09:54 – It was 53.3F (12C) when I took Colin out around 0715 this morning, foggy and drizzling. Barbara’s mulch showed up yesterday around lunchtime, so while Barbara watched, I* spent the afternoon hauling and spreading 80 or so wheelbarrow loads of mulch along the edges of the driveway to cover up the bare red clay fill we’d spread after we had the driveway laid. Here’s the house, looking southwest, with most of the mulch already in place and Colin supervising.
We’ll work indoors today. We have chemicals to make up, bottles to fill and label, and subassemblies for kits to make up. At the moment, this March is running about 15% ahead of last March in revenues, not including any orders that arrive today and tomorrow.
Speaking of kit sales, I shipped an order to Ontario, Canada on the 21st. I got email yesterday evening from the customer, who’d been following the USPS tracking information and wondered why his package was now sitting in Paris, France. Good question. I checked the detailed tracking information and found that it had arrived in Canada, been processed and passed by Canadian customs, who then handed it over to Canada Post, who apparently for some reason sent it to France.
Things with Trump are working out pretty much as I expected. The only difference between him and the powers-that-be in DC is that Trump is a moderate leftie with proggish tendencies, versus the rest of them, who are hard left and committed progs.
I could have told John Adams and the rest of his damned Federalist buddies that this was going to happen. Too bad they didn’t listen to Sam Adams, Tom Jefferson, and the rest of the Anti-Federalists. In fact, it’s too bad they adopted the Constitution at all. We should have known what was good for us and stuck with the Articles of Confederation. Then Lincoln came along and killed the Constitution completely, leaving us with a federal system that rapidly became intolerable. I say we need a complete reboot. Unfortunately, if/when that happens it ain’t gonna be pretty.
* Well, I spent about half an hour hauling about 10 loads of mulch, while Barbara spread it. She hauled and spread the rest while I did other stuff indoors.
* * * * *
Wow. Your new home is lovely, and what a spectacular backdrop!
Thanks. We love it where we are now.
The discussion in yesterday’s comments about mashed potato got me thinking about long-term storage of starchy foods, and that in turn prompted me to wonder about the need for dietary fibre to counteract the effects of too much stodge in the emergency diet. I suppose pure, dry wheat bran would store indefinitely, but are there other suitable sources of roughage for LTS?
RBT, it looks like you would have grazing there for a little flock of sheep for Colin!
“… it had arrived in Canada, been processed and passed by Canadian customs, who then handed it over to Canada Post, who apparently for some reason sent it to France.”
So you *can* deliver kits to Europe after all!
DreamHost had a power failure.
https://www.dreamhoststatus.com/
So I’ll just check e-mail later.
My pickup order at Wal-Mart arrived on Tuesday and Wednesday just as they said it would. I’ll go get it tomorrow.
That /is/ a nice looking place you have.
Is the fence behind the house where the Black Angus Squirrels gather?
Can we get an up to date closeup of Colin please?
Thanks.
As to fiber in LTS, just store what you like to eat now. If you eat whole wheat, store wheat berries or whole-grain flour. That supposedly doesn’t store well, but various people I trust tell me that it stores for years with an oxygen absorber. Otherwise, beans or other vegetables that provide decent amounts of fiber.
As to sheep, our house sits on 1.5 acres (~ 0.6 hectare), but is fenced only along the rear and sides. The front is open to the road. I suggested to Barbara that Colin needed at least one sheep to keep him busy, but she nixed that idea. Then I suggested chickens, also a no-go.
As to European shipments, we ship kits to Europe all the time with no problems except ones we ship to Italy or Spain, whose national postal services apparently suck rocks. Theft is apparently pretty bad in Italy. We’ve only ever shipped one kit to Spain, and that was to a Brit ex-pat. The Spanish postal service notified her that they were holding her kit, but insisted that I provide my passport number to them before they’d deliver it. I don’t have a passport, so they returned it to us. Meanwhile, the customer arranged with us to ship it to her UK address, where it arrived with no problem, but she had to go and get it.
As to dreamhost, their LA data center was so completely down this morning when I checked that even dreamhoststatus.com wasn’t responding. I figured it had to be a power outage with a generator cutover failure.
Yep, the field behind us is part of one of Judge Doughton’s farms. He runs several hundred head of Black Angus squirrels at several farms scattered around the county. I think he normally keeps 50 or 100 head on the one behind us. They haven’t been near the fence for months. At first I thought they were just letting the field lie fallow, but Barbara tells me that they have some major issues with the fencing in that field. Since last autumn, the only time we see the cattle is in an adjoining field several hundred yards beyond our back fence.
Herding dogs are perfectly happy herding children — I speak from experience. There’s no shortage of children for Colin to care for: between 25-year-old “dreamer” children “illegally” crossing the southern border and 40-year-old refugee children arriving by plane, there’s a virtually unlimited supply.
[snip] but insisted that I provide my passport number to them before they’d deliver it. [snip]
Whenever I get some absurd demand for a sequence of numbers, I cut & past the appropriate number of digits from a standard approximation of pi. I always start at a particular place, so I can reproduce it if I have to. And FWIW, a United States Passport is a nine digit integer.
Americans, having grown up is a high-trust society, have trouble understanding how low-trust societies work. (I’m including myself in that blanket statement. I’ve travelled to many low-trust countries on both military business and business business, and I know about it but still have to remind myself for every interaction.)
There’s a reason that the Anglosphere’s and northern Europe’s productivity greatly outpaced that of the rest of the world. Too bad our Lords and Masters and Just Generally Betters are doing everything in their power to destroy societal trust in government and each other.
“Westinghouse Bankruptcy Filing Darkens Nuclear Project Futures”
https://www.arcweb.com/blog/westinghouse-bankruptcy-filing-darkens-nuclear-project-futures
Not good. Of course, the future in nuclear is probably as small neighborhood heat sources using just decay rather than fission.
And nuclear fusion is just 30 years away.
Here’s the house, looking southwest, with most of the mulch already in place and Colin supervising.
Dude, nice, nice, nice ! I am jealous. And the new driveway is excellent.
We are uncharacteristically cold here in the Land of Sugar today. 69 F at lunch time and the weather liars say that we will be 79 F today. Nevertheless, the air conditioners are spinning.
Here, the snow has melted, at least the snow which got afternoon sun. Probably under 10% of the ground I can see from my office window still has snow cover. And the furnace doesn’t come on as often as it had been.
Actually, I almost turned on the AC after dinner yesterday. It was 77F (25C) in the house, and even I switched to a short-sleeve t-shirt. It was horrible for Barbara. My ideal is about 74F, but hers is mid-60’s.
We keep the south side of the house at 73 F and the north side at 72 F (I love burrowing under covers). The master bedroom is on the north side of the house.
We keep the south side of the office at 75 F and the north side at 73 F, I am on the northwest side of the office.
In the 30 (SWAG) non-contiguous days known as the heating season, we keep the house at 68 F and the office at 70 F.
Our county judge gave the state of the county address over the week. Fort Bend County, FBC, is the fastest growing county in the USA. We are currently at 756,000 people and he expects FBC to be at one million people in 2024. The county budget reflects this growth and was 298 million dollars last year and is 340 million dollars this year. I suspect that new roads are a significant part of those figures as the traffic is the number one complaint in FBC.
“Dude, nice, nice, nice ! I am jealous. And the new driveway is excellent.”
Thanks. You’ll be even jealouser if you look at home prices up here. When we were looking, we set our top price at $250K because we wanted to be able to pay cash comfortably. This house came in under that. It’s smaller than our former house; only about 1625 square feet on the main floor and another 800 SF or so in the finished area downstairs. It’s also only 3 BR rather than 4, and just one full bath each upstairs and down plus a half bath in the upstairs foyer. It does sit on 1.5 acres versus about 0.4 acres of our house in Winston. The drive was gravel when we bought the house, but Barbara really, really wanted to pave it, so we did last autumn. That came in at about $11,000, which would have cost 150% to 200% of that in Winston. Of course, it didn’t hurt that there’s a concrete plant only 2 or 3 miles from our house.
@lynn, also miles of water main going in so the new developments can drink…
currently 82F and 35%RH in my driveway. Sunny with scattered clouds.
NICE day.
quick stop at the scrapyard, $20 for a bucket of wire previously stripped out of stuff, and some Al bracketry.
now, off to do my volunteer work for our rec association.
n
Speaking of county commissioners, there was an article in the local paper today about the county commissioners’ meeting. The last paragraph read, “All commissioners were present, and all decisions were unanimous.” I commented to Barbara that that was extraordinary. She didn’t understand what I thought was so unusual. I told her that the last time Forsyth County (Winston) had a CC meeting where all decisions were unanimous was probably never in history, and the last time *any* decision was unanimous was probably at least 50 years ago, excepting things like ceremonial stuff.
Very nice house, Dr. Bob. I wish I could get MrsAtoz interested in areas like that.
MrsAtoz is getting her hair done, here, in Ft. Meyers. I decided to go to the local mall since I saw a “Books A Million” sign. Remember them? They still exist! About half books and half junk and all White people inside, unlike the rest of the mall. I didn’t buy anything.
Next week comes the brutal biz trip: drive to LA, back to Vegas next day, off to Dallas the same day, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and home to Vegas. All back-to-back. All to collect goobermint $$ from school Federal Grant programs. Keep it coming President tRump! It’s for the chillin’.
Dang, the price on KSG has really come down. They were going for $1200
http://grabagun.com/kel-tec-ksgsngy-tactical-pump-shotgun.html
Great truck gun/ riot/ zombie gun….
n
“Dude, nice, nice, nice ! I am jealous. And the new driveway is excellent.”
Thanks. You’ll be even jealouser if you look at home prices up here. When we were looking, we set our top price at $250K because we wanted to be able to pay cash comfortably. This house came in under that. It’s smaller than our former house; only about 1625 square feet on the main floor and another 800 SF or so in the finished area downstairs. It’s also only 3 BR rather than 4, and just one full bath each upstairs and down plus a half bath in the upstairs foyer. It does sit on 1.5 acres versus about 0.4 acres of our house in Winston. The drive was gravel when we bought the house, but Barbara really, really wanted to pave it, so we did last autumn. That came in at about $11,000, which would have cost 150% to 200% of that in Winston. Of course, it didn’t hurt that there’s a concrete plant only 2 or 3 miles from our house.
I paid $357K for our one story 3,010 ft2 4/3/2 house with a large pool / spa on 1/3rd acre in the Land of Sugar ETJ back in Jan 2013. Home prices have risen since then, plus I added a 455 ft addition for $90K back in 2015. Today, based on other house listings around me, I would ask $475K for it.
Asphalt is $2.50/ft2 around here (3 inches deep) with no surface prep. Concrete is $6.50/ft2 including mild surface prep (leveling, steel, and forms). I still have about 5,000 ft2 of gravel road on the office main road that I plan to get asphalted in the next year or three.
BTW, I am with Barbara. Gravel driveways are a pain. Very high maintenance from potholes and very dirty, especially to your vehicle.
Can we get an up to date closeup of Colin please?
Barbara has a picture on her blog.
http://www.fritchman.com/journal/?p=4105
Things with Trump are working out pretty much as I expected. The only difference between him and the powers-that-be in DC is that Trump is a moderate leftie with proggish tendencies, versus the rest of them, who are hard left and committed progs.
BTW, I am now fairly sure that we will have a Single Payer (Medicare) system for all people by the end of this year, 2017. This is just about the only thing that I see the Dumbocrats voting for it when half of the Repugnicans will not. I hope that it will work out like I think it will. After all, what could go wrong ?
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158964329946/the-systems-president
One of the features I liked was the garage, which adds about 800 SF of well-insulated space that could easily become living space if we needed it to host more people than would fit in the house proper.
Which reminds me that I need to build or buy a woodstove to install in there.
One of the features I liked was the garage, which adds about 800 SF of well-insulated space that could easily become living space if we needed it to host more people than would fit in the house proper.
That is a very large two car garage. Most are around +-500 ft2. Does it have an extension ?
Nope. It’s 28×29 feet inside, with an insulated attic. It’s a well enough insulated space that it’s never fallen below freezing in there even when outside temps were below 0F for a couple days running.
I concur, a wonderful property!
From above: ”Whenever I get some absurd demand for a sequence of numbers, ….”
… or, a telephone no., I give ’em 867-5309.
Jenny
Nope. It’s 28×29 feet inside, with an insulated attic. It’s a well enough insulated space that it’s never fallen below freezing in there even when outside temps were below 0F for a couple days running.
Cool, no warm ! Nice size garage.
My detached garage is 22 ft wide by 31 ft long. And has no insulation whatsoever with many gaps, including a 34 inch by six ft gap in the back wall for a future back door.
My perfect garage is 40 ft wide by 40 ft long. The wife thinks that is wasteful.
The rear and side walls are frame, so we’d loose a foot each of depth and width if we had to sandbag them since it’d have to be along the inner surface of the wall. I also have 2×6 and 4×4 lumber and enough rope to build bunk beds to sleep 6 or 8, with the top bunks low enough to be shielded by a 4′ to 5′ sandbag wall.
Given that it’s the end of March, I can state, without hesitation, that during the winter 2016 – 2017 I had to turn the heat on in my house exactly twice, on consecutive mornings in January. That is all.
@lynn, also miles of water main going in so the new developments can drink…
I would guess (SWAG) that over half of the new home subdivisions in Fort Bend County are using well water from wells inside the subdivision. Very few of them are in the city limits. My subdivision will be annexed by Sugar Land on Dec 17 of this year so we will no longer be in the ETJ (extra territorial jurisdiction) of Sugar Land. At that point, Sugar Land’s population will be around 130,000.
And, there are miles and miles of sewer pipes with many, many, many lift stations filled with poop water. Most of the subdivisions in Fort Bend County outside the cities have their own sewage treatment plants. We separate the solids out and throw the cleaned water back into the Brazos River.
And miles and miles of natural gas pipes.
Got an idea for serious protection of a garage door (other than sandbags) ?
Gabions.
I was sorta hoping for an idea that would leave the garage door still useful for vehicles.
Got an idea for serious protection of a garage door (other than sandbags) ?
During hurricane season in Florida, the Home Depot/Lowes stores sell vertical bracing systems for the garage doors. However, these are designed primarily to keep wind out, not determined varmints.
Once the attachment point bolts are in place, the braces install/uninstall easily.
Garage doors are so vulnerable (not that I’m not jealous of any sort of garage, or even just a carport).
What does the Bat Cave use?
That hurricane stuff does sound like a good idea, rigged to just let your vehicle out without a whole lot of wrenching.
I’m partly trying to provoke ideas here, now…
I assumed you meant ballistic protection.
“”I assumed you meant ballistic protection.””
Well, yeah, and wall bashers like have been described here lately…
I just mean that garage doors can be pushed in by, say, two stout guys, or just wind. A thin metal shell and a little styrofoam insulation (if any) ain’t gonna stop anything.
Hmm… Maybe some wire baskets full of gravel (gabions) on wheels, set up to roll aside? Maybe could actually put them outside, locked with chains? I guess that would attract the wrong kind of attention…
Given that it’s the end of March, I can state, without hesitation, that during the winter 2016 – 2017 I had to turn the heat on in my house exactly twice, on consecutive mornings in January. That is all.
We hit 21 F in the Land of Sugar in January this year. 24 F the next day. Both of the house heaters were running. So was the pool pump (turns on at 37 F for pipe protection). So were both of the office heaters.
This was the coldest that we have been in several years. I hope lots of bugs died. Not enough snakes, I have seen three so far this year. And one of my guys watched two snakes swim across the north pond this afternoon after the mowing guy finished, 14 acres with 9 acres of actual grass to mow, that took him a while.
Hmm… Maybe some wire baskets full of gravel (gabions) on wheels, set up to roll aside? Maybe could actually put them outside, locked with chains? I guess that would attract the wrong kind of attention…
Cantilevered with a really long lever ? I seem to remember that Batman’s cave exit door of rocks flipped up.
“”Cantilevered with a really long lever ? I seem to remember that Batman’s cave exit door of rocks flipped up.””
Now we’re thinking! Of course, Batman’s cave door was just thin fiberglass, fake rock!
Hmm… That might be the ticket for just making a house garage door _look_ tough!
Might work better to paint stacks of odd junk (in perspective) on the garage door: cardboard boxes labeled “Xmas decorations” and “old bicycle parts” and “latex paint” …
I think I’ll trademark this idea !!
Or… Paint Barbara’s rock pattern across the garage door.
I’m sorta assuming that the average banger is not terribly bright, of course.
WD Purple 8TB Surveillance Hard Disk Drive – 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 Gb/s 128MB Cache 3.5 Inch – WD80PUZX
https://www.amazon.com/Purple-Surveillance-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B01C2PWLZW/
Does anyone know if this 8 TB WD hard drive for $284 would be a good internal backup drive for one of my file servers ? We write a LAN backup to three internal backup drives each night. I hate to buy a 6 TB drive as our LAN backup is over 3 TB now. So I am looking for the cheapest WD 8 TB hard drive.
Just for the typical Amazon comment / review comic relief, I’m gonna say that it will be a long time before I need a 6TB or 8TB hard drive, so I have no idea what it might be worth, so why did you ask me?
Are there actually people on Amazon who figure they should reply to any question or review request with “I have no clue” ??
Even worse is the Amazon review that admits that the well-described 10 mm widget would not fit his (or likely, her; call me sexist) 10 inch application, so one star because the buyer / reviewer is an idiot.
We hit 21 F in the Land of Sugar in January this year. 24 F the next day. Both of the house heaters were running. So was the pool pump (turns on at 37 F for pipe protection). So were both of the office heaters.
This was the coldest that we have been in several years.
This was our third Winter in Austin, and it was milder than the previous two. Orlando actually seemed colder two weeks ago.
“Got an idea for serious protection of a garage door (other than sandbags) ?”
.50BMG
Yesterday afternoon we had most of the grass showing. Brown grass, but grass nevertheless.
This morning, 100% snow cover. Not much, maybe an inch of new snow, but snow nevertheless.
The critters are no doubt annoyed. Yesterday a bunch of robins and wrens and such were hopping around, looking for worms or whatever. I saw a bunch of mammals out by the woodline. I heard the morning chorus. Today… not so much. There are some mammals’ footprints in the snow out back, but not a glimpse or a peep out of any birds.
Mega/meta article on the use and history of NVIS for HF radio communication.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11235-017-0287-2
Just like it was
3040 years ago.Personally, I think the future is in molten salt fission reactors. Preferably with Thorium as the fissionable material. I will be shocked if it happens in the west though.
lynn said:
When I was researching home surveillance systems that include a video recorder, the better and best models all had WD Purple HDs. The are designed to withstand constant spinning and do not have an “internal feature” that spins them down after a certain amount of time. Because they are designed to run constantly and in what could be a critical system they would be a good choice for a backup situation.
FWIW, recently ALL Seagate drives I had in service have failed in various ways, anywhere from 1 to 5 years old (ones I got from Costco I returned and got refunds, receipts are your friend). I was backing up my Seagate drives with WD drives to avoid like system failures and it saved my bacon (data) in this case. I watch for WD drives to go on deal on Amazon and if I have spare cash I buy them if they are Red, Blue, or Purple.
Dave wrote:
“Personally, I think the future is in molten salt fission reactors. Preferably with Thorium as the fissionable material. I will be shocked if it happens in the west though.”
Not economic at the moment, as far as I’m aware. Whenever I see people touting nuclear energy they always want government involvement (i.e. money) or higher taxes on rival energy sources.
Lynn wrote:
“Barbara has a picture on her blog.
http://www.fritchman.com/journal/?p=4105”
Ahh, thanks. I only go to her page about once a month.
I wonder if he ever lets his ears down.
When he came home with us at 9.5 weeks old, both of his ears were floppy. (http://www.ttgnet.com/daynotes/2011/2011-17.html#Wed). Soon thereafter, one of them stood up and then went back down. Then the other one stood up and went back down. For several days, they’d stand up apparently at random. It got more and more common for both to be standing up, and that’s the way they stayed, eventually.
He has complete control of each ear, independently. To some extent, the positioning reflects his moods. He flattens them both when he’s frightened, and flattens just one or the other when he’s annoyed with one of us. When he sleeps, they’re both usually standing straight up and slowly rotating like a radar dish. The audio sensing part of his brain is fully functional while he’s asleep. Actually, the only time it’s inactive is when I’m telling him to do something.
When I was researching home surveillance systems that include a video recorder, the better and best models all had WD Purple HDs. The are designed to withstand constant spinning and do not have an “internal feature” that spins them down after a certain amount of time. Because they are designed to run constantly and in what could be a critical system they would be a good choice for a backup situation.
Thanks ! I did not know that the purple drives do not spin down. Our LAN backup only runs 3 to 4 hours per day and I would rather the drive spin down during the down time. I will wait for the WD 8 TB red drives to get back in stock at Big River. Right now the only available drives are by exotic resellers. I wonder if WD is running out of helium ?
https://www.amazon.com/Red-8TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B01BYLY4DM/
This is why I hang out here at RBT’s Bar. Lots of people here way smarter than me.
Ahh, thanks. He defines cuteness…
One tech for fission that looks reasonable is pebble bed reactors. Like the molten salt reactors, they can be failsafe to coolant failure. The US had one back in the 70s, but the new development is in China.
As for fusion, one of the problems ITER has had is being situated in France. They have had multiple work stoppages due to one union or another going on strike. Seems like they lose about a month a year to that. Also, nothing gets done in France in August, as nearly the whole nation goes on vacation. Just about everything except essential services, tourist stuff, food stores, etc. gets closed – nice restaurants, small shops, etc. all closed. From what I have seen, the US has been on time and budget with deliveries. The EU has not.
Also, the EU countries are incredibly bureaucratic. One of my favorite stories on them is the cost that to name the US node on the ISS “Unity” was over $250k. It was a thousand or so to have the blueprint changed and have someone paint that on the side. The rest was the cost of changing the documents from “Node 1” to “Unity” and get all the boards at NASA, CSA, JAXA, USSR, and ESA to add it to the agenda and approve the change. Took a year, most of the time was spent at the ESA.
“He defines cuteness…”
Yes and no. Here’s one from the following week.
http://www.ttgnet.com/daynotes/2011/2011-18.html#Sat
Seems to me the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire could have renamed the node for the price of a can of spray paint.
Dad’s comment and experienced opinion regarding nuclear reactors: I have had just about enough experience with every type of reactor you may have heard about and many that are classified to be considered a little bit of an expert. I’ll not get into a long dissertation, but the bottom line is the safest type of reactor is basically a water cooled natural circulation reactor. The Navy has experimented with every reactor type there is and has perfected the water cooled natural circulation (yes, they still use pumps too but that is only to get maximum power output). It is too bad that the commercial nuclear industry does not use the Navy systems, extremely safe, high power density, infrequent need to refuel, and long life. Sure they cost more at the start, but at the end of lifetime of the reactor vessel (which is the limiting factor due to Neutron Embrittlement) it is far cheaper dollar wise and radiation exposure wise.
Anything can be used as a moderator in a reactor, yes a University even built a manure moderated reactor.
Edit/Add: I forgot to mention that in the event of a major leak the current generation of Navy Reactors will shut down and not melt down and in the event they are inundated with salt water they will also shut down and not melt down.
Rumor has it that the experimental reactor at RPI successfully used business majors as control rods, with exactly the same efficacy as sacks full of manure. The test using students from the nearby women’s liberal arts college* was, alas, a failure. They were much too vacuous to do any good.
* Russell Sage College, named for the founder of RPI. The tale told to incoming RPI students was that Mr Sage hated three things: liberal arts, educating women, and his wife. And so, after his death his widow used his money to found a women’s liberal arts college and named it after him. The tale apparently isn’t quite true, but it makes for a good story.
Dad’s comment and experienced opinion regarding nuclear reactors: I have had just about enough experience with every type of reactor you may have heard about and many that are classified to be considered a little bit of an expert. I’ll not get into a long dissertation, but the bottom line is the safest type of reactor is basically a water cooled natural circulation reactor. The Navy has experimented with every reactor type there is and has perfected the water cooled natural circulation (yes, they still use pumps too but that is only to get maximum power output). It is too bad that the commercial nuclear industry does not use the Navy systems, extremely safe, high power density, infrequent need to refuel, and long life. Sure they cost more at the start, but at the end of lifetime of the reactor vessel (which is the limiting factor due to Neutron Embrittlement) it is far cheaper dollar wise and radiation exposure wise.
Are these Navy reactors single loops where the steam is generated off the reactor and piped straight into the steam turbine ? IE, boiling water reactors ?
All new commercial reactors built since 1975 ??? have been PWRs, pressurized water reactors with two water loops. The first loop is high pressure water (2000+ psia) that does not vaporize and goes from the reactor to a heat exchanger (steam generator). The second loop is low pressure water (500+ psia) that boils in the heat exchanger (steam generator) and goes to the steam turbine.
Looks like most of the modern Naval reactors are PWRs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S6G_reactor
So if the reactor is on dry land, how do you get natural water flow through the steam generator to cool the primary water loop ?
And I think the Navy reactors use 90+% U rods whereas the commercial reactors use 5% U rods. If you have 5% U rods, they cannot be used for bomb material without extremely significant enhancement.
Does a sub have to be cut open to refuel/put in a new reactor?
These days all Navy Nukes are basically PWRs, there have been liquid metal and gas in the past, but all had Primary Loops that took heat generated by the reactor and transferred that heat to a Steam Generator that transferred that heat to water turning into steam in the Secondary Loops.
Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) are cheap, hazardous, and maintenance nightmares and were never considered for submarine use because they are too noisy.
Dry land or in the water, it is the design of the piping system that allows natural circulation when the pumps are not work.
The reactor vessel is never replaced and the current design of submarine plants is so that they never have to be refueled, with an expected life of at least 30-years (in reality more, and Neutron Embrittlement of the reactor vessel is the limiting factor).
When we used to have to refuel subs, yes we had to cut a big hole in the submarine. A long and complicated process. I have been through a refueling on 2 submarines, both now decommissioned.