The nuclear renaissance is here

Applications boom for new nuclear power plants, as the need for zero-carbon power rekindles the nuclear power industry.

Remember the Bellefonte nuclear plant? The one that was partially built and then mothballed? Well, it's back. The Tennessee Valley Authority plans to build the first of a new generation of advanced nuclear power plants on the site of the failed Bellefonte plant.

Is nuclear power an answer to global warming and the need to cut CO2 emissions? Some say yes, what do you think? The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (remember them?) expects upwards of 30 applications to build new nuke plants in the US over the next several years.

It's a hard sell here in the northwest, where we're still getting over the WPPSS debacle. The Washington Public Power Supply System (with the unfortunate name "WHOOPS") created a massive public bond default that we're still repaying. We owe $2.25 BILLION and most of the power generation never came online.

Even so, nuclear power is coming back. Who knew in the 1980s that CO2 would turn out to be scarier than plutonium?

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Acid oceans movie: A Sea Change

Wanna get scared this halloween? Here's something scarier than ghosts and goblins. It's a new movie about our acid ocean future, thanks to CO2 from fossil fuels poisoning our oceans.

It's ocean acidification, it's a CO2 emission problem, it's real, and it's already happening.

I can't vouch for the movie, I haven't seen it yet. But it claims to be a scientific look at the issues, and here's the trailer. Ocean acidification is real, and I hope the movie raises awareness.

Then comes the hard part, finding solutions.

Hat tip: Ocean acidification

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You may have eaten the oldest animal on earth in your clam chowder

A 405 year old clam is the new oldest animal, but someone has probably eaten an older clam since most end up in chowder. Anyone for some ancient clam chowder?

The ocean quahog is a clam that lives upwards of several hundred years. Fishermen use dredges to scoop them out of the sand, and turn them into clam chowder. Without knowing, you may have eaten a 500 year old clam.

The real fate of the world's oldest animal is missing from the news. Everyone's talking about one old clam, without noticing that we eat these little buggers. Scientists found a 405 year old ocean quahog in the ocean off Iceland, from a depth of 260 feet. This "Shakespeare" clam, alive when the bard was still writing plays, was only about 3 1/2 inches long.


Fox News notes ironically that scientists found the oldest animal on earth and killed it. The real news is that people are busy turning the world's oldest animal into clam chowder. Do you want to eat 500 year old animals? Can that be sustainable? Fishery managers think so, but I'm not so sure.

These clams live in the sandy ocean bottom, and there are no fancy corals or other dramatic habitat features that will lead to protection. And typical fishery management lets the biggest and oldest animals get sent to the fish market, so normal management won't protect them. These unsexy old animals will probably keep finding their way into chowder unless we value them simply for being old.

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Acid oceans threaten ocean life

It's the little known CO2 problem that is real, scary and already happening. It's acid oceans, brought to you by human CO2 production.

Our oceans are becomming more acid, and this problem threatens to dissolve corals and other important ocean animals, and it looks like it's already happening. YIKES! The acid levels don't sound too bad, in the language of chemistry. Just a few tenths of a pH unit--doesn't sound too bad, right?

But ask a coral and you might get a different answer. If there were such a thing, newspapers written for corals would be screaming bloody murder. Or maybe screaming "acid threatens to dissolve you and your family!" Let's think like a coral and get worried about acid oceans.

Out of sight, out of mind? Or will we rally to the cause and save our oceans from the acid plague?

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Best ocean-theme horror movie

Thanks to Rick and PZ, here's a task I can't resist, name a horror movie with an ocean theme.

The Lost Continent, after watching this you'll never again go on a marginal ship into dangerous waters with a cast of sketchy characters (wait a minute, that's oceanography!). Weird, not just horrific.


Honorable Mentions:

Classic, but too easy--Jaws, a movie that made me scared to swim in a lake!

Modern and obvious--Pirates of the Caribbean series, great effects and villian (kraken!)

Awesome, would have been my choice, but it's not quite ocean--Creature from the Black Lagoon, with a truly outrageous "synchronized swimming" scene where the creature swims beneath the babe.



This comes from the hallo-meme started by Rick at Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets, by way of Pharyngula.

Now it's my job to tag some others (sorry all, they made me do it):

Shiftingbaselines (this is a job for Randy Olson)

Cephalopodcast.com

Zooillogix

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