We’re well past the point of being able to consider only the most pleasant energy sources. Looking at the number of people on the planet, and the increasingly dire reports of damage caused by the burning of fossil fuels, we need to be realistic. These steps, by the scientific community and the Obama administration, are heartening steps in what seems the right direction.

From the ominously titled European Space Agency press release, Even the Antarctic winter cannot protect Wilkins Ice Shelf: Wilkins Ice Shelf, a broad plate of floating ice south of South America on the Antarctic Peninsula, is connected to two islands, Charcot and Latady. In February 2008, an area of about 400 km² broke off from [...]

Nuclear power plants were first proposed at the dawn of the cold war. It was assumed the best fuels–enriched the most for atoms releasing the most neutrons per fissioning–would forever be reserved for military use. We had bombs to build. Hundreds, thousands, millions–enough to scare the Soviets (and the Soviets to scare us.) Military first, [...]

Let’s talk about Chernobyl. We enter our time machine, and roll ourselves back to the start of the cold war. We’re nuclear engineers in the Soviet Union charged with getting as many reactors operating as soon as possible. Every bit of enriched Uranium is going to bomb manufacturing, as is all the available heavy water. [...]

We’ve got our reactor up and humming. Our fuel is fissioning, splitting into smaller atoms and releasing neutrons. Our moderator is slowing down the neutrons, keeping them around long enough to fission the next fuel molecule. Our control rods are absorbing enough neutrons to keep the chain reaction in check. The coolant is transferring the [...]

It can’t all be good news. Yes, using a properly designed nuclear reactor, we can capture vast amounts of useful energy by helping atoms get closer to the ideal, iron. Now to the first big wrinkle, radiation. Unhappy atoms break up in a few different ways, all releasing energy. We can break it down into [...]

The goal? A controlled fissioning of large nuclei. You’ll need fuel, moderation, coolant, and some control. Coolant is the easiest to grasp. The fission chain reaction in the nuclear reactor will produce heat. It’s the goal! We need some way to transfer the heat away from the reactor and put it to use. Water is [...]

As I’ve quipped before, everything in the Universe secretly desires to be Iron. Why? Meet the nucleus: Protons and neutrons in an uneasy alliance. Neutrons, conveniently enough, are neutral in electrical charge. No problem rubbing two of them together. Protons, however, are positively charged. Remember, like charged objects don’t like sitting next to one another, [...]

Nuclear power, long reviled as a dangerous source of energy, is on the verge of a comeback. That’s because a growing body of scientists, politicians and environmental activists see atomic energy as part of the solution for global warming and our ever-growing dependence on foreign oil, much of it from nations that, if not downright [...]

My week is ending poorly. Rather than go into a lengthy whine about crappily designed and maintained websites, the evil of both the SAX and DOM XML parsers in Python and “what, you can only do one miracle at a time” management, I’d rather present you with an appropriately glum bit of my knowledge. Thus, [...]