The Daily Show, Welcome, and Thanks

The Daily Show

Like other nuclear bloggers, I wrote about the dangers of fracking shale for natural gas production. Pro-Nuclear Democrats has an excellent series of posts on this topic.

I called my post Natural Gas and A Waltz, and I included a comic song by Tom Lehrer. To my surprise, fracking shale was also discussed on the Daily Show, which was much funnier. This is the first time I have gone head-to-head with Jon Stewart in the stand-up-comedy area, and Stewart won. Of course, he's more willing to be bleeped by his producers. (Okay. That was sour grapes).

Actually, my blog post and Stewart's show make a good pair. The last half of his show is about fracking shale. (The first half is about the oil spill, and there's the usual smarmy stuff in the middle.)

Welcome!

Welcome to new Nuclear Blogger Steve Hedges of Nuclear Townhall! His comprehensive blog has a multi-link first page resembling the Drudge Report. William Tucker, author of Terrestrial Energy, interviewed Ted Rockwell for Nuclear Townhall. It's a fascinating interview, and well worth reading. Here's a quote from Rockwell about tritium:

Yet the good people of Vermont voted to close the power plant, which has reliably produced enough electricity to meet 85 % of their needs. I recognize that there were other issues with the utility and its relations with the regulator. But TRITIUM was the scare-word that grabbed the headlines. And it was tritium that led to the closure of the medical research reactor at the Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island, New York. Although the underground leakage plume never reached outside the restricted reactor area, and the plume itself was within permissible levels, U.S. Senator Alphonse D’Amato said, “Those bastards are killing my people, and I’m not going to let them get away with it.”

A sad story about another state over-reacting to tritium, but one we need to know about. Welcome, Nuclear Townhall!

Thanks!

I want to start by thanking Nuclear Townhall for mentioning one of my posts in the best-of-the-blogs list on the lower right of the page.

And continue by announcing the Seventh Carnival of Nuclear Energy, hosted by Charles Barton at Nuclear Green. I thank Charles for including my posts, and mentioning my "death defying tritium drinking act." Though really, Charles, I can't find enough tritium to be death-defying. I'll just go eat a banana or something.

Intellectually, this Carnival is truly a feast. Links to posts on spent nuclear fuel, and a lively debate on Small Reactors, started by Dan Yurman and followed by the Carnival from blog post to blog post. Barton did a terrific and thoughtful job of putting this together.

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I took this photo of the carousel in the main square of Avignon, France.