ISD III Postmortum - Sides & Sauce

Do it yourself fruit salad! Inspiration comes when you have too much fruit and no bowl large enough to hold it all.



The saucing station, featuring Roadhouse Barbecue Sauce.



It was especially cool that Buddy and Daddy Roadhouse were in Waukesha County yesterday to demo their sauces at the Sendik's and Grasch grocery stores. Buddy accepted my invitation and he and his dad feasted on my barbecue with their sauce. A heaven made match.

ISD III Postmortum - Prepping the Meat

I was too busy cooking and entertaining to post for the last couple of days. Today is catch up time.

Two picnic shoulders rubbed and ready to barbecue.



Beef chuck roll in the Weber Smokey Mountain cooker.



A whole brisket following application of dry rub.



More to come.

This is not an isolated occurence

Is legislative oversight of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's role in this event too much to ask?

Lost load snarls traffic in Falls

A steel cylinder weighing more than a herd of elephants tumbled off a truck here Thursday and snarled traffic all day, prompting state officials to halt all such future shipments.

Bound for a wind farm in Iowa, the 55-foot section of windmill fell onto the road shortly before 10 a.m. as startled onlookers watched in the center of the village's downtown business district.

"It just went 'thud,' " eyewitness Joyce Block said.

The colossal cargo came to a rest at Main St. and Appleton Ave., both state highways, where it blocked traffic throughout the day until about 9:25 p.m. and left downtown merchants cut off from their customers.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation had begun issuing permits for an expected 140 shipments of windmill parts continuing throughout the summer. A handful or so had already passed through the village in recent days without incident.

But village officials interceded after Thursday's mishap and persuaded the state to suspend all permits issued to a trucking company for Gamesa Wind US, a manufacturer and operator of wind energy systems.

What the article does not say is that the trucking company does not choose their own route. The routes are assigned by Wisconsin's own DOT. The DOT's priorities seem to be to route these oversized and overweight loads through areas where the greatest chance of an incident exists.

When the new reactor head for the Kewaunee Nuclear Plant was transported through the state three years ago, the DOT ran the load through the area near Wildcat Mountain State Park in the Southwest part of the state. The turns were so sharp and grade so steep on the route that the truck hauling the load could not complete the trip without help from a pair of additional diesel tractors.

My ISD Lineup

Clockwise from lower left:

• 3 Racks of Beef Back Ribs (12 pounds)
• 4 Racks of Baby Back Ribs (10 pounds)
• 7 Hot Links (4 pounds)
• 2 Pork Shoulder Picnic Roasts (20 pounds)
• 1 Whole Beef Brisket (10 pounds)
• A Buttload of Chicken Drumsticks (4 pounds)
• 1 Beef Chuck Roll (8 pounds)

68 pounds total. My cost $110.

I will also pick up 3 or 4 whole chickens on Saturday.

Smoke Day preparations are underway

My 8 pound beef chuck roll rubbed with Paul Kirk's Chuck Wagon Beef Rub. It is now resting in the refrigerator and will go on the WSM tomorrow at 8:00 p.m.



Mrs. Headless has been busy with desserts. I assume that this is the Pecan Passion.

Newman!

Dang, I wish I could look that cool in my Entergy hardhat.

It is nice to ocassionally find a non-airhead from Hollywood.

Cool Hand Nuke

Actor and race car driver Paul Newman and Eddie Wachs, also a racer, were guests of Indian Point as they got an on-the-ground look at the Buchanan, N.Y. nuclear power plant. The visit, arranged in-part by the Nuclear Energy Institute, was the result of Newman and Wachs’ interest in nuclear power as part of the solution to global climate change.

They were briefed by Entergy Nuclear President Mike Kansler and Site Vice President Fred Dacimo before they embarked on a walking tour of the facility.

Kansler explained to the famous racing duo that nuclear power is the largest emission-free energy source in the United States and Entergy is dedicated to reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions.

Newman questioned the group on the prospects for new nuclear construction and wondered how prepared the country was to produce the talent to run the next generation of plants. Bowman, who is on the board of a number of nuclear engineering programs, indicated that there has been a recent up surge in interest among young people in nuclear engineering programs but the construction and fabrication knowledge base has eroded over the years.

Newman's statement following the tour.

I recently toured the Indian Point nuclear plant and I expected to be shown safety and security at the plant. But what I saw exceeded my expectations. No Army or Navy base I’ve ever visited has been more armored and I couldn’t walk 30 feet inside the plant without swiping my key card to go through another security check point.

There was security at every turn, and the commitment to safety is clear. One worker told me his family lives very close to the plant, downwind even, and he is very comfortable because of the plant's commitment to safety.

During my tour of the plant, I was amazed that a generator that is the size of two or three rooms of my home can provide electricity for 1 million people without producing any greenhouse gas emissions.

Who's idea was rain or shine?

Smoke Day may be exciting in Wisconsin.

Cat fight

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is this all about?

The old rule was that only show that exists is your own show. Belling and Sykes should learn it.

This is getting tedious.

The McBride Release - A different take

I noticed when visiting Jessica McBride's new (old) blog that there was an old post announcing her move from her old (now new) blog to her new (now defunct) blog hosted by WTMJ. The date of this post was exactly one year prior to her first new post on her resurrected new (old) blog.

What's my point? Jessica had hosted her radio program at WTMJ for one year. It should not be a surprise that an appraisal of the show's performance would occur around the one-year mark, and changes made if WTMJ management's expectations were not satisfied.

I see no reason to get spun up about her release.

Franklin Mountain Lion

These photos are being spread by email. They don't look like obvious Photoshop fakes to me.





The message reads:

I thought you'd be very interested to see these:

Here are a couple of photos of the very elusive, but much talked about, Mountain Lion supposedly roaming Franklin - well, you can believe the rumors now!!! These were taken from the safety of OUR OWN BUILDING (Pen& Inc. of Milwaukee), while the Mountain Lion clearly checked out Our lot! Go ahead pass these around - they're the ONLY photographs of the animal taken that day!!!

Pen & Inc. is located here.

Driving tip

Here is a tip for all drivers.

If you drive a delivery van with your corporate logo on the side and company name on the vanity plate you should avoid this situation. When driving at close to 100 mph northbound on I-94 in Racine County, if a driver in front of you needs to suddenly change lanes at 70 mph due to a delivery truck pulling in front him and you need to lock up your brakes to avoid rear-ending him - it is not a good idea to yell at and make rude gestures to that other driver.

Especially if your office phone number is on the side of your van and the other driver has a cell phone in his car (what are the chances of that?).

I hope you find this advice to be helpful.

One Week

Raspberry Crumble Tart

Turtle Bars

Rhubarb Bars

Lemon Curd Berry bars

Walnut Fig Tart with Ancho Chiles

Pecan Passion



And ribs, too.

ISD III Recipes - Drumsticks

My son loves dark-meat chicken, so I'll be making the Coke-Brined Grilled Chicken from the June 2007 Cuisine at Home magazine next Saturday. The brine uses 1 litre of Coca-Cola and 1/2 cup kosher salt for 4 pounds of chicken. The chicken is then rubbed with a fairly basic BBQ rub and grilled. I'll smoke the drumsticks low & slow in one of my Weber kettles with cherry wood for smoke.

There is a Coca-Cola barbecue sauce recipe in Raichlen's Sauces, Rubs, Marinades, ... book that I may make to go with the chicken.

More lessons in self destruction

More on FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's bizarre decision to renege on their plea agreement and contradict their basis for restarting the Davis Besse nuclear reactor.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety critic with the Union of Concerned Scientists, jumped on the inconsistency in the FENOC position. Lochbaum filed a petition with the NRC to have the license for Davis Besse revoked. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports:

In a petition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the watchdog group demands the agency determine which scenario is correct. Until the NRC makes up its mind, it should order the Toledo-area power plant to shut down, the petition argues.

If the NRC agrees with the controversial new analysis, the agency should suspend operations at the nation's 68 similar reactors because current inspection methods and intervals aren't enough to stop fast-growing corrosion from leading to a reactor rupture. Davis-Besse was two to 13 months from such a catastrophic accident, experts have determined.

If the NRC decides the new analysis is not credible, it should punish the utility for again misleading the agency - something FirstEnergy already has admitted to doing about Davis-Besse's deteriorating condition.

"If the report is right, Americans across the country are exposed to unnecessarily high risk," the petition said. "If the report is wrong, Ohioans are once again duped by a deceitful [FirstEnergy]."

NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said the agency will review the concerns and respond within two weeks.

The utility's new analysis says the pineapple-sized hole, caused when cracks leaked high-pressure reactor coolant, formed in Davis-Besse's massive carbon steel reactor lid in just a few weeks - not four years, as FirstEnergy, the NRC and nuclear industry experts all believed.

The report's conclusion puts FirstEnergy at odds with its own previous determination about how and why the nuclear near-miss happened. In order to earn permission to restart the crippled plant in 2004, the company accepted blame for missing ample and repeated warning signs of corrosion, made massive reforms and paid a record $5.45 million fine to the NRC. Davis-Besse also replaced the corroded lid.

The new analysis, prepared by Exponent Failure Analysis Associates, says the quick-acting corrosion happened while the reactor was running after its last inspection, so there was no way FirstEnergy could have caught the problem.

That argument may help FirstEnergy collect nearly $200 million in insurance money, but it has opened a can of worms with the NRC and may have broad implications for the nuclear industry.

David Lochbaum is no anti-nuke flake. Lochbaum is a nuclear professional who shared an office with Headless Blogger in the 1980's during restart efforts for TVA's Browns Ferry Unit 2 (coincidentally, Browns Ferry Unit 1 finally restarted this week). His evaluation of the FENOC position has merit.

The NRC responded in record time to Lochbaum's filing and FirstEnergy's changing story. The NRC issued a Demand for Information to FENOC this week (the first DFI issued since 1997). In the Demand, the NRC went beyond even what Lochbaum petitioned, putting FENOC's nuclear operating license in jeopardy for not only Davis Besse, but also for FENOC's three other units in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Analysis

The NRC provided FirstEnergy with strong clues in their Demand for Information as to the legal peril they face as the result of issuing this new report. Based on previous evidence, NRC has basis to believe that the Exponent Report was used by FENOC in a legal proceeding with the knowledge that the postulated scenario was implausible.

The DFI points to FENOC being aware that physical evidence of reactor head erosion in the form of ferric oxide in containment existed for several years prior to discovery of the physical condition of the head. Therefore, although the Exponent Report accurately provides a plausible explanation of how erosion of the Davis Besse head could have occurred, physical evidence is present that proves it occurred by a different mechanism.

This leaves the NRC with a clear mandate to severely punish FirstEnergy again. FENOC may have proven itself to be untrustworthy. Depending on the FENOC response to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Demand for Information, the NRC may have no choice but to revoke the Operating Licenses for FENOC's four nuclear reactors.

The nuke with a hole in the head keeps digging

The Cleveland Plain Dealer sets the stage:

CLEVELAND (AP) — The owner of a nuclear power plant where an acid leak nearly ate through a steel lid on the reactor vessel is trying to distance itself from blame while fighting a $200 million insurance dispute, a newspaper reported Sunday.

FirstEnergy Corp. paid a record $5.45 million fine from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and $28 million in civil penalties after acknowledging it failed to stop the leak at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Toledo.

The leak, discovered by investigators in 2002, was the most extensive corrosion ever seen at a U.S. nuclear reactor. It's not clear how close the plant was to an accident.

The company now argues that corrosion ate through the steel lid so quickly — in four months, not the previously accepted four years — that normal inspections every two years couldn't have caught it, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported.

FirstEnergy bases its switch on a new analysis it paid for, the newspaper said. The report by consulting engineers is based on new information, some of it from the government itself.

Some industry observers say they're troubled by findings favorable to Akron-based FirstEnergy and what they say is a failure to take into account contradictory information.

"I think — and this is a personal opinion — that some of the arguments presented in the report were selective," said Alex Marion, executive director of nuclear operations and engineering for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group.

The Davis-Besse plant was closed for two years after the damage was discovered but returned to full power in 2004. FirstEnergy spent $600 million making repairs and buying replacement power because of the shutdown.

What FENOC has done is to change the story they told to their regulator in order to demonstrate their plant was safe to restart. FirstEnergy provided that previous explanation to the NRC under oath and affirmation.

FENOC also entered a DOJ plea deal in 2005 that required them not to contradict the agreed-upon facts submitted to the NRC.

FENOC was also obligated by federal regulation to evaluate this new information to determine if Davis Besse remained safe to operate under the new scenario. Instead FENOC used this information for commercial advantage with their insurer and ignored their utmost obligation as a nuclear licensee, to ensure the health and safety of the public.

Headless Blogger has learned that the new analysis was commissioned by FENOC's legal department and refuted internally by a FENOC metallurgy expert. The FENOC's expert advised the company not to submit the report to the insurer.

More to come ...

Zeke gets taken out

Zeke Clark resigned as Palisades Security Manager last week. His story is getting some excited local coverage and stirring up some nuclear opponents.

Contacted this morning, Palisades communications manager Mark Savage would neither confirm nor deny that management there suspected a security breach but said Palisades' owner, New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., is investigating information from the Esquire article to determine whether an investigation is warranted.

Savage said a complete background check was conducted on Clark before he was hired at Palisades in early 2006. After taking administrative leave because of a medical condition that Savage said was unrelated to the accusations in the Esquire article, Clark resigned May 9. Since then, his security access to the plant has been suspended, Savage said.

...

Esquire released the story on its Web site Friday. Tuesday, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service issued a press release criticizing Palisades for failing to detect false assertions in Clark's resume.

``Apparently, a journalist can do a much better background check than Entergy and Consumer security officials,'' Toledo attorney Terry Lodge said in the press release.

It is too bad that Consumers Power and Entergy are getting stink on them from this story. Clark was hired by Nuclear Management Company. Consumers and Entergy were not responsible for Clark's hiring, and he lasted less than one month with Entergy.

Planet Gore nails another one

A great post at Planet Gore today on ethanol use in modern engines. They explain that the current gasoline price spike is not due to oil commodity prices*, but to the Spring to Summer fuel formulation switch. But there is no longer a basis for the switch to Summer blends due to modern engine technologies. It is just another federally imposed screw-job.

The post references this excellent piece by Patrick Bedard in Car & Driver which debunks several ethanol myths.

* There hasn't been a corresponding spike in diesel prices. I spotted diesel priced 80 cents less per gallon than unleaded in Indiana.

Stick a fork in NASCAR

NASCAR develops this "Car of Tomorrow" with the idea that the COT will make the races more competitive by evening out the cars. It is working great if your name is Gordon or Johnson. But not for any other drivers.

Goodbye.

Not Performing at Int'l Smoke Day

Unfortunately, the renowned Play It Again Tom, aka Fish Fry Tommy, aka Tom Wroblewski will be unable to rock out the crowd from my back deck. I am counting on him being here in 2008.



Sal and his tapas barflies might note that Play It Again Tom is employed by a Swedish multi-national forest products company (not tongue depressors). He is available and willing to perform at any event in Europe on short notice. Contact Tom at rowbie@hotmail.com for booking information.

Jumping the shark

This nickname contest for the Brewers in today's paper will cause some bad, bad mojo. The team stands 14 games over .500 right now. This kind of talk means that we'll be seeing a lot of losing starting soon.

When the Brewers are back to .500 by the All Star break. I will know who is to blame.

ISD III Recipes - Brisket

The first recipe I have settled on for International Smoke Day is Millionaire Brisket with Coffee and Beer Mop Sauce from Steven Raichlen's BBQ USA. The recipe is available online here. I intend to cook a 10 pound packer brisket using the high temperature method on a Weber kettle, removing the meat after 5 to 6 hours to rest and finish. Probable smoke wood is pecan, hickory and whiskey barrel oak.

While the brisket flat is resting, I will remove the point and use this method to create Burnt Ends (see photo). Both recipes will be firsts for me.

Counting down: Two weeks to brisket

The list of side dishes is being finalized.

• Bacon Barbecued Beans
• Granny Smith Coleslaw
• Potato Salad
• Baked Mac & Cheese
• Corn & Black Bean Salad
• Fruit Salad
• Baked Cornbread Casserole

Standby for desserts.

Day by Day - The names have been changed ...

Is Zeke Zed? Or Zed Zeke? I see some resemblance.

Nuclear security

If you learned that the man in this photo -- a professional assassin -- was the head of security at one of our nation’s most vulnerable nuclear facilities, would it trouble you? Or would it sound like one hell of a story?

I think I'll feel a little safer when I return to work on Monday. I'll also be more likely to obey the site's 15 mph speed limit.

The rest of the story is here.

Headless Enterprises is Open for Business!

Teeshirts, stickers and more. Click here - http://www.cafepress.com/HeadlessBlogger

Man-made warming from a different greenhouse gas

Dad29 got me thinking about the effect of water vapor on global warming. A friend pointed me to a website with more information on the subject and also to this information from NOAA:

Water Vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which is why it is addressed here first. However, changes in its concentration is also considered to be a result of climate feedbacks related to the warming of the atmosphere rather than a direct result of industrialization. The feedback loop in which water is involved is critically important to projecting future climate change, but as yet is still fairly poorly measured and understood.

As the temperature of the atmosphere rises, more water is evaporated from ground storage (rivers, oceans, reservoirs, soil). Because the air is warmer, the relative humidity can be higher (in essence, the air is able to 'hold' more water when its warmer), leading to more water vapor in the atmosphere. As a greenhouse gas, the higher concentration of water vapor is then able to absorb more thermal IR energy radiated from the Earth, thus further warming the atmosphere. The warmer atmosphere can then hold more water vapor and so on and so on. This is referred to as a 'positive feedback loop'. However, huge scientific uncertainty exists in defining the extent and importance of this feedback loop. As water vapor increases in the atmosphere, more of it will eventually also condense into clouds, which are more able to reflect incoming solar radiation (thus allowing less energy to reach the Earth's surface and heat it up). The future monitoring of atmospheric processes involving water vapor will be critical to fully understand the feedbacks in the climate system leading to global climate change. As yet, though the basics of the hydrological cycle are fairly well understood, we have very little comprehension of the complexity of the feedback loops. Also, while we have good atmospheric measurements of other key greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, we have poor measurements of global water vapor, so it is not certain by how much atmospheric concentrations have risen in recent decades or centuries, though satellite measurements, combined with balloon data and some in-situ ground measurements indicate generally positive trends in global water vapor.

With the dominance of water in retaining reflected heat, it might stand to reason that increased atmospheric moisture from man-made sources could dominate any warming from carbon dioxide. With this in mind I asked myself "what man-made means is there to increase water vapor?"

How about the paving of lands that formerly absorbed water and the storing of that water in retention ponds? I postulate that pond water is more likely to evaporate than water that soaks into the ground. Could this be an alternative means towards man-made climate change – blame it on concrete and asphalt, any good environmentalist can get excited about that.

On the other hand, applying the Law of Unintended Consequences:

What we don’t know is what the affect is of using retention ponds instead of letting the water run away to rivers, lakes, oceans, etc. The irony here is that the environmental mandate for storage of runoff may be a major contributor to global warming - the worst environmental disaster of all time.

La Carte de Mort - 2007 thru April

Pulled pork on May 26

The rest of the starting line-up.

• Pulled Beef Chuck Roll
• Beer Can Chicken (& Arnold Palmer Chicken, too)
• Millionaire Brisket
• Hot Links
• BRIMBY* Baby Back Ribs

Featuring sauces from Roadhouse Bar-B-Que.



You may also learn the meaning of ABT and Fattie.

*Best Ribs In My Back Yard, my version of the Best Ribs In The Universe.

I came up with this slogan today. Bumper sticker material for my next trip to Madison.

While I am on the subject of bumper stickers, it occurred to me recently that someone must have invented a super adhesive in 2004 that is unbreachable and unremovable. What other explanation is there for all the Kerry-Edwards stickers still in existence in 2007?

The Uber Geek made this dad very proud today

UWM called this evening informing him that he has been awarded two scholarships totaling $7,000. Freshman tuition and housing just got a whole lot more affordable.

Actuarial Science is where it is at.

Settled fact, until you review the scientific evidence

There is an excellent rip at the global warming conventional wisdom at Backseat driving. David Evans, a scientist who formerly had a vested interest in promoting climate change sensationalism, makes these points.

So three of the four arguments that convinced me in 1999 that carbon emissions caused global warming are now questionable.

The case for carbon emissions as the cause of global warming now just boils down to the fact that we know that it works in the laboratory, and that there is no strong evidence that global warming is definitely *not* caused by carbon emissions. Much the same can be said of cosmic rays -- we have laboratory evidence that it works, and no definitely contradictory evidence.

So why did I bet against global warming continuing at the current rate? Let's return to the interaction between science and politics.

By 2000 the political system had responded to the strong scientific case that carbon emissions caused global warming by creating thousands of bureaucratic and science jobs aimed at more research and at curbing carbon emissions. This was a good and sensible response by big government to what science was telling them.

But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions gradually got weaker -- better temperature data for the last century, more detailed ice core data, then laboratory evidence that cosmic rays precipitate low clouds. Future evidence might strengthen or further weaken the carbon emissions hypothesis. At what stage of the weakening should the science community alert the political system that carbon emissions might not be the main cause of global warming? None of the new evidence actually says that carbon emissions are definitely not the cause of global warming, there are lots of good science jobs potentially at stake, and if the scientific message wavers then it might be difficult to recapture the attention of the political system later on. What has happened is that most research effort since 2000 has assumed that carbon emissions were the cause, and the alternatives get much less research or political attention.

Evans also states.

Let's hope for the planet's sake that I win the bets

Evans cannot shake that conventional thinking. I disagree, I would rather see warmer weather than the return to the little ice age.

HT - Planet Gore

Wisconsin's finest



I workout at the same YMCA as Mary Steinkraus. I didn't realize she was the aunt of NFL first round draft pick Joe Thomas until she showed up on Fox News Channel.

I hope that all this fame and attention doesn't go to Mary's head.

I forgot what I was going to write about this

Leave it to the NY Times to make Chemo Brain this a gender specific issue.

Once, women complaining of a constellation of symptoms after undergoing chemotherapy — including short-term memory loss, an inability to concentrate, difficulty retrieving words, trouble with multitasking and an overarching sense that they had lost their mental edge — were often sent home with a patronizing “There, there.”

But attitudes are changing as a result of a flurry of research and new attention to the after-effects of life-saving treatment. There is now widespread acknowledgment that patients with cognitive symptoms are not imagining things, and a growing number of oncologists are rushing to offer remedies, including stimulants commonly used for attention-deficit disorder and acupuncture.

It couldn't happen to a man. I must just be getting stupid.

Grounded

We've all seen this story by now.

A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season.

For Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, it was wheels up shortly after they voted in favor of legislation requiring that U.S. troops begin returning home from Iraq in the fall.

No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions.

The main take is that these candidates are hypocrites for claiming to be GREEN, but not giving a rip for the environment as demonstrated by their actions. My take is that the majority of these candidates have nothing to add to the debate and have no chance of winning. It is only a matter of ego that puts them on stage. Hillary & Obama have are front runners. Edwards has an outside chance. And Richardson is actually qualified to hold the office of the President. The rest ...

Kucinich - GROUNDED
Gravel - GROUNDED
Dodd - GROUNDED

And especially

Biden - GROUNDED

Get these LOSERS off the stage.

Pit of Dreams - If I smoke it, will they come?

The Third Annual International WSM Smoke Day is four weeks away. If you can find me, I will feed you.

For admission, bring good beer or whiskey. Menu details to follow.

Please don't tell my wife about this.

Explosive nuclear job growth

I ran across this article linked at the NEI Nuclear Notes blog.

Workers in short supply for U.S. nuclear power

A 2005 study by the Institute found that half of the industry's employees were over 47 years old, while less than 8 percent of employees were younger than 32. Most Americans retire after turning 65, and the survey found more than a quarter of nuclear workers were already eligible to stop working.

Even the government's regulator, the NRC, is scrambling to add 200 new employees this year just to monitor the sector, Klein said.

The number of nuclear engineering majors at colleges around the country has risen to 1,800 last year from just 500 in 1998, according to the Energy Department, but that is still not enough to feed current needs.

That median age seems dead on. I turned 47 in 2005 and just about all my colleagues are clustered around my age. The statement about retirement is not quite true. With the current demand and wages, no one I know can seem to leave the nuclear industry. Most retirees return almost immediately to work in contract positions at inflated wages. That's a good thing.

Also in the NEI blog post.

ROBISON: You wouldn't have ever expected it because the uh, I guess I'd call 'em tree huggers, I don't know what organization they were from, they came over and you would have thought that we were best friends. They said it was such a great idea and they supported nuclear power and they wouldn't have said that 10 years ago. They would have been exiled from their own group for having said that.

These aspiring nuclear engineers say global warming has forced many to rethink nuclear power since it doesn't emit greenhouse gases. And they're convinced it's safe.

A new generation is catching on. Another good thing.

Shatner a musical talent?

It is true.

UPDATE - For Sal

Amazon.com
After his rendition of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" on the infamous Golden Throats album (though it first appeared on the Transformed Man LP), one could argue that the world needed a new William Shatner album about as much as it needed a big-screen remake of TJ Hooker. But Shatner's back all the same with an intriguing, introspective collection of mostly spoken-word tracks that are all the more compelling when it becomes clear that Has Been is, in fact, no joke. Ben Folds played on and produced the record, creating rich, melodic, and varied pop musical backgrounds to Shatner's world-weary, boozy-suave yet thoroughly impassioned delivery. Joe Jackson, Aimee Mann, Henry Rollins, Brad Paisley, and Adrian Belew also stop by to lend their divergent talents. Highlights include the Rollins/Shatner rant "I Can't Get Behind That" and the Folds/Mann/Shatner collaboration "That's Me Trying", which tells the painful story of an attempted family reconciliation. Shatner mixes a healthy amount of self-awareness with a just a dollop of self-mockery and then combines it all with plenty of raw vulnerability to create an effect that is surprisingly touching, highly entertaining, and unlike any music you've ever heard. --John Moe

More good stuff at Amazon.com, including music clips.

What is that smell?

Coming soon, a better announcement than this.

Survivor - Year 3

On April 19, 2004, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

Three days earlier the reaction of my ultrasound Radiologist told me I had cancer. But protocol required that I wait for my Urologist to tell me on that following Monday.

On April 24 I had an orchiectomy performed (my 46th birthday). A CT scan on May 7 discovered a tumor wrapped around my aorta. Chemotherapy began May 17 and was complete on July 2, 2004. The chemo kicked my ass. And it killed the cancer.

Today I celebrate three years of life fighting and surviving cancer. I thank my doctors, nurses and other medical professionals for their wonderful care. I thank my lousy insurance company for fulfilling their part of our contract. I thank Lance Armstrong for giving me faith that this cancer could be beaten. And I thank God for making me well and allowing me to live in a nation and a time where this high level of healthcare is available and timely.

My experience with cancer has changed me. I appreciate my wife and children more. I have become more generous. I have taken up new interests, crazy things like barbecue, blogging and wooden boats. I have also developed a selfish need to see other people be happy. I find ways to do this without even thinking.

I am one of the lucky ones.

Testicular Cancer Research Center

Robotic Mayhem

The FIRST Robotics Championship at the Georgia Dome was awesome and outrageous. My son's Charger Robotics team came in tenth seeded in the Newton Division, but failed to advance in the playoffs.

The Fondy Fire team won first seed for the Newton Division playoff, but also failed to advance out of the division. Quite an incredible accomplishment for a first year robotics team.

Both teams finished among the top 100 robotics teams in the world. What a great bunch of kids.

I stole this from Planet Gore

Now, thanks to a combination of high oil prices and even more generous government subsidies, corn-based ethanol has become the rage. There were 110 ethanol refineries in operation in the United States at the end of 2006, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Many were being expanded, and another 73 were under construction. When these projects are completed, by the end of 2008, the United States' ethanol production capacity will reach an estimated 11.4 billion gallons per year. In his latest State of the Union address, President George W. Bush called on the country to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable fuel a year by 2017, nearly five times the level currently mandated.

The push for ethanol and other biofuels has spawned an industry that depends on billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies, and not only in the United States. In 2005, global ethanol production was 9.66 billion gallons, of which Brazil produced 45.2 percent (from sugar cane) and the United States 44.5 percent (from corn). Global production of biodiesel (most of it in Europe), made from oilseeds, was almost one billion gallons.

The industry's growth has meant that a larger and larger share of corn production is being used to feed the huge mills that produce ethanol. According to some estimates, ethanol plants will burn up to half of U.S. domestic corn supplies within a few years. Ethanol demand will bring 2007 inventories of corn to their lowest levels since 1995 (a drought year), even though 2006 yielded the third-largest corn crop on record. Iowa may soon become a net corn importer.

On a brighter note, a colleague on mine is being recruited to manage construction of a group of ethanol plants that are being designed for conversion to non-corn raw materials. So the potential for an alternative to corn-based biofuels is in sight.

Mr. Biskupic goes to Washington

Just One Minute has put together a good rundown of kerfuffle the surrounding Steve Biskupic's prosecution of Georgia Thompson.

Well. Dem theorists will want to explain why Biskupic, in cooperation with two Democrats, brought a laughably weak case in January, then risked repudiation and humiliation by going to trial in the late spring. Surely if the case was this weak and motivated simply by politics, he would have announced the indictment in the fall and been shamed in court over the winter.

But wait! Biskupic won convictions on two counts! Not only did he seem to believe in his case, but he managed to push it past a jury.

I will have more, but that is a start. My Bold Prediction - Biskupic comes through this unscathed, or, as Yogi Berra might have said, there is no "there" here.

Nice to see a refutation of this story at a national blog.

Be the first on your block ...



... to fly a burgee for Fred (or Tommy, your choice).

Thompson burgees and hats (red or blue) available.

• Thompson burgees - $30.00.
• Thompson hats - $14.00.

For more information contact: ddkausler at charter dot net.

If this catches on, Dorothy won't know what hit her.

For information on Thompson Boats, head to the Dockside.

Ka-ching!

I think my billing rate just went up, Max Schulz writes.

The irony is that the beneficiary of Monday's ruling won't be wind power, solar power, or any of the other renewable technologies favored by the Green establishment. Their economic and technological limitations are too severe for them ever to occupy more than a small niche in the American energy economy. Instead, one of the winners from Massachusetts v. EPA just may be something that many of the environmentalists who brought the suit have long abhorred: nuclear power. Like renewables, nuclear power generates electricity with no pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions. But unlike renewables, nuclear is capable of generating reliable power on a massive scale, which is what our country's future energy demands will require.

Nuclear power is on the verge of making a comeback in the United States. Thanks to several favorable provisions in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, as well as a streamlined licensing process, it is possible we could see the construction of new plants start within several years. The economics for new plant construction are still being worked out, particularly with regard to financing and federal loan guarantees. But there can be no doubt that federal efforts to hamstring coal can only help nuclear. Moreover, any future regulatory scheme allowing nuclear power plant operators to earn credits for generating emissions-free electricity would enhance nuclear's attractiveness to investors.

If you think the nuclear industry is happy with the ruling, think again. That's because the nuclear "industry," such as it is, consists of investor-owned utilities that own coal-fired power plants in addition to nuclear plants. Monday's decision, while potentially good for their nuclear holdings, is almost certainly bad for their coal ones.

Crybabies. The nuclear "industry" also includes many like me, Roadwhores we are called, available to work for the highest bidder. Demand is now outstripping supply by a dramatic margin.

Thank you Justice Kennedy.

Oh and by the way, Mark Belling often complains that only in the NFL can employers terminate the contracts of their employees without consequence. You can add contract engineers to that list.

Don't think about the liberal (final) solution to this

Dad29 had another "global warming" post this morning.

The Chinese fires also make a big, hidden contribution to global warming through the greenhouse effect, scientists said. Each year they release 360 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as much as all the cars and light trucks in the United States.

Soot from the fires in China, India and other Asian countries are a source of the "Asian Brown Haze." It's a 2-mile thick cloud of soot, acid droplets and other material that sometimes stretches across South Asia from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka.

That sounds like a lot of carbon dioxide, but I had no context for how big it really is. Over three-hundred million tons must make a significant contribution to global warming.

When reading, I thought he was going somewhere else with this blog post, so when I got to the end I had a specific question in mind. It didn't take long to perform some ciphering of additional CO2 emissions from China and India.

Inputs (all found with Google).

• China = 1.3 billion population
• India = 1.2 billion population
• CO2 emissions by average human organism = 730 pounds per year

Adding and multiplying.

Annual carbon dioxide emissions by human organisms in China and India.

• 900 Million Tons
  

Those coal fire emissions don't seem quite so large now.

I know that guy



Online anyway. Clay Jackson is another barbecue cooking fiend.

I don't care how reliable Maytag washers are. I suspect his new job will mean less, not more, time with his Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker.

Congratulations Clay.

This picture does not reflect the reality of the situation.

Last night's TV news reports did not limit coverage to the attractive female protesters. There were some real dregs in this group that I am glad to see outside of the mall.

Well done Mayfair.