Category: anonradio

ASFO 2024–06–22

Must nuclear projects always take longer and cost more? Ontario’s Darlington refurbishment says “no”, and I venture to suggest that this should be the expected result. Also, a listener comment elicits a digression into the problem (if it is one) of weapons proliferation and the plutonium economy ; a reminder that Famine is the harshest of teachers, and the lessons of ecology have been learnt primarily at her hand ; and I address a misconception about grid frequency control, and wonder about on–line enlightenment.

ASFO 2024–06–15

Despite delays in the mails, we have Mail call! Also, progress with one of my many “Man and Atom” information efforts — remembering Anita Gale of the National Space Society and Ed Stone of JPL (yes, Voyager has now outlived its Chief Scientist) — Islets of Langerhans! — and a meditation on what we are as human beings, and the value of considering that very question, prompted by another instance of Big Business resembling a mental illness.

Supplementary Shows

  • 2024–06–18 After some reading of bits I am composing for a second issue of blast, I begin reading A Second Nuclear Era : Prospects and Perspectives by Alvin Weinberg, from The Nuclear Chain Reaction — Forty Years Later (RG Sachs, ed), the Proceedings of a University of Chicago symposium commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the first controlled, self–sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
  • 2024–06–21 Despite interspersing my copious commentary, I succeed in finishing A Second Nuclear Era just short of the end of the hour.

ASFO 2024–06–08

Nico–Clean? What in the world? Also, the engineered physical systems which make life in the modern world possible (often prosaically called infrastructure) and the obligation to keep them up ; the value of immigrants and refugees, and the stupidity (quite separate from any moral or human–rights arguments) of refusing them ; and a lesson, in the context of Internet social media, in cause and reasonably–foreseeable effect.

Supplementary Shows

  • 2024–06–11 Probably the last I will read from The Fast–Neutron Fission Breeder Reactor, Energy for 1000 Years by TN Marsham FRS, the succeeding general discussion, and concluding remarks by JG Collier.
  • 2024–06–14 From ATOM 134 (1967 December), a eulogy for nuclear pioneer Sir John Cockcroft, and Electricity from the Atom — Britain’s Second Decade by ES Booth.

A "Nico-Clean" card in its original packaging. Price 1000 yen.
If you want one of these things — or ten of them! — do let me know.

ASFO 2024–06–01

More on “blast” and further efforts with payphones ; aspersions on the US education system ; a US Government press release which may be good news for nuclear, but not for anyone hoping for scientific and engineering literacy among the policy–making class ; and a somewhat abstract and poetic thought about one of the intersections of politics with engineering, in which I use the phrase “touched by the finger of Vulcan”. (Start is just slightly late.)

Supplementary Shows

  • 2024–06–04 Again from The Fast–Neutron Fission Breeder Reactor, I go back to the beginning of Engineering and design of fast reactors by Köhler and read the whole thing, and then some “General Discussion”.
  • 2024–06–07 More from The Fast–Neutron Fission Breeder Reactor : Environmental aspects of the fast reactor fuel cycle by GM Jordan and LEJ Roberts FRS. This is a bit less accessible, and narrowly-focussed on radioactive discharges to the environment, but the basic conclusion that most of the environmental impacts of atomic power are associated with uranium mining, and thus reduced 100-fold by the regenerative fuel cycle, seems clear enough.

ASFO 2024–05–25

Can I solve all the problems of the Japanese economy? Absolutely not. But I might make a few suggestions as to how to reduce fuel use, to the benefit of the balance–of–payments and the value of the yen, and at the same time relieve the pressures that drive people from the rural areas to the cities. Also, US Customs and Border Protection leads me to talk about the problems of Internet social media, which is usually far off my path, and make comparisons with other forms of communication ; and a little bit of capitalism and its discontents. Also, a final version of blast №1 is now available (with extensive commentary).

A link about rail freight in Japan

Supplementary Show

2024–05–31 From The Fast–Neutron Fission Breeder Reactor, the Proceedings of a discussion meeting held 24 and 25 May 1989, reprinted from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (Series A) : Introductory remarks by RS Pease, FRS ; The science of fast reactors and why it has been studied, by G Vendryes (CEA) ; and just the first little bit of Engineering and design of fast reactors by M Köhler (Interatom). Unlike The Breeder Reactor, this is not intended for a general audience, but as it is meant for the non–specialist, at least parts of it should be reasonably accessible, and those are the parts I mean to read for you.

“Journey to Amtrak”

This is another one of my “grievance readings” of books discarded as a result of the Fort Worth city government decision to close the Central Public Library and sell off the land to real–estate developers. To me, this is on a level with the decision to close and demolish a public–housing project on the edge of downtown (convenient to jobs! even without a car!) and sell the land for a new Radio Shack headquarters… the company went bust and the complex stood empty for years, before being taken over by the community college district.

Be that as it may, this slim volume, subtitled The year history rode the passenger train, is a photoessay collection of the last days of railroad passenger service in the USA leading up to 1 May 1971, when the National Railroad Passenger Corporation took over. So you get to listen to me reading text written to accompany photos which you can’t see. Perhaps not my best choice of material…

  • 2024–05–24 As I was not watching the clock closely, this recording breaks off very suddenly, partway through an essay by Harold Edmondson entitled “Sixty–Two Historic Hours” in Chicago.
  • 2024–05–28 In the latter half of this show, I manage to read almost completely through a table listing all the intercity passenger rail services as of 1971–05–01, leaving out only Union Pacific and Chicago South Shore routes on account of lack of time. I think I will call this “done”.