March 15, 2010

This is Fermi 2

Sounds like a Muppet name, doesn’t it?

Last week I drove to Michigan on business south of Detroit and saw these cooling towers in the near distance. I’ve seen them from I-75 before, but they always seemed so far off the highway.  I was mesmerized, couldn’t get close enough.  I asked the nice man at the gate if I could drive closer to take pictures and he said, “you can drive to those pylons up ahead and make a u-turn and get on outta here.”  He didn’t say it, but “little Missy” was implied by his tone of voice.

The first Fermi reactor (Fermi 1) suffered a partial meltdown and a release of radiation in 1966 during a test run. Engineers were able to intervene and contain the radiation, but the accident caused quite a scare and even prompted some officials to initially consider evacuating portions of southeastern Michigan, including the city of Detroit. Fermi 1 finally began operating again in 1970, but shut down for good in 1972.

But everything’s okay now!

posted by in consciousness, culture, environment, ethics, nature, observations, science, technology | * | 14 comments 

comments

  1. Kathy Hilen-Smith on March 15th, 2010 at 10:19 am

    related link of interest

  2. Phil Bebbington on March 15th, 2010 at 10:52 am

    OOooo, these are great, Kathy. I am like a bug around a light with stuff like this. I always want to get close if possible. A friend of mine just returned from Chernobyl – I was dead jealous!

  3. Dave Vogt on March 15th, 2010 at 11:03 am

    I am absolutely enamored with the rear-view mirror shot.

  4. Kathy Hilen-Smith on March 15th, 2010 at 11:11 am

    I kept trying to drive around them to get on their east side because the light was better, but then I realized the east side was Lake Erie and I’d need a boat. No way could I expense that.

  5. Lucy Foley on March 15th, 2010 at 11:21 am

    Silkwood.

  6. Cindy Scroggins on March 15th, 2010 at 12:15 pm

    Let’s pitch in and get Kathy a boat.

  7. Lucy Foley on March 15th, 2010 at 12:16 pm

    Don’t you have to have money to do that?

  8. Cindy Scroggins on March 15th, 2010 at 12:21 pm

    Oh, you must mean a real boat. Oh. Yeah, that would cost money.

  9. Lucy Foley on March 15th, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    Well for a gal who knows how to talk her way around a nuclear reactor security guard, there are creative ways. Jeez, I’m all about the italics today.

  10. Kathy Hilen-Smith on March 15th, 2010 at 12:26 pm

    My considerable charms failed me with the security guard. He gave me the boot.

  11. Lucy Foley on March 15th, 2010 at 12:28 pm

    Ah, I misread that as him giving you the wink to drive right up to them but hottail it out of there as fast as your shutter could click before the feds got you, little missy. Damn.

  12. Kathy Hilen-Smith on March 15th, 2010 at 12:35 pm

    He gave me a look that clearly said, “You one crazy fucking hillbilly get on outta here.”

    The “little Missy” was in his tone of voice.

  13. Cindy Scroggins on March 15th, 2010 at 12:38 pm

    Missy Hilen-Smith

  14. Dave Vogt on March 15th, 2010 at 8:35 pm

    Mom’s boyfriend used to be an armed guard at a nuclear plant upstate. This strikes me as the kind of thing he’d say, implied “little Missy” and all.

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