Getting Ready for the Week

This is a week of meetings and speaking engagements for me and Howard and other pro-nuclear people here in Vermont.

If you have a chance, please read my earlier post on the four important meetings this week, including the Shaffer-Gundersen debate this Thursday.

Important Vermont Yankee Meetings. Updated.

This morning, a post I wrote went up at ANS Nuclear Cafe. It's all about techniques for supporting nuclear energy in public debates.

Talking about my (nuclear) generation

Suzanne Hobbs at Popatomic has a related post about learning from the opponents in debate.

Learning from Anti-Nukes: An Alternative Strategy

In other important news, Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat describes why Vermont (and New York) will probably lose their spent fuel case against NRC.

New York Could Lose Spent Fuel Case

And finally, I want to give a shout-out to Suzanne Hobbs for her post on art in support of Vermont Yankee. With her permission, one of her posters is on this website. Say NO to more Fossil Fuels in Vermont!

Save Vermont Yankee

Have a good day! I'm off to Burlington for the day. Various activities about the debate, followed by being on a TV show.

Update Again: I embedded the TV clip.

39th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs

The 39th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is up at Cool Hand Nuke.

The Cool Hand Nuke website is more than a blog: it's a job board, a employer directory, a salary calculator for nuclear jobs, and a game room. Oh yes, it's a blog, too!

Today Cool Hand Nuke is hosting the 39th Carnival of Nuclear Energy blogs. This Carnival is full of truly amazing exhibits.

• See Rod Adams of Atomic Insights explain why the Natural Gas Strong Man wants us to believe that methane will be cheap forever. (Each reactor-year of delay means about $350 million in additional methane sales.)
• Watch Brian Wang of Next Big Future describe amazing feats of long-life (reactors) through nanosteel, while simultaneously tracking nuclear builds throughout the world.
• Observe the warning at the Tunnel of Love! Gail Marcus of Nuke Power Talk discusses Divorce and Nuclear. Actually, not much to warn about. Statistics show that the divorce rate of nuclear engineers is very low, compared to other professions.
• In Vermont, on the other hand, it's always time for a spat, and Meredith Angwin (me) of Yes Vermont Yankee covers a big spat (lawsuits) and a small spat (blog comments by an anti-nuclear lobbyist).
• Love and Art time. Visit the Nuclear Art Exhibit by Suzanne Hobbs in the ANS Nuclear Café tent. It's a major public show by several young artists of the Nuclear Renaissance, and it is right here at the Carnival.
• Dan Yurman, in an amazing display of quick motion, is in several tents at the same time! At his own blog, Idaho Samizdat, he updates the story of nuclear power in Turkey. Their first buy was from Russia, but the second one is from Westinghouse Toshiba.
• Simulataneously, at the Cool Hand Nuke tent, Yurman shows that two American states, Minnesota and Kentucky, have lifted their bans on new nuclear construction.

From lawsuits to love and back again, it's a great Carnival. You'll be happy you visited!

Tuesday Blue Ribbon: Suzy Hobbs of PopAtomic Studios

A week ago, I started a new feature on this blog. Monday Blue Ribbon, People Making a Difference to Nuclear. My idea is to honor people who are making a difference to nuclear power. It's easy enough to "cover" only the negative. I think: I admire what that person is doing. Then I don't bother to write about it.

Monday Blue Ribbon is my way of giving credit to those who inspire me. I hope this feature inspires others, and helps my readers start their week in an upbeat manner. However, for me, it really comes down to gratitude.

(Yes. I know the feature is running on Tuesday this week. That's because Monday was a holiday.)

Suzy Hobbs, Art, and Reshaping the Vision of Atomic Energy

When I first heard of PopAtomic Studios, back in February of this year, the website did not include the name of the artist. The site had strong art showing nuclear in a positive light, but no named artist. As Rod Adams noted in a February blog post about PopAtomic, this is a quote from her website at the time:

I currently live in an aggressively liberal city and have lefty leanings myself aside from this one issue. That said, the anti-nuclear sentiment in my community makes this experiment particularly challenging. If you know who I am please do not mention my personal info.......Lord knows I don’t want any trouble.

Out of the Closet and Into the Limelight

After a month or two, though, Suzy Hobbs came out of hiding, and began to acknowledge and grow PopAtomic Studios. It is still a small place, and the artists haven't given up their day jobs yet, but what a change there has been in a few months!

• There are five or six artists contributing to the Studio at any time. Several are listed on PopAtomic's Biography page. Mel Chin, conceptual artist who specializes in public installations and earthworks, is one of Suzy's mentors and will contribute to PopAtomics next exhibit. Dawn Dalto is teaching Suzy slip-casting techniques for a sculpture project involving graphite from the original Chicago Pile 1 reactor. Suzy informs me that these sculptures will be available to order next month.
• The studio has an Etsy shop on-line, with T-shirts and tote bags for sale. The shop even includes some underwear with the PopAtomic logo. This may be a product for people who want to wear a pro-nuclear logo, but not visibly. People who don't want any trouble?
• PopAtomic designs posters, ads, and logos. The most recent poster, Green Footprint, is shown below. Other posters are shown on their website.
• The studio looks forward to bigger art, including public installation art, such as Mel Chin has built. Among other things, Suzy hopes to paint some cooling towers. Her ideas for the Bellefonte Station cooling towers are shown above. These colors were inspired by Mark Rothko and Color Field painting.
• The PopAtomic studio is organizing as a not-for-profit, with a very distinguished board of advisers.
• Suzy has brought Atomic Art outreach into the schools with great success. I learned a great deal about how to get people engaged with nuclear in her blog post Art Based Nuclear Outreach Proves Successful.
• Suzy recently was invited to visit Idaho National Laboratories. This visit will undoubtedly lead to more art and more contracts in the near future.
• PopAtomic Studios has a beautiful website which is always worth exploring. For example, I just discovered the blog ChickenFist (Blue Collar Art) on the blogroll.

Suzy Hobbs as an Inspiration

I urge you all to visit the PopAtomic Etsy store and buy something, or order your next logo or website banner from PopAtomic.

However, as I wrote this, I realized that the list above felt a little like a resume. PopAtomic does this, PopAtomic does that. That's not enough. I have to answer the question: "Why does PopAtomic inspire me so much?"

Suzy Hobbs and PopAtomic inspire me because they carry the pro-nuclear message in an entirely new way, an artist's way. The bright colors themselves are part and parcel of the message.

The problem with me is that I am geeky to the core. Many of the other pro-nuclear bloggers are the same. We honestly think we can sway people with facts and numbers. Suzy Hobbs and PopAtomic Studios reminds me that it takes more than numbers to persuade people. It takes art, and it takes heart.

Thank you, Suzy Hobbs!

All images on this post are copyright to Suzy Hobbs of PopAtomic Studios, and used with permission. Contact Ms. Hobbs through PopAtomic if you seek permission to use these images.

Welcome to PopAtomic

Along with Dan Yurman, I want to welcome artist Suzy Hobbs of PopAtomic studios to the nuclear blog sphere. Her first post discusses the relationship between fine art and nuclear energy. Here's a lovely quote from that essay:

The fear of nuclear warfare, I believe, is a major contributing factor to the lack of support for nuclear energy. So, in developing new imagery, we try to use clean simple lines and bright colors to represent nuclear energy, in sharp contrast to the billowing grey mushroom cloud image.

An art studio sells art. Popatomic builds both custom artwork and wearable merchandise, such as T-shirts and Tote bags, at an Etsy store. Check it out!

Dan Yurman wrote a very thoughtful post welcoming PopAtomic.

The Pro-Nuclear Journey

I would like to say how much I welcome Suzy Hobbs, and understand the journey she has travelled.

When I first heard about PopAtomic studios several months ago, Suzy Hobbs did not put her name on her website. She was an artist in hiding. She lives in a very liberal town, and was afraid of people's reaction to her pro-nuclear opinions. Oh, she joked about her fears, but the bottom line was that she had a website, there was lots of art on it, but...no name. Ms. Hobbs uses her name now, and I am very glad of it.

I am on a similar journey. I have two business cards. One is for my company, Carnot Communications, and one is for this blog. I have not put this blog on my company card, or the company name on my blog site. I almost didn't start the blog, for fear that I would never work in this town again. Like Suzy Hobbs, I feared the reaction of people in my town.

I keep my blog separate from my work (which is okay and the right thing to do) but I also realize that I try to hide the blog from clients. It's a fine line. Keep separate is appropriate, hide is going too far. I am not sure exactly where I am on this continuum. It changes from day to day. It's a journey.

I think that being pro-nuclear in public is hard. We aren't heard because we don't dare to talk.

More Art and More Journeys

The relationship of art and literature to science has always fascinated me. I have no talent as a graphic artist. However, I think I am the only person who has ever written a sonnet cycle about corrosion. I wrote about twenty years ago. (I could post the poems, but right now I happen to be sober.)

It's a great day for art in the nuclear blogosphere. I also recommend Cheryl Rofer's post at Phronesisaical, a blog that often concerns itself with politics and arms control. In today's blog, Ms. Rofer honors the way Martin Gardner influenced her life with his fun-with-geometry columns in Scientific American. She describes the relatively short jump from paper-folding to organic chemistry in her post, with some nice graphics of cootie-catchers paper folding.

Another journey, from geometric art to science.

Let's all enjoy our journeys.

Earth Day Video, Art and Vermont

The Video

C-Span Student Cam Grand Prize Winner for 2010

Film about energy and nuclear energy by

Madison Richards, Samantha Noll, & Lauren Nixon
8th Grade
"I've Got the Power"
McKinley Middle Charter School
Racine, WI

The Art

You may have wondered about this picture on the side of the blog. On the other hand, if you clicked on it, you would have found yourself at the website of a young artist who supports nuclear. For a long time, she wouldn't share her name, because she lives in a very "liberal" very anti-nuke community. I see she has her name up there now..Suzy Hobbs!

I encourage you to view her designs or watch her slide show. You can see her sketches on the Areva blog.

The Planet and Vermont

Daily Finance lists Five Technologies That Can Save the Planet (nuclear is one of them).

A professional nuclear society did an excellent one-page description of the legislature's assessment of Vermont Yankee and renewable options. However, if you prefer, you can read the legislature's entire executive summary here.

Keeping Vermont Yankee while building renewables is the best option for Vermont and the planet.

Happy Earth Day!