Tickling the Dragon's Tail

Is nuclear energy the key to saving the planet?

Only Nuclear Energy Can Save the Planet

Nuclear Power Can Save the World

Within the past couple of years, these and other headlines have appeared in publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times and even to the widely read environmental publication, High Country News.

According to many of the articles newer designs and materials have made nuclear reactors much safer and therefore safe to use a major power sources. Unfortunately, these claims have not been proven.

I spent nine years as a research physicist and middle management director studying nuclear reactor safety at the National Reactor Testing Station (now Idaho National Laboratory). It was called Special Power Excursion Reactor Tests (SPERT).

We had four reactors of differing designs operated by remote control from a half mile distance. I have the dubious honor of blowing up one of those reactors as a test in 1962. An offshoot of our program was called LOFT, or Loss of Fluid Test, designed to study what happens in a loss of coolant accident – similar to what happened in the Three Mile Island and Fukushima accidents.

Both the SPERT and LOFT programs were eventually stifled and killed by one man, a zealous advocate of nuclear power plant development who was head of the division in the Atomic Energy Commission overseeing and funding reactor safety research. Today there is little, if any, meaningful research being conducted on reactor safety, particularly on the highly touted “new designs.” Many advocates point to computer modelling studies as proof of the safety. However, there are too many complex parameters in computer models and the only real study to prove the safety is to push the outside of the envelope on actual reactors.

If computer modelling is so accurate, would we put astronauts on top of a powerful moon rocket relying solely on computer modelling - and not actually physically testing that rocket extensively?

Not likely.

My next book, in progress, will cover my years of nuclear reactor safety studies and the demise of true scientific research in that field. It’s entitled: Tickling the Dragon’s Tail. The title is from a quote by famed physicist Richard Feynman during the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos lab. A risky experiment had been proposed which would create a supercritical burst of fissions by dropping a piece of fissionable uranium 235 through a subcritical mass of the same substance. When the experiment was presented at a meeting, Feynman chuckled, saying “That’s like tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon.” It became known as the Dragon Experiment. Later, two physicists were killed by modified versions of that experiment. Several years later I went to work in that Idaho project that was a descendant of the Dragon Experiment.

This Must Not Happen!

House republicans have introduced a bill that would allow oil and gas drilling in 40 National Parks. If it passes, this is what Grand Teton National Park will look like on your next visit:

Human Error and Nuclear Technology

Human Error

Humankind has created a technology we cannot control.”  Martin Rees, world-renowned cosmologist and Britain’s Astronomer Royal.

Photo © Boyd Norton

Human Error

Humankind has created a technology we cannot control.”  Martin Rees, world-renowned cosmologist and Britain’s Astronomer Royal.

Audubon magazine published my article on the Three Mile Island accident in May of 1980, a little over a year after the TMI meltdown happened. I traveled widely during that year, visiting nuclear plants, attending hearings in Washington, observing an actual test in Idaho of the loss of coolant experienced by TMI. While gathering material for the article, I visited a nuclear power plant under construction in North Carolina. I remember how I leaned over the temporary railing and stared down into a gargantuan pressure vessel at Duke Power’s McGuire Nuclear Generating Station, under construction near Charlotte, North Carolina. Blinding blue-white arcs of welding torches imparted an eerie, almost stroboscopic glow to the smooth interior of the great stainless steel container that was being put together, piece by piece. This was the crucial vessel that would restrain the nuclear fission while withstanding enormous internal pressures and searing bombardment by neutrons and gamma rays. And I wondered at the time:

How do you build the perfect machine? For it takes nearly that to contain and control the fission process safely.

How do you guard against

the hung-over welder

the foreman whose wife just left him

the stoned and careless electrician

the negligent draftsman

the engineer appeasing management

the inspector fearful of losing his job

the inexperienced designer

the alcoholic manager making decisions

the incompetent reactor operator

or the CEO whose primary concern is profits?

In the end, every nuclear accident can be traced to human error since it is humans who design, build and operate nuclear reactors.

This is an excerpt from my newest book Tickling the Dragon's Tail, being completed. For those who might be interested here is the first chapter published last fall in the literary magazine, The Kenyon Review. It's about the day I blew up a nuclear reactor - deliberately. Link

Is Frontier the Worst Airline in America? Yes!

Is Frontier the worst airline in America?
Hmm, if not the worst it’s pretty close to the top.
Let’s see, I’d like to make a reservation on Frontier from Denver to Washington, DC. Okay, easy enough. The fare seems reasonable – not great, but okay.
Fine. Made the reservation.
Oh, wait a minute I need a seat. You mean I have to pay extra for a seat?
Let’s see. OMG, standard seats are $6, luxury seats (meaning they have padding) are $20 and up (in this case about $35).
If I don’t pay for a seat, do I have to stand and hold onto an overhead strap like in a subway?
Ah, well I paid for a seat. Standard.
What else? Oh, carry-on bag. What? I have to pay to have a bag with my laptop, camera, business papers and meds? $35. Sheesh, this is getting ridiculous.
Checked bags. Another $30 for one, additional $40 for the second.
What next, a fee to use the lavatory? No, but I imagine it’s coming.
Finally I’ve paid all the ransom money. When I total it all up I haven't really saved anything on the airfare.
My departure day has arrived. I’m on board and in my seat. But wait, where’s the tray table? Oh, they don’t tell you that in the standard seats the tray table is barely big enough to hold a smartphone. So my laptop really will be a laptop.
And the seat doesn’t recline. Moreover it’s like sitting in a straight back wooden chair with seatbelt (which I'm surprised they don't charge for). 
The 4 hour fight did arrive on time, small consolation for the discomfort.
I remember the good old days when I traveled a lot in the old Soviet Union on Aeroflot, considered then as the world’s worst airline.
Ah, but most U.S. airlines have adopted the old Aeroflot as their business model.
Except that the last time I flew on the new Aeroflot it was luxurious in economy class.
Oh, one last thing: Frontier has a frequent flier plan.
Would anyone in their right mind use it?

Tentative Cover for My Newest Book

Publication scheduled February 2016, Amherst Media.
Good grief - it's already on Amazon.

Ahh! Springtime in the Rockies

May 10, 2015

No cookout tonight.

In Memoriam - Martin Litton, One of America's Great Conservationists

Martin Litton, one of America’s giants of conservation, passed away November 30^th. He was 97 years old and he stands alongside David Brower as one of the most influential persons in the modern-day environmental movement. Martin was an accomplished writer and photographer and he served for many years as editor of the popular Sunset magazine. He served on the board of directors of the Sierra Club for more than a decade.

In the 1960s the Bureau of Reclamation had planned to build two major dams in the Grand Canyon. The bureau was nearly ready to start pouring concrete when Litton and Brower took on the battle to stop that insane scheme - and won. In addition, Litton was largely responsible for saving the redwoods from rampant logging and to help create both a Redwoods National Park and a separate state park in northern California. There were numerous other places that Martin was influential in saving, among them Point Reyes National Seashore.

I had the privilege of making a trip down the Colorado River in Grand Canyon with Martin in 1968. He was an expert river runner and now holds the record of being the oldest person to row the Colorado River’s fearsome rapids. He was 87 when he did that. He was also an accomplished (and fearless) pilot and I once watched in awe as he easily and flawlessly landed his Cessna 195 on a short and dangerous airstrip in the Salmon River gorge in Idaho.

Once, when I was still a nuclear physicist, I was sitting in my office out in the desert of Idaho and had a phone call from Martin. Excitedly he told me about a new book that had just been published. For almost 40 minutes he read me excerpts from the book. The year was 1968 and the book was called Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. The book went on to become a classic in conservation and literary annals and Martin became good friends with Abbey.

David Brower, who was a passionate and uncompromising conservationist himself, once remarked that Martin Litton was even more unwavering when it came to saving wilderness. Brower called him “my conservation conscience.”

I was privileged to spend time with Martin and his equally energetic wife Esther this past April at his home in Portola Valley while doing a video interview with him. He was still as passionate about saving wilderness. His video is now an important archive of wisdom and knowledge on conservation. The world will miss him, but his legacy will live on.