• Tag Archives Chernobyl
  • I Want To Like Nuclear Power

    Spring                                                                                    Waning Bloodroot Moon

    Japan.  Nuclear power.  Climate change.  Not a pretty picture.  I don’t know about others, but I want to like nuclear power.  Its non-carbon emitting energy production has a potential role in staving off the worst effects of global warming.  However.  With no place to store the waste permanently, the waste gets stored temporarily near the reactor in which it was used.  This seems safe.  Look at Prairie Island.  After all these years, still no trouble.  Then again.  How many years do we have to have in a row with no trouble?  25,000 or so, I believe.  That’s a long run.

    That’s not all.  Situations develop, human error, mechanical failure, maintenance scrimping, natural disasters with unforseen confluences, say an F5 tornado and a once in a century flood.  Could happen over the span of over 25,000 years.  Probably will.  Three Mile Island and Chernobyl had become objects in the rear view mirror, errors, mistakes, but over with.  Until Fukushima.

    Now, suddenly, they begin to look links in a chain, a nuclear chain.  Remember Godzilla?  Them?  The 50 Foot Woman?  Radiation.  Now there’s radioactive iodine in the sea.  I want to like nuclear power, but I’m having a hard time.  The stakes of mistakes seem too high.  At least for now.

    Wish somebody would get a good fusion reactor goin’.


  • Ukraine to open Chernobyl area to tourists in 2011. No. Really.

    Samhain                                                  Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice

    Kate woke me up, wiggling my ankle.  There’s no dog food.  Oh.  I’m not at my best just after I get up, but in this case I had to throw on some clothes and step outside, to the back of the truck and hoist a bag of dog food, 40#, carry it back inside, slit it open and pour the next week and a half’s worth of food for Vega and Rigel into the bin.  It was a sharp surprise, the difference between the bed and the outdoors.  It was -12 out there.  Geez.

    The headline on the sports page this morning was great:  Roof Da!  I’ve not seen anyone take up my many worlds hypothesis as an explanation, but it might be that the cosmologists and theoretical physicists haven’t seen my facebook post yet.

    These are the times that try men’s snowblowers (Women’s, too, for that matter.)

    OK.  Here’s a headline I never expected to see:

    Ukraine to open Chernobyl area to tourists in 2011

    This takes adventure tourism to a new place.  You’ll glow.  You’ll shine.  You’ll see your inner self.