Citizen Power

Basically, I’m against beauty contests because they are sexist, but this one deserve a mention because it’s so wonderfully odd!    With all the heavy news going on lately, bad economy, wars continuing, climate change, bleeding jobs, etc., it’s good to get a laugh from Russia.  Who else could come up with the Miss Atom contest?   This woman might be crowned “Miss Atom”.  Her name is Alyona Kirsanova of Novovoronezh, Russia,  and she is a real  contestant in Russia’s “Miss Atom” pageant 2009.   I believe she is standing in front of a radioactive cooling pond. I hope she doesn’t decide to jump in and take a swim.  And why do I think she looks cold?

Alyona, according to the wired.com blog , is a first-time contestant in the Miss Atom contest.  The contest is open to workers in Russia’s nuclear industry.  You can see all the contestants here .

Nuclear power has a bad reputation in the United States.   As a source of power, it has strong pros and cons.  On the good side, it provides C02-free power and lots of it.  On the con side, it produced radioactive waste that we have a hard time finding places to store.   People remember Three Mile Island and other near-melt-downs and they are understandably quite fearful of it.

But lately I have been reading about a new kind of nuclear power called “Generation IV” nucler plants, which will operate at much higher temperatures, produce more power, and less waste. Four of the new types of nuclear reactors are “fast neutron reactors”.  I don’t pretend to know exactly what that is, but you can read a little about them here , and I’d be interested to know your opinion on nuclear power.

I know a lot of environmentalists who are strongly against it, but some climatologists, like James Hansen of NASA, believe we need to use nuclear power while we phase out coal plants.   Personally I think that we need to develop new nuclear plants, but they are very expensive.  What do you think?