Humor - Nuclear is Our Future

Weekly Nuclear Poll #16

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Posted on April 30, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Know_Nukes Laws of Energy Policy

1. “There is no such thing as a correct answer.” In other words, there are so many ways to analyze a problem that it must be approached situation-by-situation and any answer only works down to a certain level of approximation.

2. “Any reported number contains a hidden agenda.” This comes from the Chernobyl death estimates saga; for the record, I use the World Health Organization estimate of a maximum of 4,000–with a bit of context, like the fact that Chernobyl was a Soviet bomb factory and no utility would ever go to the added complexity and expense of a Chernobyl-type reactor, that Chernobyl-type reactors were banned in the United States in 1950, that the 4,000 estimate is regarded by all involved in the process to be wrong (it is simply an upper bound), and that the air pollution produced by the fossil fuel plants that replaced Chernobyl can’t be too terribly good for people’s lungs.

3. “Any idea, no matter how bizarre, finds support on the Internet.” I can assure you that this is also true.

Link.

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Posted on April 15, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Weekly Nuclear Poll

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Posted on April 2, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 2 Comments »

Weekly Nuclear Poll #10

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Posted on April 1, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Scientists Figure Out How to Communicate with Public

“You mean we’re supposed to talk to people?” says the scientific community.

The entire scientific community experienced an epiphany this morning at approximately 7:42 AM Central Time, in which everybody figured out how to communicate effectively, honestly, and completely with non-technical audiences. It is also reported that they immediately acquired PR skills, and are in the process of organizing science advocacy networks at colleges and universities around the world.

“I’m completely convinced,” said Nobel laureate Workhardus t’Hooft. “Before, I used to ramble on in technical terms until the audience got lost and storm off after telling people to go take a course. Now, I try to find out where people are, and fit my words to the difference between where they are and the physics I’d like them to know. Excuse me a moment; I’ve got this PR book by Jason Salzman to finish–very good, very good.”

Chemists echoed t’Hooft’s sentiment.

“I really don’t know what I’ve been doing all these years,” said the ghost of Linus Pauling, his face deep in Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. “I was waiting for Halloween to haunt a lab in Building 15D where this one guy has been working on a really obvious problem for the last year and a half, and I can’t stand it. But I’m starting to think about the Greenpeace headquarters–those clowns just have no concept of dose-response.”

Biologists and geologists emphasized the importance of fighting creationism.

“We stand united against what in retrospect were obviously politically-motivated attacks by people who do not care for anything but the destruction of everything that is objective,” read a statement issued by the newly-formed Stop Malicious, Aggressive Creationist Kooks (SMACK) network. Its membership consists of every living Nobel laureate in Chemistry and Medicine, and approximately half in Physics, plus 94% of Ph.D biologists; the remainder probably haven’t woken up yet. Every credible geologist, Discovery Institute Fellows excepted, joined the organization within five minutes of its formation due to an extremely efficient email tree created by an anonymous Princeton graduate student.

Engineering project managers have been outspoken front-line advocates for the new coalition. They blamed the advance of Intelligent Design on a lack of communication on their part.

“Christ, I wish complexity meant intelligence,” said Baltimore-area mechanical engineer Alan Rockwell. “In fact, in every single project I’ve ever worked on, complexity was always a consequence of a lack of centralized coordinating control.”

Newly-united scientists and engineers pledge to get a word in edgewise from now on.

“We shouldn’t have taken advocacy to be a violation of professional ethics. That was a mistake,” said MIT physicist Dana Alvarez, now a spokesperson for the group. “We’re going to start talking to people. We mean that.”

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Posted on April 1, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 3 Comments »

Weekly Nuclear Poll #9

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Posted on March 25, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 2 Comments »

Happy Pi Day

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Posted on March 13, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Environmental Memes Flash Animation

I recently found a hilarious flash animation on environmental memes. I don’t know what strikes me so funny about it; perhaps it’s the voice of the wombat, or how it dies when it uses the word “doomed,” or the reference to tacos, or the pacing, or something else (or a combination). But it’s, um, interesting.

Some of you may not find it funny, but I did.

Filed under Environment, Humor, Their Actions

Posted on March 5, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day

“”You know that thing when you don’t invite an annoying friend to your party, and then, on the night of the party, an acquaintance from work brings that friend as a date?” said Project Awry researcher Hideko Manabe of Kyoto University. “That’s on the list.”

Manabe added: “I believe it’s right after ‘neglecting the maintenance of reactor cooling system, leading to core meltdown.’”"

-Everything That Can Go Wrong Listed, The Onion

First, yes, I know it’s a joke.

Second, if they got rid of unnecessary backups and “safety systems”–or replaced the uncertainty that caused them to install the system in the first place with the ability to computer-model a reactor and the associated powerplant engineering–that wouldn’t happen. Fortunately, that problem was solved in the mid-1980s when computers reached the point where they could model nuclear reactors, eliminating the need for the design shortcuts that made those backups necessary. The quote would not apply to a reactor designed with methods available after 1985 (read: every reactor currently on the US market).
Why is it necessary to eliminate these systems? Three Mile Island happened because these systems that were installed “just in case” divided the attention of safety and maintenance personnel and operators. A device that erodes safety margins by interfering with personnel can hardly be called a “safety system.” It is equally bad to include clutter as it is to exclude safety equipment.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Humor, Physics, Safety

Posted on February 20, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »