As a visiting scholar last year at the Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells, I met Valery N. Bliznyuk, a visiting professor at Linz and a permanent faculty member at Western Michigan University. His fascinating work in materials at molecular and nanotech levels includes work on polymer photovoltaics. Over dinner, he told me he hailed from Kiev (or Kyiv in Ukrainian), and the subject of Chernobyl inevitably arose. And now, with the disaster at Fukushima dredging up memories of that meltdown 25 years ago, Bliznyuk’s recollections of being a scientist laboring in an informational black ... Read More
An Iodine Chaser
August 19, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
The health risks of radiation exposure are notoriously difficult to measure, but the link between radioactive iodine and thyroid cancer is among the strongest for any radiation-induced disease. The thyroid gland uses iodine to make hormones that are important to development and metabolism. From the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Ukraine and the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan in World War II, there is good evidence that the ingestion or inhalation of iodine-131 causes genetic damage that in turn can lead to thyroid cancer. In addition to iodine-131, nuclear fission reactions produce other ... Read More
The Salt Mine Solution
April 16, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
The "nice" elevator is right out of a luxury hotel with a smooth ride and room for 75 people. It has six degrees of safety redundancy, which means that if one cable were to snap, several others, plus an emergency brake or two, would prevent the six of us from hurtling to our deaths. But just as I'm adjusting the self-rescuer respirator on my utility belt, we get the news: There's a problem with the "nice" elevator. We have to take the salt shaft. The "other" elevator is really a glorified cage pulled along a single cable through a vertical salt shaft; it has one level of redundancy and ... Read More
Stewing Over Nuclear Weapon Leftovers
January 28, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
The heritage of developing nuclear weapons in the United States remains with us, as the recent discovery of a jar of plutonium — historic but still deadly — found at the bottom of a waste pit suggests. We asked Max S. Power to guide us through the tortured history and future of defense nuclear waste. Part Two outlines key issues that need to be addressed by all sides in cleaning up defense nuclear sites. Part Three will illustrate how openness, accountability and trust can lead to effective actions to reduce present and future risks. Decades of rushed and largely secretive production ... Read More
