Nick Touran

Texas officials warn of "maneater" screwworm that burrows into open wounds, eyes and mouths to lay eggs Just one fly can lay up to 300 eggs at a time and is drawn "to the odor of a wound or natural opening on a live, warm-blooded animal."

Yuuup www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-m...

yeah... very gross but drives the point home! Those screw worms are coming back now!

Screenshot of some nuclear films

Screenshot of some nuclear films

Screenshot of some nuclear films

Screenshot of some nuclear films

Getting these 45 historical nuclear films from 1955-83 dug up and digitized has been one of the coolest and most rewarding things I've done with What is Nuclear. Thanks to you all for your interest and support in this project!

There are only ~100 left to get.

whatisnuclear.com/museum/

GitHub - whatisnuclear/nuclear-plant-anki-deck: Anki cards for memorizing info about nuclear power plants Anki cards for memorizing info about nuclear power plants - whatisnuclear/nuclear-plant-anki-deck

For all you Anki users out there (free spaced repetition learning app), I made a deck for memorizing the US Nuclear Power Plants. Planning to expand it more later but it's starting out with just the operational commercial units. ENJOY! github.com/whatisnuclea...

I'd think so, but empirical observation suggests that there is unlimited funding available for nuclear startups, regardless of setbacks and issues. People with money fricking love investing in nuclear.

Observation: the actions that get more investors to buy into your nuclear company are currently the opposite of those needed to develop an economical, operable, maintainable, and safe nuclear plant.

Anyone have ideas about how to bring these back into alignment?

Regulatory Reforms the Nuclear Industry wants I surveyed lots of people in the nuclear industry and made a list of reforms that most people agreed on

There are tons of good reform ideas that would actually help. I have a list whatisnuclear.com/news/2025-05...

Yes! The founder said you could hold it and get no more dose than a typical CT scan. When prodded, he qualified that he meant after 30 days cooling (which... is not enough to make it safe...) and produced a comically flawed calc report.

The Nuclear Option - YouTube

CNA in Singapore produced a nuclear power documentary called "The Nuclear Option" that you can watch online. They visited many key places and talked to lots of people. It came together super well! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

As a penance I added CANDU to the scoping tool whatisnuclear.com/neutronics-s...

Sorry that was a follow-up to the last tweet. It's Preliminary Pile Assembly bsky.app/profile/did:...

real control drum design https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015001554800&seq=216&view=1up

This is just a low-power easy-to-reconfigure critical mockup to verify the calculations and do design optimization. In the real system it would be an actual rotating drum.

beryllium triflute https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015001554800&seq=72&view=1up

Beryllium triflute that fit between the pins in the PPA.

Who's working on beryllium triflutes today?!

core diagram showing rotating control drum mockups from ppa-19

When you have a small and high-leakage core (e.g. a sodium-cooled, beryllium or ZrH-moderated one), you can adjust control from the edge of the core.

ppa-19 circa 1951 https://doi.org/10.2172/348907

Here's Preliminary Pile Assembly-19, where rotating control drums were first mocked up in a critical facility around 1951. Note the six smaller hexagon outlines on each corner of the central hex, each of which represents a control drum.

Thank you!

Dang it! Yeah they should be included on the left.

On the pro-advanced side, it's worth knowing the real story about how so many dozens of advanced reactors have failed to break through due to operations and maintenance challenges. We all know the potential advantages, let's focus on demonstrating real commercial viability and high capacity factors

On the pro-LWR side, it's worth noting that people who own and operate LWRs like them OK but readily admit room for improvement. We all know they're battle-hardened workhorses with proven reliability, let's focus on getting the next 10 built with much improved contracting and construction management

guy pressing two buttons to build LWRs and advanced reactors

We debate this endlessly within the pro-nuclear world, but I really don't think it's super complicated. There's plenty of room to promote either without throwing the other under the bus.

text from https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html#myth1

No, it's very commonly stated but is not right. Plutonium for bombs was made by specialized Pu-production reactors (graphite or heavy water moderated). SFRs, PWRs, and MSRs are substantially worse for making plutonium. MSR was abandoned because (see text from whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myth...)

The Westinghouse Test Reactor Fuel Melt Fuel fabrication must have minimal defects

New safety minute about the WTR fuel failure whatisnuclear.com/safety-minut...

Neutronics Scoping Tool Plug in your reactor type, size, and enrichment and get info about how much fuel you need, how long it will run, how much leakage there is, etc.

Link to the tool: whatisnuclear.com/neutronics-s...

YouTube video by What is Nuclear? Neutronics Scoping Tool demonstration

Here's the Neutronics Scoping Tool, which allows you to dial in a certain core height, radius, enrichment, and power rating and see if it will go critical and how long it will run. Then, it estimates the fuel LCOE, average discharge burnup, and a whole lot more. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQzD...

Nuclear plant along Lake Michigan with American flag. From Greenwood Cemetery archives

Big Rock Point in Northern Michigan was the prettiest nuclear plant.

It's crazy that one little 71 MWe plant like this can make enough electricity to power a whole county in peak fudgie season.

Rickover's Memo as a Dunning-Kruger Curve The Rickover memo can be depicted as a Dunning-Kruger effect

The Rickover memo in the form of a Dunning-Kruger curve whatisnuclear.com/news/2025-06...

Ha! Congrats on the block.

I still think making a gun-type HEU bomb and demonstrating it somewhere would be easier and faster, and would suffice as a deterrent against a lot of people.

I have no intelligence into their work, but I would not agree with that statement. It's often considered easiest to just enrich with gas centrifuges up to weapons grade. Simple uranium gun-type bombs are much easier to make than plutonium implosion devices.

It's after you start splitting atoms in a reactor that you get into the astoundingly radioactive stuff. A kg of spent fuel pulled out of a power reactor will be kicking out 2800 watts of radiation right after shutdown and is therefore *45 million* times more radioactive than enriched uranium.