisters of waste into the ocean at a point where the ocean’s crust is moving under the continental crust. A submersible transport vehicle is proposed that would carry the waste to a point where the STV becomes molten and heavy atoms will slowly float to the center of the earth.

David P. Perry

IEEE Life Senior Member

Pomona, Calif.

Mayday, Mayday

After reading “Manufacturing Mayday” [News, January], I am concerned over the decision to use aluminum wiring in the Airbus A380. For safety reasons, there are three issues. Many know aluminum is lightweight but do not realize that at small diameters, it is prone to fracture under vibration and stress.

A solution is to go to a large diameter, but that causes significant space issues when you bundle many wires together. The jointing to equipment becomes another weak point as aluminum is not a noble metal (the three noble metals and best conductors in order are gold, silver, and then copper). Most data equipment makes use of these metals as connectors, because they are reliable and secure and meld together as a result of their noble nature.

The design decisions around wiring may build in an inherent flaw caused by high stress and vibration compounded with jointing issues. The A380 is as strong as its weakest point, and fixed wire cabling is the “heart of the aircraft.” I am concerned that this decision, which seems based on other factors than safety, could cause a midair heart attack with disastrous consequences.

Peter Charlton

Singapore

Correction

In “New Tech, Old Fuel” [News, February], “nitrous oxide” should have been nitrogen oxide. In “The Books That Made a Difference” [Resources, March], the first name of science‑fiction writer Alastair Reynolds was misspelled. We regret the errors. —Ed.