Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
Showing posts with label Nuclear Energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nuclear Energy. Show all posts
Sunday, May 27, 2018
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Victoreen CDV-700
Victoreen CDV-700 Geiger counter. Working condition off Ebay.
User Manual [PDF]
I've wanted a geiger counter ever since I took the Atomic Energy Merit badge as a Boy Scout.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Book Review: "In Mortal Hands"
In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age
I firmly believe that all practicing engineers should read at least one 'engineering disaster' book a year. It's been a little while for me.
The first ~100 pages are not worth reading. It's a poor synopsis of Richard Rhodes and I liked the original better. You need to skip to about the 1970's before the book gets worthwhile (although the Israeli bomb chapter is excellent).
The author was a journalist covering the nuke industry and once she gets closer to what she directly covered in her interviews with first-hand witnesses, the book improves dramatically. The best parts is her coverage of the regulation of the civilian nuclear industry. For example, Victor Stello over-protected the industry (to its detriment), while others at the NRC did their jobs.
Some of my other favorite stories:
* The (sad) story of a Chernobyl firefighter and his pregnant wife.
* The cataloging of the costs of failed experiments in reprocessing and breeder reactors.
* The story of Remy Carle at his graduation from Ecole Polytechnique.
* Western nations really only care about nuclear proliferation when it's convenient (and because of that, have, in the past, helped out 'rogue' states like North Korea and Iran much more than they'd like to admit). For instance, the United States KNEW Saddam was using a $500 million agricultural loan to fund his bomb program, but, despite please from those overseeing the program, continued funding it (not necessarily out of nefarious intentions, probably just bureaucratic laziness).
Overall, I got what I was looking for out of it. Even the book's biggest flaw (the beginning) is not much of a flaw, because I'm comparing it to a Pulitzer Prize winning book.
UPDATE- One of the stories from the book is MOSSAD's theft of uranium from Pennsylvania. Apparently, that story can now pretty definitively be but in the "True" column.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Must Reads for Engineers
A few articles worth a read, especially for engineers.
Liberating America's secret, for-pay laws « Boing Boing. The title is a bit overly dramatic, but still a fascinating article. In order for an engineer to do his job and meet legal requirements, he needs access to engineering codes that aren't freely available. "Incorporation by Reference" is a way that our public laws are, in a way, kept secret, or so the article argues. I like this quote: (Having spent a lot of time with these documents, we can vouch that many of these standards are very high-quality technical documents. This is important stuff and groups like ASME and NFPA do a great job.)
Mississippi River creates its own diversion. Note that you're going to hear more and more about river diversions as the last, best hope for coastal restoration in Louisiana.
MIT NSE Final Report on Fukushima Lessons Learned. [PDF] Billed as a technical report, it's actually quite accessible and well written.
Liberating America's secret, for-pay laws « Boing Boing. The title is a bit overly dramatic, but still a fascinating article. In order for an engineer to do his job and meet legal requirements, he needs access to engineering codes that aren't freely available. "Incorporation by Reference" is a way that our public laws are, in a way, kept secret, or so the article argues. I like this quote: (Having spent a lot of time with these documents, we can vouch that many of these standards are very high-quality technical documents. This is important stuff and groups like ASME and NFPA do a great job.)
Mississippi River creates its own diversion. Note that you're going to hear more and more about river diversions as the last, best hope for coastal restoration in Louisiana.
MIT NSE Final Report on Fukushima Lessons Learned. [PDF] Billed as a technical report, it's actually quite accessible and well written.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Link Dump - 20 August 2011
Crime:
People tend to overestimate their own intelligence. Funny story at the beginning of the article.
There are other articles out there that are better on one aspect of it, but this is by far the best overview of the spread and damage done by the Stuxnet worm.
Gives some great perspective on how the Wikileaks Afghan War Logs got leaked. Also, nice to read the unedited logs to get the whole perspective (although it takes some skipping around).
✭
✭
Original article. Well worth a read. Great investigative journalism.
Economics:
Answer: get some practical experience. In the US for engineers, the Senior Project is looked at very closely by employers.
China seeks to displace Korea as the king of the shipbuilders. Korea will start concentrating on higher-value ships (LNG tankers, for example) as China's government pumps money into the shipbuilding industry to build capacity.
Note the article focuses only on Mexican immigrants (not other Latin American countries). Economic progress and less corruption keeps Mexico's best and brightest home.
Discussion of choosing between technical track and managerial track positions. I don't necessarily agree with everything that's presented in the article, but the comments at the end are also good.
Shocking article. Also mentions the USCG/MMS hearings in New Orleans.
Energy
Also check out the 'Chats with nuclear dad' on the Georneys blog. A PhD candidate in geology interviews her nuclear engineer dad on Fukushima and other nuclear topics.
Lots of the early missions are still classified (NRO/NSA satellite launches, mostly) and there were some incidents that were never widely known.
✭
✭
Note that many major oil companies have negative reserve replacement ratios and don't even have a plan to reverse that trend; they'd rather live high on the hog on booked reserves. If you look at oil patch history, on the long run, it's cheaper to find and book barrels today rather than wait until tomorrow....
✭
If I ever become dictator, everyone will drive stickshifts. It will stop distracted driving, lower energy consumption (and hence oil prices), and be safer.
From the Houston Chronicle, with hilarious appeal to 'stop sending us those crazy emails'
War:
A history of the Littoral Combat Ship
Syrian soldier's view on being ordered to shoot at his neighbors.
Politics:
✭
For lesson in shared sacrifice, send Congress to boot camp - CNN.com
Lt. General Russel Honoré thinks Congress should be sent to boot camp: "Put them in tents with no air conditioning, have Army drill sergeants teach them teamwork and physical sacrifice. When they recognize their responsibility to the people of America, they can return to D.C."
List of books read by Obama over the past ~2 years.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Link Dump - 11 June 2011
Engineering:
✭ Calamities: Engineering Design FailuresA column by an MIT engineering professors that goes through engineering failures (mostly materials failures) and their post-accident investigation.
✭ Michael Bay’s Scenario « xkcd
Great discussion from XKCD about the rising levees, with a plug for McPhee's "Control of Nature."
Evil lawyers:
✭NYT: At Well-Paying Law Firms, Some Going cheap in Legal. Wonder why some firms took so long to try to cut costs in legal, while cutting their engineering staffs to the bone? Maybe they thought the consequences of crappy engineering wouldn't be as bad as crappy corporate defense. Ask that to BP and see how they respond.
✭ NOLA.com : Sen. Vitter's spokesman dares Obama administration to prosecute his boss Umm, Mann Act (aka- the "White Slavery Act" with its 10-year statute of limitations) anyone?
YouTube:
✭ YouTube - Bear Grylls turns a dead seal into a wet suit
Bear Grylls makes homemade wetsuit: Umm..
Note to self: if ever in Austin, go to this theater:
Miscellaneous:
✭ Joplin Sat Images
✭IEEE on Chernobyl and Fukushima radiation deaths Verdict: It's VERY hard to put a precise number on it
UPDATE- a few more:
✭IEEE on Chernobyl and Fukushima radiation deaths Verdict: It's VERY hard to put a precise number on it
UPDATE- a few more:
✭ The First Item on my Christmas List...
✭ Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education | The Nation . From 1971 to 2001, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in English declined by 20 percent, but the number awarded in math and statistics declined by 55 percent. The only areas of the liberal arts that saw an increase in BAs awarded were biology and psychology—and this at a time when aggregate enrollment expanded by something like 75 percent.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Book Reviews
Since Candice has been dragging me to Rue while she does homework, I've had plenty of reading time. Just finished a couple of books and here are some thoughts.
The Radioactive Boy Scout. By Ken Silverstein. The author backtracks the adventure of David Hahn, a teenager who constructs a scarily-close-to-viable breeder reactor in his mother's garage. The book is a pretty quick read (only a few hundred pages) and flows well. The author cuts between narrations of Hahn's experiments and disasters in the atomic power industry. For an English major, he does an incredible job at keeping his facts straight. He still gets the penetration of Beta particles wrong and misattributes a few quotes. It could have used a more thorough fact checking.
What sort of bugged me was he was blatantly anti-nuke throughout the whole book. The author's Wikipedia page notes "Silverstein is a self-described "gadfly" in the newspaper business, and an opponent of what he considers "false 'balance'" in the news media." That's fine and all for, say political reporting, but for scientific reporting, that starts down a slippery path. He also takes a few jabs at the Boy Scouts. He spends almost a chapter talking about how Baden Powell had a fixation on stopping masturbation and was a closeted fascist.
Still and all, it's a quick read, it's an interesting subject, and it's well written. If you read it, just keep that bias in mind as he narrates certain subjects.
********************************
I've been trying to work through the "must reads" list. I've been reading Huey Long, by T Harry Williams since the fall semester. It's a thick book, so it's taken me a while (those of you following me on twitter will note my occasional posts the past few months).
Huey Long is one of the most fascinating characters in American History. Every biography of him has taken the stance right from the start that he is either a saint or a scoundrel. Only one has stayed fairly objective and that's the best one. To this day, no scholar can top T Harry Williams' book.
Despite being a little dated in writing style (and vocabulary), I found it a lively read, due in no small part to the subject. The book is exhaustively researched and well annotated.
Some of the most interesting parts of the book:
* Huey Long had a photographic memory. He remembered every word from every book he ever read. An amazing gift for a politician to have.
* Some of Huey's speeches seem like they were written yesterday. A sample:
Mr. Hopkins [WPA] announced twenty-two millions on the dole [Food Stamps], a new high-water mark in that particular sum, a few weeks ago. We find not only the people going further into debt, but that the United States is going further into debt. The states are going further into debt, and the cities and towns are even going into bankruptcy. The condition has become deplorable. Instead of his promises, the only remedy that Mr. Roosevelt has prescribed is to borrow more money if he can and to go further into debt. The last move was to borrow $5 billion [imagine trillion today] more on which we must pay interest for the balance of our lifetimes, and probably during the lifetime of our children. And with it all, there stalks a slimy specter of want, hunger, destitution, and pestilence, all because of the fact that in the land of too much and of too much to wear, our president has failed in his promise to have these necessities of life distributed into the hands of the people who have need of them.
* Huey constantly railed against FDR for appointing Merril bankers to his cabinet. The criticisms have been made of Obama and Goldman Sachs.
* I think one of the things that sets the book above the rest is it's as much a chronicle of the subject's enemies as it is about the subject of the biography. You can't understand Huey's actions without understanding what he was up against.
* While Huey might have started out doing things for the right reasons, once he became a Senator, he started to lose control of his machine. It started to take on a momentum all its own. Huey had to constantly supervise every little detail of its operation. After his death, the machine had total control of the state without someone like Huey to restrain it. I suspect these postmortem excesses might have hurt Huey's reputation more than the record shows he did.
* The person that I thought reminded me the most of Huey Long was The Gracchi of Ancient Rome.
* Huey Long played an important part in FDR's administration. He pulled the administration hard to the left. The things FDR is really remembered for, like Social Security, were things Huey stumped for and FDR implemented to take away Huey's fire. Even then, Huey lambasted FDR for not going far enough in his reforms.
I know the term must-read is over used, but if you're interested in Louisiana politics, T Harry Williams' biography is a must read.
Some supplemental video:
The Radioactive Boy Scout. By Ken Silverstein. The author backtracks the adventure of David Hahn, a teenager who constructs a scarily-close-to-viable breeder reactor in his mother's garage. The book is a pretty quick read (only a few hundred pages) and flows well. The author cuts between narrations of Hahn's experiments and disasters in the atomic power industry. For an English major, he does an incredible job at keeping his facts straight. He still gets the penetration of Beta particles wrong and misattributes a few quotes. It could have used a more thorough fact checking.
What sort of bugged me was he was blatantly anti-nuke throughout the whole book. The author's Wikipedia page notes "Silverstein is a self-described "gadfly" in the newspaper business, and an opponent of what he considers "false 'balance'" in the news media." That's fine and all for, say political reporting, but for scientific reporting, that starts down a slippery path. He also takes a few jabs at the Boy Scouts. He spends almost a chapter talking about how Baden Powell had a fixation on stopping masturbation and was a closeted fascist.
Still and all, it's a quick read, it's an interesting subject, and it's well written. If you read it, just keep that bias in mind as he narrates certain subjects.
********************************
I've been trying to work through the "must reads" list. I've been reading Huey Long, by T Harry Williams since the fall semester. It's a thick book, so it's taken me a while (those of you following me on twitter will note my occasional posts the past few months).
Huey Long is one of the most fascinating characters in American History. Every biography of him has taken the stance right from the start that he is either a saint or a scoundrel. Only one has stayed fairly objective and that's the best one. To this day, no scholar can top T Harry Williams' book.
Despite being a little dated in writing style (and vocabulary), I found it a lively read, due in no small part to the subject. The book is exhaustively researched and well annotated.
Some of the most interesting parts of the book:
* Huey Long had a photographic memory. He remembered every word from every book he ever read. An amazing gift for a politician to have.
* Some of Huey's speeches seem like they were written yesterday. A sample:
Mr. Hopkins [WPA] announced twenty-two millions on the dole [Food Stamps], a new high-water mark in that particular sum, a few weeks ago. We find not only the people going further into debt, but that the United States is going further into debt. The states are going further into debt, and the cities and towns are even going into bankruptcy. The condition has become deplorable. Instead of his promises, the only remedy that Mr. Roosevelt has prescribed is to borrow more money if he can and to go further into debt. The last move was to borrow $5 billion [imagine trillion today] more on which we must pay interest for the balance of our lifetimes, and probably during the lifetime of our children. And with it all, there stalks a slimy specter of want, hunger, destitution, and pestilence, all because of the fact that in the land of too much and of too much to wear, our president has failed in his promise to have these necessities of life distributed into the hands of the people who have need of them.
* Huey constantly railed against FDR for appointing Merril bankers to his cabinet. The criticisms have been made of Obama and Goldman Sachs.
* I think one of the things that sets the book above the rest is it's as much a chronicle of the subject's enemies as it is about the subject of the biography. You can't understand Huey's actions without understanding what he was up against.
* While Huey might have started out doing things for the right reasons, once he became a Senator, he started to lose control of his machine. It started to take on a momentum all its own. Huey had to constantly supervise every little detail of its operation. After his death, the machine had total control of the state without someone like Huey to restrain it. I suspect these postmortem excesses might have hurt Huey's reputation more than the record shows he did.
* The person that I thought reminded me the most of Huey Long was The Gracchi of Ancient Rome.
* Huey Long played an important part in FDR's administration. He pulled the administration hard to the left. The things FDR is really remembered for, like Social Security, were things Huey stumped for and FDR implemented to take away Huey's fire. Even then, Huey lambasted FDR for not going far enough in his reforms.
I know the term must-read is over used, but if you're interested in Louisiana politics, T Harry Williams' biography is a must read.
Some supplemental video:
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Oil drips and discharges - 28 April 2009
Here are two articles from The Oil Drum to peruse: Iraqi Oil: Black Gold or Black Hole? and Iraq's Oil: The Greatest Prize Of All ? These two articles go through the reason we went to war in Iraq: OIL. Specifically, how much is there under the dirt. While there are some good prospects in Kurdistan and the Western Desert, it's highly doubtful oil reserves will go much above about 60 billion barrels (half the stated Iraqi reserves).
The more recent article also touches on the challenges of even maintaining Iraqi production rates. The problems break down into a couple of categories:
• Endemic corruption (many of the technocrats that oversaw production have been killed/replaced with politically connected idiots)
• Political reserves (i.e.- lying to OPEC to up their production quota's)
• Bad management (Under Saddam, some of the northern oil fields were "oil-flooded" because the oil was embargoed, but the natural gas wasn't. That leaves a sticky mess that's extremely hard to recover from)
• Political rivalry and foreign oil company stalemates (Iraqi's have a long held mistrust of international oil companies)
• Political insecurity (including rampant violence that's still way to dangerous for international oil workers)
There's also basic phyisics and geology the Iraqi oil wells are starting to run into: Iraqi oil wells are watering out and production set to plummet. The only PSA currently in operation is a Chinese contract, signed in 1997 under Saddam, but even that one will probably soon be abrogated. Without a massive investment (which flat out ain't happening given the violence level and the always looming threat of nationalization), by 2012, Iraq's production will plummet, possibly below a million barrels a day (currently 2.2 MBD-ish - pre-war was 2.5 MBD).
Iraq will start running out of oil about the same time the last of the troops get on a plane to head back home. Nice timing.
How can we drill for oil in the arctic? Well, look at the Sevmorput, a nuclear-powered drillship. Ah, those crazy Ruskies and their Russian reactors.
Did oil prices cause the economic crisis? I've been seeing this theory pop up over and over. While there are structural issues that go beyond the price of oil (like the regulatory environment), as a proximate cause, it deserves some serious consideration. Think of it like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. War followed, but that was just the spark that lit the fire. The area was packed with kindling before that and was just waiting on a spark, though.
And I'll close with a shiny thing next to some not so shiny things:
Oil Platform over depleted field sprouting a 5 MWe wind turbine off the coast of the Netherlands. We could easily be doing this off the coast of Louisiana.
UPDATE- I wanted to post more this morning, but was trying to get to work on time.
Here's a bit more:
Why Dick Changed His Mind. Cheney used to be fairly well grounded on foreign policy. What changed his mind was his belief that Peak Oil was imminent and the only way for the US to be successful in the 21st century was to control the largest supply of untapped oil (he thought, Iraq).
During the big push for offshore oil drilling over the summer, I heard some absolutely ridiculous claims about possible reserves off the eastern seaboard. I've come across a couple of scientific studies of the VERY limited drilling that occurred off the Jersey coast.
This article talks about uneconomical gas reserves found in the Baltimore Canyon. Also nice to read because of the discussion of Mukluk.
This is a (dated) but detailed study of the geology of the Baltimore Canyon. Baltimore Canyon won't have anywhere near the oil as, say, Mississippi Canyon or Cantarelle or other big GoM formations, but there's some promising territory there. I'd love to see what modern seismic could do. Just the subsea imaging alone has come a long way. That being said, there's no guarantee that oil found will be developed. All support infrastructure (pipelines, compression facilities, supply ports, etc.) would have to be built from scratch.
3 great photos of the drilling rig replacement operation at Shell Mars TLP. The scale on these photos is hard to wrap your head around, even when I've walked around the deck and peered up that the drilling rig. To think it got lifted up like that is amazing.
The more recent article also touches on the challenges of even maintaining Iraqi production rates. The problems break down into a couple of categories:
• Endemic corruption (many of the technocrats that oversaw production have been killed/replaced with politically connected idiots)
• Political reserves (i.e.- lying to OPEC to up their production quota's)
• Bad management (Under Saddam, some of the northern oil fields were "oil-flooded" because the oil was embargoed, but the natural gas wasn't. That leaves a sticky mess that's extremely hard to recover from)
• Political rivalry and foreign oil company stalemates (Iraqi's have a long held mistrust of international oil companies)
• Political insecurity (including rampant violence that's still way to dangerous for international oil workers)
There's also basic phyisics and geology the Iraqi oil wells are starting to run into: Iraqi oil wells are watering out and production set to plummet. The only PSA currently in operation is a Chinese contract, signed in 1997 under Saddam, but even that one will probably soon be abrogated. Without a massive investment (which flat out ain't happening given the violence level and the always looming threat of nationalization), by 2012, Iraq's production will plummet, possibly below a million barrels a day (currently 2.2 MBD-ish - pre-war was 2.5 MBD).
Iraq will start running out of oil about the same time the last of the troops get on a plane to head back home. Nice timing.
How can we drill for oil in the arctic? Well, look at the Sevmorput, a nuclear-powered drillship. Ah, those crazy Ruskies and their Russian reactors.
Did oil prices cause the economic crisis? I've been seeing this theory pop up over and over. While there are structural issues that go beyond the price of oil (like the regulatory environment), as a proximate cause, it deserves some serious consideration. Think of it like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. War followed, but that was just the spark that lit the fire. The area was packed with kindling before that and was just waiting on a spark, though.
And I'll close with a shiny thing next to some not so shiny things:
Oil Platform over depleted field sprouting a 5 MWe wind turbine off the coast of the Netherlands. We could easily be doing this off the coast of Louisiana.
UPDATE- I wanted to post more this morning, but was trying to get to work on time.
Here's a bit more:
Why Dick Changed His Mind. Cheney used to be fairly well grounded on foreign policy. What changed his mind was his belief that Peak Oil was imminent and the only way for the US to be successful in the 21st century was to control the largest supply of untapped oil (he thought, Iraq).
During the big push for offshore oil drilling over the summer, I heard some absolutely ridiculous claims about possible reserves off the eastern seaboard. I've come across a couple of scientific studies of the VERY limited drilling that occurred off the Jersey coast.
This article talks about uneconomical gas reserves found in the Baltimore Canyon. Also nice to read because of the discussion of Mukluk.
This is a (dated) but detailed study of the geology of the Baltimore Canyon. Baltimore Canyon won't have anywhere near the oil as, say, Mississippi Canyon or Cantarelle or other big GoM formations, but there's some promising territory there. I'd love to see what modern seismic could do. Just the subsea imaging alone has come a long way. That being said, there's no guarantee that oil found will be developed. All support infrastructure (pipelines, compression facilities, supply ports, etc.) would have to be built from scratch.
3 great photos of the drilling rig replacement operation at Shell Mars TLP. The scale on these photos is hard to wrap your head around, even when I've walked around the deck and peered up that the drilling rig. To think it got lifted up like that is amazing.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Science Links and an Experiment
Why do ants never get in traffic jams? No overtaking, lots of tailgating, and everyone moving in unison.
Creationism's huge win in Texas. Creationists on state school board order watering down of Texas school books. Since Texas is one of the largest markets for textbooks, it's likely that every new science textbook in the country will have to be watered down to please creationists.
Where oil comes from. Instant refutation of creationism.
Cold fusion breakthrough? We'll see if it's science or pseudo-science. It's a Navy lab, so you can't just discount it immediately.
Nuclear power comes to Antarctica. Tired of lugging around lots of diesel, 1960's scientists turn to nuclear power for their scientific needs.
Photos from a guided tour of Chernobyl. Extremely cool. I'd love to tour Chernobyl one day. I like the part where he describes how the guide threw a shit-fit when someone put their cap on the ground (and hence picked up radioactive dust).
$200 garage-made space probe. Very cool project by a bunch of high school kids.
The internet. Represented as a subway map.
And now for the experiment of the day:
Cannonball thrown into a vat of Mercury
Will it sink or will it float? Here's your hint.
Creationism's huge win in Texas. Creationists on state school board order watering down of Texas school books. Since Texas is one of the largest markets for textbooks, it's likely that every new science textbook in the country will have to be watered down to please creationists.
Where oil comes from. Instant refutation of creationism.
Cold fusion breakthrough? We'll see if it's science or pseudo-science. It's a Navy lab, so you can't just discount it immediately.
Nuclear power comes to Antarctica. Tired of lugging around lots of diesel, 1960's scientists turn to nuclear power for their scientific needs.
Photos from a guided tour of Chernobyl. Extremely cool. I'd love to tour Chernobyl one day. I like the part where he describes how the guide threw a shit-fit when someone put their cap on the ground (and hence picked up radioactive dust).
$200 garage-made space probe. Very cool project by a bunch of high school kids.
The internet. Represented as a subway map.
And now for the experiment of the day:
Cannonball thrown into a vat of Mercury
Will it sink or will it float? Here's your hint.
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