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1) In a childish "you too" tantrum, the post-Chernobyl Soviet press now brings accidents at Western power plants under prominent headlines. This one reports the Aug. 19 explosion and fire at the power plant in Tabernas, Spain, which like the fast breeder reactors in the rest of Europe uses liquid sodium as the working fluid. Sodium will ignite on contact with air, and explode on contact with water. The flames engulfed the control room of the plant and eventually reached the unit containing the liquid sodium. It is a wonder that no one was killed, and that the US press did not report the incident.
Ah, but then, Tabernas is a solar-thermal plant.
2) Neither did the US press pay much attention to the fire and explosion at SoCal Edison's 10 MW Solar One, America's second-biggest solar-electric plant. It was crippled on Aug. 31 when an explosion blew a hole in the storage tank and set fire to more than 240,000 gallons of mineral oil. The oil, bubbling at 600 degrees F, is user, as a working fluid rather than liquid sodium. The plant cost $150 million, more than half of it paid by the taxpayer via the DoE, setting a record for cost per installed kilowatt
Ah, but then, solar plants have one advantage that nuclear plants cannot match: when one of them blows up, you don't lose much generating capacity.
3) When, before the last summit, US Army Maj. Nicholson was deliberately left to bleed to death in the East German colony of the Soviet Empire, the shadow government of the US yawned: Reagan said "All the more reason to go to the summit." This time, when reporter Daniloff was framed as a spy, even the dregs of Congress, not excluding Weicker, Solarz, Schroeder or Dellums, voted to condemn the act.
Ah, but then, journalist Daniloff, unlike Nicholson, works for the real government of America.
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Vol. 14, No. 2
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 14, No. 2 Date: November 29, 2004 04:54 PM (For actual publication date see newsletter.) Title: Justice and St. Karen
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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