What It Is Like Working in a Nuclear Power Plant, Part Doh!

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Friday January 15, 2010 · 10:59 AM PST

2010/01/15 · 10:59

This diary is dedicated to the 40 or so people who read my earlier diaryand encouraged me to write a sequel. You have no one to blame but yourselves.

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Warning! This diary may evoke disturbing mental images. Reader discretion is advised.
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48 votes Show Results

Reader Reaction

48 votes Vote Now!

Reader Reaction

I'm going to need therapy.

7 votes

Curse you Blubba! I just know I'm going to dream about taking my college finals wearing nothing but a canary yellow thong. Again.

10 votes

I laughed, I cried. I have a new found will to live.

31 votes

What it is Like Working at a Nuclear Power Plant

Blubba

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Saturday January 09, 2010 · 9:57 PM PST

2010/01/09 · 21:57

In junior high I read Studs Terkel's Working, a collection of interviews with regular stiffs talking about their jobs. It made a deep impression on me. I was struck by how wrong many of my preconceived notions were. I remember the waitress who loved her job and was genuinely enthusiastic about providing good service to her customers. Where I expected the waitress to be bored and restless I found a dignified intelligent person enjoying her career. Then there was the jaded newspaper boy. Where I somehow envisioned the newspaper boy would be happy and greeted at every door with milk and cookies, I saw a cynic. My recollection is he did nothing but complain about the flinty people on his route who constantly tried to stiff him for the subscription.

With that, allow me to provide some insights about work at nuclear power plants. Depending on the feedback I'll do others, otherwise I won't waste your time and mine.

Blubba

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Thursday December 24, 2009 · 8:25 AM PST

2009/12/24 · 08:25

If you were hoping to read a diary about Iran's or North Korea's nuclear weapons program (or anyone's nuclear weapons program) move along. This diary will describe some lesser known programs managed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Its going to get a little sciencey, so strap in.

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43 votes Show Results

Can you guess which of the following is true? Please use a #2 mouse cursor and make sure your selection is completely filled in.

43 votes Vote Now!

Can you guess which of the following is true? Please use a #2 mouse cursor and make sure your selection is completely filled in.

IAEA developed red grapefuit.

17 votes

IAEA's first "product" was pink lemons, from which the original pink lemonade was made in the 1950s.

9 votes

IAEA created blue potatoes.

17 votes

The Price of Price-Anderson

Blubba

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Tuesday July 01, 2008 · 8:09 PM PDT

2008/07/01 · 20:09

Critics of nuclear power like to claim that nuclear power is heavily subsidized and one of the biggest alleged subsidies (and one that makes activists positively apoplectic) has to do with the Price-Anderson Nuclear Indemnity Act (PAA) and accident liability. It is obvious from recent comments made on Kos that many people are under the mistaken impression that Uncle Sam cuts annual checks to Acme Insurance to pay the liability premiums for the country's 104 nuclear plants and have suggested, for example, that those tax dollars would be better spent installing solar panels on everyone's roof. PAA isn't that kind of subsidy, if you want to call it that.

Poll

10 votes Show Results

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things is contrary. Can you guess which of these things is not like the others, before I finish this diary?

10 votes Vote Now!

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things is contrary. Can you guess which of these things is not like the others, before I finish this diary?

a. A bunch of cancer patients once filed for, and received, compensation under Price Anderson over some experimental radiation treatments that went wrong.

2 votes

b. The Mutual of Omaha offers a homeowner's insurance policy rider to cover losses up to $100,000 for damages not reimbursed by Price-Anderson in the event of a worst case accident.

2 votes

c. A bunch of cancer patience one file for, and were denied compensation, as a result of the Three Mile Island Accident.

6 votes

The Story Behind "Too Cheap to Meter"

Blubba

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday March 02, 2008 · 7:29 AM PST

2008/03/02 · 07:29

In September 1954, Lewis L. Strauss, chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, gave a speech before the National Association of Science Writers. He said:

"It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter, will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age. This is a forecast of an age of peace."

Poll

47 votes Show Results

Can you guess which of the following is incorrect about Lewis Strauss? Please use a #2 mouse cursor and make sure your selection is completely filled in. Keep your eyes on your own monitor!

47 votes Vote Now!

Can you guess which of the following is incorrect about Lewis Strauss? Please use a #2 mouse cursor and make sure your selection is completely filled in. Keep your eyes on your own monitor!

At 23, Lewis Strauss persuaded Herbert Hoover to persuade President Woodrow Wilson to recognize Finland's independence from Russia.

7 votes

During WWII Strauss worked to perfect one of America's secret weapons, the proximity fuse.

5 votes

Strauss abhorred the idea of dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese people.

7 votes

Strauss pushed hard for the development of the hydrogen bomb.

7 votes

Strauss was active in Jewish causes, but opposed Chaim Weizmann's plan to establish a Jewish homeland in Israel, preferring instead assimilation and the establishment of a refuge in Africa for all persecuted people.

3 votes

Strauss became wealthy as an investment banker with only a high school education.

18 votes

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What It Is Like Working in a Nuclear Power Plant, Part Doh!

What it is Like Working at a Nuclear Power Plant

IAEA: Mutants vs. Aliens

The Price of Price-Anderson

The Story Behind "Too Cheap to Meter"