Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I was never assigned lineman duty – thank God! But I remember being called into work at a nuclear power plant in upstate NY when there was a blizzard and 8 feet of snow had fallen in the early morning hour of 2 am. The plant computer (an old DEC VAX 6200) had gone down, so reactor power was reduced to 90% because the analog instrumentation wasn’t as precise as the digital, and thus the reactor operators had to back the reactor core away from 100% power. That was a loss of 8 MWe or so for an 800 MWe plant, and during the cold of winter when people depended on every milliwatt, my job was to restore the plant computer. So cursing and swearing, I drove the 29 miles into work from where I lived and got the plant computer back up and running. The operators then restored reactor power level to 100%.
Sadly most people don’t understand what it takes to keep the lights on, the furnace electric controls operating in winter, the HVAC running in summer, and the refrigerator to always function. So remember your linemen and your local nuclear power plant engineers, operators, and security guards who have to take time away from family so all of us can live in comfort. And bear in mind: all those fancy solar photovoltaics are covered with snow, and all those wind turbine blades are frozen over, but heavy metal fission of uranium and plutonium works 24 / 7 / 365 regardless of weather. And there will be linemen out this winter time ensuring power lines from those plants are connected to your home. They are the real heroes.
Speaking of nuclear power, the current Miss America (her successor will be crowned next week) is an aspiring nuclear engineer whose platform issue is promoting nuclear energy.
https://www.missamerica.org/grace-stanke/
“Grace Stanke is the third Miss Wisconsin to earn the title of Miss America…. Her goal is to dispel myths about nuclear energy while inspiring women everywhere to chase their goals…. She will use her national platform to continue advocating for “Clean Energy – Cleaner Future”.
Thank you, Elaine! There is hope:
https://www.ans.org/news/article-5193/a-conversation-with-grace-stanke-miss-america-2023/
LQC: Everything that you say about the electrical grid becomes even more critical when the green power advocates want make our transportation infrastructure dependent on EV vehicles charging off the electrical grid. A while back California proposed eliminating new gas powered vehicles and followed it up shortly after with crying uncle about charging EVs because of electricity shortages. Appears that California already has had the electrical equivalent of gas lines for EV cars.
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I saw a video today that is a send up of the current mindlessness of the green advocates:
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Good video, GregB. On target. Now posted on Facebook and in Terra Vaniloquentiae.