Wednesday saw me in Berlin, demonstrating in front of the Bundestag with the fine folks from Nuklearia eV over the “Stuttgarter Erklärung”, a petition for the continued use of atomic power in Germany. I discuss this experience, as well as the ghastly architecture of the Federal Government complex, before getting into the substantive part of the broadcast. And what, you might ask, is all that about? Well, in response to some comments a week or two ago, I talk about world population. It’s nothing I haven’t said before, but hopefully it’s put into a clearer form here. Simply put, no, I don’t think there are “too many people” ― but there certainly are too many people who deserve a better world than the one they have. We have the tools we need, and we know how to apply them ― as Sir John Hill said about the fast breeder reactor (itself not the least of those tools), all that is left now is to get on with the work. Will the warmongers and dictators allow us to do it?
At the demonstration, showing off my circular slide rule to dj tyn, whose nose and scarf can be seen at extreme right
2022–11–15 Continuing with the Knorr paper from last time. I have some strong words to say about certain parts of it.
2022–11–18 I finish the Knorr piece, and read the introductory sections of A Target for Euratom (1957 May, also known as “The Report of the Three Wise Men”)
Remember, remember, the fifth of November, unmute your dang microphone, guy! Well, once I got over that little bobble, this show from Munich, capitol of the Free State of Bavaria in Southern Europe, mostly wound up being a response to a question from the audience (in SDF’s com chat) : “what is the safest type of civil nuclear power reactor?” It’s an inherently difficult question to answer, because only one type, the RBMK–1000, has ever killed anybody. But I give it a fair shot.
2022–11–08 Further readings from Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, vol 1, are interspersed with my editorial commentary. Somehow I manage to get through Estimate of Energy Requirements by P Ailleret of Electricité de France. And I do math live on the air!
2022–11–11 I tarried too long at the grocery, so this show actually started about 15 minutes late. Everything up to that point in the archive is a repeat. As you have perhaps come to expect from me, I began by commemorating the date with Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen. Then I started reading American foreign policy and the peaceful uses of atomic energy by Klaus Knorr, out of the volume Atoms for Power : United States Policy in Atomic Energy Development, the report of the Twelfth American Assembly, 17―20 October 1957. I have quite a bit to say in response to Knorr’s analysis.
Next week I will be coming to you from Munich, and that fact causes me to reflect on the dangers which arise when politicians ignore expert advice about what effects policies will have, and consistently lie to the public. Social pressure (such as arises when people are losing their livelihoods or seeing their heat and light bills exceed their rent) tends to drive people toward radical political movements, and that tendency is only reinforced when the political main stream has been insisting there is no problem. Also I talk for a while about the badge press which I have acquired with the gratefully–acknowledged assistance of Generation Atomic, and in general my efforts to disseminate pro–nuclear propaganda. And I explain some important facts about the latest saber–rattling from Russia.
2022–11–04 Testing the audio setup in Munich. I read a letter I have been draughting to the head of Ontario Power Generation, relating to the planned life extension of the Pickering nuclear station near Toronto, and then The Outlook for Nuclear Power in Puerto Rico by Alvin Mayne and Philip Mullenbach, from Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy (the proceedings of the 1955 Geneva Conference), volume 1. Puerto Rico is definitely a place that could use atomic power, relying as it does on fuel oil for its electricity, but the only power reactor that has ever been built there was the experimental (and largely unsuccessful) BONUS superheating BWR.
