Author: publius

Fools! I will destroy you all!!

ASFO 2024–04–06

Owing to a mishap, the actual show starts about 20 minutes into the recording. It’s just long enough for me to mention progress with blast, and compare the Coire Glas pumped storage scheme in Scotland, which will be the largest in the world with 30 GWh of capacity, to the daily output of one EPR nuclear generating unit, of which two are being built at Hinkley Point C, 38·4 GWh. The UK grid is already one of the best–provided in the world with storage, with 24 GWh. Since average electrical consumption of the UK (over the course of a year) is 36 GW, the total after this addition will be 90 minutes of average system load. A far cry from the 10 days or more that wind– and solar–heavy energy supply projections call for!

ASFO 2024–03–30

Electricity is the only industrial commodity that must be consumed before it is produced — a koan for the modern age? Also, a warning against attempting to live in the world of signs, rather than of things signified ; and the case for a railway in Iceland.

ASFO 2024–03–16

The difference between disextensification (better name urgently needed) and degrowth is the difference between “doing more with less” and “doing less with less”. The former views the un–sustainability of economic expansion as primarily a practical, the latter as primarily a moral problem, and that in turn reflects the question of what value we place on human life and welfare. Also, is “building the world’s largest aeroplane for a single narrowly–defined purpose” an invariable sign of an idea that has been taken too far, and fallen into absurdity?

ASFO 2024–03–09

De–extensification provides a better approach to environmental problems than de–growth, because it is more compatible with human aspirations and well–being, although it still seems as though a good en– would be preferable to any sort of de–. (More thoughts on this topic here.) It also helps to explain why nuclear energy is preferable to renewable energy. Also, Keller Independent School District is at it again, where by “it” I mean “providing a microcosm of American politics”. And I did get some scan files from Sandia. (Minor technical trouble at the beginning.)

ASFO 2024–03–02

The anodyne syrup of the “solar–hydrogen economy” keeps mankind suckling at the fossil–fuel teat when we should long since have moved on to adult foods. Also, computer programmers once again prove unable to deal with intercalation, even when it comes on a regular schedule, and has for centuries past ; congratulations to Georgia Power on first synchronization of Vogtle 4 ; and, who are your heroes?

Cutaway model of a General Electric BWR-6 nuclear power reactor, mounted on a wooden plinth, with a plaque reading "Clinton Power Station Initial Criticality February 27, 1987".
Coming soon to a display near you

№4472 Flying Scotsman

Steam railway locomotive noises from an LP? Yes! But not just any steam locomotive, one of the most famous in the world, the last surviving non–streamlined “Pacific” (4–6–2 wheel arrangement) of the Gresley A3 class. Undoubtedly it was the great love for the Flying Scotsman that made possible the brand new “Pacific”, 60163 Tornado of the A1 class, which was funded by rail fans and completed in 2008.

Archive recording (By error, the 2024–03–01 broadcast included only side A of the record, played twice, so I ran a corrected version at the next opportunity.)

Steam shunting locomotive moving three "Excellox 3" nuclear fuel flasks. Ad from ATOM 265 (1978 November)
“From steam power to nuclear power” indeed!
Greenpeace poster advertising a U2 concert in Manchester, part of the "React" campaign against the Sellafield THORP reprocessing plant project.
Of the text on this poster, the location, time, and ticket purchase information is probably truthful. The rest? Nobody cares!

ASFO 2024–02–24

Congratulations to Intuitive Machines for the soft landing of their Nova–C vehicle “Odysseus”. Also, economics, real and virtual – the subordination of the former, which supplies the goods and services people actually consume, to the latter, seems to be a major cause of trouble in our modern world, and inspires the question, what exactly is a market? Also, BANANAs on the march ; “Stranger Danger” a dogma in America ; and Mail Call!

“My Polar Flights”

Umberto Nobile, the Italian airship builder and pilot, came together with the great Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen to reach and cross the North Pole by air for the first time, in the year 1926. Two years later, on a subsequent expedition, Nobile and his men were shipwrecked. This first part of this volume, entitled “The First Crossing of the Arctic Ocean”, covers the successful voyage of the N1 Norge, known as the Amundsen–Ellsworth–Nobile Polar Expedition. The second part, “The Tragedy of the Italia”, is about twice as long.

Having read My Zeppelins, I thought that this would be of similar interest, and also that it might be best to give General Nobile the chance (as it were) to defend himself against some belittling remarks of Dr Eckener’s regarding his skill as an airshipman.

  • 2024–02–20 The preface ; the first chapter, The Preliminaries of the Expedition ; and a little bit of the second chapter, On the Eve of the Flight. (Chapters are not numbered.)
  • 2024–02–23 Remainder of the second chapter ; beginning of the third chapter, The Flight from Rome to the Svalbard.
  • 2024–02–27 Completion of the third chapter, and almost all of the fourth, From King’s Bay to the Pole.
  • 2024–03–08 Completion of the fourth chapter, covering the actual first attainment and crossing of the North Pole by air ; and the whole of the fifth chapter, In the Unexplored Zone, describing an incredible feat of piloting under conditions of adverse weather and extreme exhaustion.
  • 2024–03–12 Two short chapters, The End of the Flight and Returning Home, and an Appendix, complete Part I. The author attempts to settle once and for all the controversy caused by certain intemperate and ill–informed remarks of Amundsen, who knew much of Polar exploration, but little of airships or their handling.
  • 2024–03–15 Origin and Preparation of the Expedition (in which we learn how to spell “caïque”), and the first part of The Flight from Milan to King’s Bay, describing the atrocious weather on the way to Stolp on the Baltic (now Słupsk, Poland), begin Part II.
  • 2024–03–19 Completion of The Flight from Milan to King’s Bay ; At King’s Bay ; and The Flight to Severnaya Zemlya.
  • 2024–03–29 The Voyage to the Pole ; The Catastrophe ; and the beginning of Adrift on the Pack. I note details related by Nobile which completely negative Eckener’s notion of the cause of the wreck. (For some reason, the aNONradio archiver split this show into two parts, so I had to re-join it.)
  • 2024–04–05 After a couple of days when I could not do a show, the remainder of Adrift on the Pack, followed by the entirety of The Courage of Despair. Interrupted near the end by a telephone call.
  • 2024–05–10 “Both Parties will Die!” ; Six in the Red Tent ; and the first part of The Miracle of the Radio.
  • 2024–05–14 After some dead air and glitches at the beginning, the completion of The Miracle of the Radio ; Manna from Heaven ; and the first section of An Aeroplane Lands on the Pack.
  • 2024–05–17 The remainder of An Aeroplane Lands on the Pack ; and all of On the Città di Milano, in which Captain Romagna has things to say which are difficult to comprehend, much less believe. Only one chapter remains.
  • 2024–05–21 Our story concludes with the long chapter entitled The End of the Drama. Details of the political scene have been omitted by General Nobile, but may be read in his 1945 book Posso Dire la Verità.