AP1000s at VOGTLE APPROVED!

Vogtle will soon be a 4-unit site!

As a young guy in the nuclear industry who has repeatedly been told by the older generation that this nuclear renaissance thing is not gonna happen, I fight an uphill battle convincing folks that I think it will. I've already been involved with the commissioning of 8 reactor plant in my career and want to make that number a lot higher before I'm done. Based on the news today, I have one word... NYAHHH!! I know they haven't completed the site yet, but they have done a ton of non-safety work on the twin-units 3 & 4, which are AP1000 pressurized water reactors built by a consortium of Shaw/Westinghouse, and they can now pour the basemat and begin welding major structures, systems, & components. So those of us who will still be around in this industry in 20-30 years can have some hope that we can put some more on the ground, too.

A few news sources:
• First Nuclear Reactors OK'd in 30 Years - CNN
  
• Vogtle approved - Atlanta Journal Constitution
  
• NRC approves Voglte - Newsday
  
• Plant Vogtle - Southern Company

UPDATE: I was pretty excited when this new came out. I was able to keep a handle on my engineering skils but lost the bubble on my English. So I had to make a few fixes to the sentence structure. My apologies.

Gulf Coast Tourism - Driven by Staycations?

Not sure about the national market, but here in Mississippi I see a "Come Visit the Gulf Coast" commercial like this one a couple of times a night.

According to this BP-funded piece, 2011 was a heckuva year across the Gulf region of TX, LA, MS, AL, and FL. I'm curious how much of that improved tourism was due to an increase in "staycations" and how much was caused because of BP's "everything is OK" marketing campaign. You can be on the Coast from St. Louis in an easy day of driving and from Chicago in a closer to miserable but not too much worse than dealing with the airlines daylong kinda drive. The number of people within an easy/doable drive coupled with the depressed economy seems to point to more people showing up on the Coast. Don't get me wrong, there are some beautiful sites to be seen down here, like these shots from the Emerald Coast of Florida along 30A near one of my preferred destinations.
But it doesn't have the wow factor of Nevis & St Kitts or the Montserrat mystique (here's to Brian Wilson). I'm hoping for the sake of the folks who depend on the influx of cash into the region that whatever the reason, the tourism spike in the Gulf region levels out higher than in the past and has a moderate long-term growth rate instead of creating a big boom-bust cycle.
PS - I wonder how much BP paid to have that cheeseball sandcastle constructed for their spot.

Dr. Hansen Eats Cocoa Puffs

The video in this post over at Watts Up With That demonstrates once again that Dr. James Hansen with Nasa clearly eats Cocoa Puffs. He's said that "the ocean's will begin to boil..." Under any reasonable scenario that I'm aware of, predicted temperatures (EVEN IF YOU BELIEVE THAT WE'RE DOING IT) change only a couple of degrees. So either Columbia University teaches a different kind of thermodynamics than I learned, or he is pretty much cuckoo...



I would LOVE to see the energy balance calculations showing how the oceans boil.

Climategate 2.0 - The Crooks Skated Again

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How is it that anyone who may have valid questions about scientific data has a tough time getting more than a couple of words in edgewise in a discussion about global warming/climate change/weirding/whatever's next with some political science/history major flunkie who speaks the party line and thinks they understand statistics, but many thousands of emails between the guys who started this whole mess doesn't fully discredit them? Maybe we should have gotten some of the AGW proponents like Michael Mann or Phil Jones to comment on some of their employees height in relation to the height of their wife. Apparently that's all it takes to discredit you from a more important goal of something like running the country (see Herman Cain hackjob at Politico).

Regardless of whether their wives are a similar height to any of their coworkers, it drives be absolutely batty that we let people get away with bunk like the original climategate emails, which at least put a moment of hesitation into major policy makers and the public. But the wonks on the left who are using this as a wedge issue can't let go EVEN WHEN THE PERPS DO IT AGAIN, as evidenced by the utter lack of stories on this in the media and the continued mention of global warming (or appropriate, up-to-the-minute-fits-the-data-now alias):

• Climategate 2.0 - New Emails Rock the Global Warming Debate Forbes.com
  
• Climategate 2.0 Emails .torrent file - You’ll need a bit torrent client
  
• Original Climategate Emails .torrent file - You’ll need a bit torrent client
  

I believe, based on some data I have seen, that there are in fact strange things happening in the climate. However I don't believe that there are that many catastrophic changes going on at this point. Based on the climate's behavior in the past when concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) & hydrocarbons like methane (CH4) were higher, I do not believe that the carbon dioxide that has been put into the atmosphere by burning fuel over the last couple of hundred years has had any statistically significant measurable affect on the climate (Univ of East Anglia, Penn State, & the IPCC statistics show you can prove anything). That does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I don't think we should do everything we can to smartly decrease the amount of pollution we spread around the world as well as limit the amount of damage to natural resources. Sustainability is an entirely different focus than climate science, though the two often get commingled. For resources that are finite, we should decrease their usage to extend the quality of life that we have attained. As the lifeblood of all the plant life on the planet, I do not think that CO2 qualifies as pollution. Whatever EPA wonk came up with that one... I can definitively say that they are an idiot. Updated to correct torrent link for Climategate 2.0 as well as add the original emails so they are all in one place.

Kiwanis Nuclear Power Speech

I had the opportunity to speak to the Kiwanis International, Vicksburg Chapter today about nuclear power. I am always amazed at the level of interest from folks who don't have a background in the same admittedly nerdy subjects I've studied. I managed to explain that once you get outside the "hot rock box", a nuke isn't really much different than any other power plant.

If anybody out there would like to hear nuclear power explained in terms normal folks can understand, I would be happy to share what I have learned over the years about the technology.

UPDATE: A friend with whom I served in the Navy recommends the children's book Nuclear Power - by Amelia Frahm - to get the basics of nuclear power across to kids without imparting irrational fear. I haven't read it yet, but I trust Chris's judgement so here is a link to it from Amazon:

Siberian Sea Berry - An Experiment

In the vein of gardening, preparedness, and potential small businesses I decided to perform an experiment with a plant species that for sure will handle the cold winters here in Mississippi, the Siberian Sea Berry, Hippophae rhamnoides. We decided to order them from One Green World and the customer service was great. Now they are in the ground and we will have to play wait and see for a while. They are said to be very healthy and I expect I can ferment any extra for use in the distillation column I'm building. -- did I mention I'm a real nerd?--

According to the Mississippi State University Extension Service, central Mississippi is in the range of acceptable chill hours for this species at 600-800, though on the lower side. I like to be different. If this plant can handle our heat (it's said to be VERY hardy) and produce fruit, we will be the southernmost grower that I can find. There are people out there growing these things in the northeast, like Tom, who is WAY into this species. But I haven't found any evidence of folks growing these as far south as we are. Anyone who has information on growing them or proving me wrong would be welcomed. I'd love to borrow some knowledge from a trail blazer.

Focus Areas for Improvement

Jack Spirko's tenants of modern survivalism are leading me to learn (or relearn) skills that can make my life better. Here are the ones I am focusing on right now:
1. Gardening
2. Food Preservation
3. Energy Independence

I will post some basics of what I've been doing in each area over the next couple of days.

Thoughts on nuclear ships

Given the testimony of some senior people in the Navy, the Navy seems opposed to the idea of nuclear power on a cruiser. So why don't they do a little exercise? How did the Navy estimate fuel costs in the last carrier AoA? Did actual fuel prices in the last 10 years validate those assumptions? If not, how different would the answer be if they had a crystal ball and could have assumed the actual price of fuel today? Why aren't they using the same relative change in fuel price to look at what's going to happen between now and when they build this next generation cruiser they're talking about? The answer might be a little more blaringly obvious if they did.