New Carnival and Two New Blogs

The 143rd Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at Hiroshima Syndrome. It includes blog posts on unexpected interactions (cool white pavements save energy...unless you consider the effect of reflected sunlight on buildings), smog in China, the status of new reactor builds, the Crystal River decision, and more.  Come to the Carnival and have some fun!

Meanwhile, I have added two new blogs to my blog roll.  One really IS a new blog:  Diary of a Nuclear Tourist. Suzy Hobbs Baker is an artist and communicator.  She founded Popatomic Studios and the Nuclear Literacy Project (NLP).  As part of NLP, she is taking a nuclear tour of Europe, and blogging about it.

Here's her post at ANS Nuclear Cafe about the Diary of a Nuclear Tourist project, and here's her post Day One, Up and Running. I welcome this new project and new blog!

I cut and pasted part of the blog banner here, because Baker is an artist and the banner is just so neat!

The second blog I have added is Nuclear Grrl--Atomic Feminist.  The subheading is "Questioning the universe one neutron at a time." I have followed NuclearGrrl on Twitter for quite a while, but somehow missed the fact that she has a blog.  Her bio reads: The musings and opines of a wickedly assertive female nuclear engineer, Buckeye, afro queen, black mamba, feminist, clinic escort, and all around spectacular human being.  Her most recent post A Snowstorm and a Pilgrim  comments on the headlines written when the snowstorm took down the power grid and Pilgrim went off-line. As she notes: CBS Local got it right but AP wrote a doomsday headline.  (None of us is surprised by AP, are we?)

Musings:

I have been thinking about my blog roll.  What are my criteria for putting a blog on the blog roll?  I think I am beginning to see how I choose blogs.  They have to be one of two things:

-  Pro-nuclear power blogs, preferably referencing actual operating plants.
Or
-  Local New England news blogs, often referencing Vermont Yankee.

I just recently realized these are my criteria, though I didn't have an explicit statement about it before.

What about blogs that I don't include? I don't have blogs that are primarily about global warming or thorium reactors.  I believe that global warming is man-made, and I hope the thorium reactor is developed.  However, so far, I don't put blogs on these subjects on my blog roll.  This may change in the future.  Currently,  I use the criteria above.

My blog list has 26 blogs. Visit the blogs and have fun!

Energy Use and Feminism in My Family

My aunt Blanche Stein Vision is 88 years old. She lives in a retirement building (apartments with lunches and some housekeeping provided) in Arizona. Though the daughter of very poor immigrants, she managed to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from University of Chicago. She went to law school at Columbia University. This was practically unheard-of for a woman in those days.

Later, she worked as a lawyer for the FTC: Federal Trade Commission. If you visit a model home, it may have some labels. For example, the fancy tile in the kitchen may have a sign next to it: This tile choice is an upgrade to the base price of the house. That's Blanche's work. She led the FTC project on mislabeling and truth in advertising in model homes.

She usually reads my blog, but doesn't always comment on it. Two days ago, though, she did comment.

Liked your VY blog today. When I was a real little kid we had a coal heater in the in the kitchen and was not allowed to go near it because if we touched it we could get burned, we had a coal stove for cooking, and we had an ice box that needed to have a large chunk of ice replaced in it every few days to keep the food cold. Who knew any better--but as the finances of our family improved we could move into an apartment that had all the "modern" facilities-- steam heat, a gas stove and a real refrigerator with the electrical mechanism on the top. And my mother was able to go to work. Give me convenience any time! And bless whoever invented the washing machine!

I asked her if I could use this post in my blog. She answered:

Sure, do anything you want with it -- I delight now in the "luxury" of air conditioning, heat, hot water, ice and a cooking surface all that can be summoned with the press of a button!

With much love,

Blanche

To me, this story is a blending of the third-world energy use and modern energy use, and how energy use affects the life of women. And it all happened in my own family.

19th Blog Carnival of Nuclear Energy

The 19th Blog Carnival of Nuclear Energy is up at Next Big Future. Stories include: Hyperion is building at 25MW Fast Reactor at Savannah River. When the Sierra Club and the Cato Institute agree on why we don't need more capacity, Rod Adams gets suspicious about motives, as in "Hey, doesn't that mean continuing to use the old fossil plants?" Nuclear Green discusses the Molten Salt Reactor. And more, even more! Always something new at the Carnival.

Coal stove from Wikimedia