nuclear power -- is it safe to go back in the water again?

Thanks in part to the 1979 movie "The China Syndrome" and the accidents at Three Mile Island (also in 1979) and, most notably, Chernobyl (in 1986), most folks duck and cover when someone suggests a return to nuclear power generation. This was an understandable reaction for that day, since the designs of nuclear power plants were indeed dangerous (obviously).

Times (and designs) have changed. The new kid on the block is called PBR, which stand for Pebble Bed Reactor, also known as PBMR or Pebble Bed Modular Reactor. So what's the big deal? The links at the end of this entry will give you all the details, but ...

Safety, for one thing. Cost, for another. And a bonus (and badly needed) byproduct for yet another.

The pebbles (which contain the fuel) in a PBR are specifically designed (due to an effect called "doppler broadening") to shut down the nuclear reaction as they get hotter. So, there's no possibility of a runaway reaction.

The problems with liquid cooling (which in the old design accounted for a much larger amount of the reactor facility than the reactor itself) are gone. PBR reactors use an inert or semi-inert gas such as helium, nitrogen or carbon dioxide for cooling. Any leak (much less likely than in prior designs) would have a very low level of radioactivity since these gases do not readily absorb neutrons or other impurities.

PBRs are designed using small, self-contained modules, each roughly the size of half a football field. Need more power? Tack on a few more. No more need for sprawling complexes and ultra-complicated interconnecting hardware, software and people.

The valuable byproduct? Hydrogen. Lots of it. Our need for commercially available hydrogen will grow exponentially as the fuel cell industry moves forward from the testing environment into everyday use. PBRs will provide a ready source for our growing hydrogen gas appetite.

Of course, there are flaws in every design, and these systems are no different. What is different is that PBRs use fuel that is specifically designed to be self-limiting. The Germans, the South Africans and the Dutch (among others) are pursuing this technology. Let's not let past fears cloud our evaluation of new, promising technology that can free us from our addiction to oil.

Is it safe to go back in the water? I say so. Do your own research (starting with the links below) and see if it makes sense to you as well. If it does, voice your opinion to those who can make it happen.

Phillip Dunn: Safe Nuclear Power and Green Hydrogen Fuel

Wikipedia article on the Pebble Bed Reactor

not always as they seem

British film director Ken Russell ("Women in Love," "Tommy," "Altered States") developed a schoolboy crush on US actress Dorothy Lamour (13 years his senior) when he was only ten years old. Her exotic roles in the "road" pictures with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby fueled this youthful fire by adding the allure of the South Pacific as a backdrop to his fixation. As a young man, he joined the British Merchant Navy in hopes of traveling to the South Pacific and realizing his romantic dream.

What Russell found was water. Lots of water. No Pacific islands. No Dorothy Lamour. His early life obsession was permanently crushed upon the discovery that the closest Ms Lamour had been to the South Pacific was a water tank on the Paramount Studios back lot.

Mother Teresa began her lifelong service to God and the poor at age 18. She lived and worked tirelessly among the impoverished of India, and was instrumental in focusing world attention on the plight of the homeless and seriously ill. She was not an actress, pretending to be something she was not. She was the real deal, always ready to divert attention from herself and onto the desperate needs of those less fortunate than most.

How often do we succumb to the images of people who languish in the spotlight, waiting for their next close-up? And how many times do we quickly latch on to an attractive idea or pursuit without giving much thought to its foundation or to our reasons for being attracted to it?

"Things are not always what they seem to be." An old, familiar phrase to be sure. But never more relevant.

Before you pursue that dream, before you cast that vote, look below the surface and think.

simplifying your life

Sir Alfred Hitchcock, the famed Hollywood filmmaker and producer, wore the same thing almost every day -- a blue suit, white shirt, black socks. He wore no jewelry of any kind, not even a wrist watch. His reason was that being simply dressed helped him avoid unwanted distraction. Hitchcock was once quoted as saying,

"I'm full of fears and I do my best to avoid difficulties and any kind of complications. I like everything around me to be clear as crystal and completely calm."

Western society works hard every day to prevent us from simplifying our lives and to distract us from what we believe to be our important tasks. Television, radio, the Internet, magazines, store displays, families, friends and associations -- all compete for our attention and offer hundreds, even thousands of things on which they want us to focus. The challenge, then, is to first determine what our important tasks are (not as easy as it sounds), and then to do all we can to avoid being distracted from them.

Hitchcock was a master at his craft, most likely because he loved it so much. The secret for him, and I suspect most other wildly successful people, was passion. His passion gave him the courage and discipline to take whatever steps were necessary to simplify his existence to the exclusion of all except the attainment of his goal.

Simplifying your life is not just something you do to create calmness. Sure, that's the immediate payoff, but there's so much more. Once you're calm, you can dream without effort, and easily turn those dreams into goals and plans. Now you're reaching your human potential, and that's what it's really all about.

Blue suit, white shirt, black socks. Simple colors on the outside. A rainbow of possibilities on the inside.

Experts say we must explore space

I've written before about the need to explore space. That need remains, and now I add more fuel to the fire by referring to you the following list (compiled by author and space advocate Sylvia Engdahl) of books (and a video) by noted scientists and researchers.

Pick up one (or more) of them on your next trip to the bookstore. Give it a read and report your impressions to me. Let me know if your view has been changed or remains as it was before the read.

• The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth by William E. Burrows


• The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space: Apogee Books Space Series 12 (Apogee Books Space Series) by Gerard K. O'Neill


• The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must by Robert Zubrin


• Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization by Robert Zubrin


• Return to the Moon: Exploration, Enterprise, and Energy in the Human Settlement of Space by Harrison H. Schmitt


• Return to the Moon (Apogee Books Space Series) by Rick N. Tumlinson


• Moonrush: Improving Life on Earth with the Moon's Resources: Apogee Books Space Series 43 (Apogee Books Space Series) by Dennis Wingo


• Mining The Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets (Helix Book) by John S. Lewis


• The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage


• Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan


• RealSpace: The Fate of Physical Presence in the Digital Age, On and Off Planet by Paul Levinson


• The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, Second Edition (Library of Flight Series) by Frank White


• Spacefaring: The Human Dimension by Albert A. Harrison


• Beyond Earth: The Future of Humans in Space (Apogee Books Space Series) by PhD, Bob Krone


• Disturbing The Universe (Sloan Foundation Science Series) by Freeman J. Dyson


• Out of the Cradle: Exploring the Frontiers Beyond Earth by William K. Hartmann


• Gaia Selene - Saving the Earth by Colonizing the Moon DVD video


• The Far Side of Evil by Sylvia Engdahl


• Journey Between Worlds by Sylvia Louise Engdahl


• The high road by Ben Bova


• The Space Enterprise by Harry G. Stine


• Doomsday has been cancelled by J. Peter Vajk


• Space Colonies (A Coevolution book) by Stewart Brand


• The fertile stars by Brian O'Leary


• Spaceships of the mind by Nigel Calder