Hanford Nuclear Site

One of my professors invited me this coming Monday to canoe the part of the Columbia River which flows past Hanford, the nuclear site which produced the plutonium that went kaboom over Nagasaki in WWII.

Which we toured yesterday as a class. I wish I had my notes in front of me to remember important facts, but of course I do not. We toured the innerds of the "B Reactor" at Hanford. Unfortunately, I know nothing of such things so I didn't understand the technical aspect of it very well, but FINALLY! I had a breakthrough. The really good-looking tour guide guy (who is an alumnus of my college!) said that a reactor is like this:

Putting a hundred mouse-traps in one teensy box, side by side. Finally, you just drop in the 101th mousetrap in, and everything goes, "KABOOM!!!" and a reaction occurs. Made sense to me! So Uranium is a pure element and Colorado happens to have some of it, along with Africa and the Czech Republic apparently. Uranium is used to make Plutonium. Used to make the Atomic Bomb. After WWII came the Cold War era, where Truman gave his famous "Truman Doctrine" speech, and then George Kennan created what is now called the "Containment Policy" of containing the Communists and eventually squelching them. Because of these two things, the Handford site was kept alive and well, continuing to produce atomic material. Now it has become the largest conservational cleanup and the largest building project in the United States. They no longer produce atomic material, but are faced with the daunting task of cleaning it all up without a) killing Washington State off, and b) blowing the whole world up several times over (which I was assured the waste at Hanford most certainly could do). So the budget is over ONE TRILLION DOLLARS, and the plant where they plan on doing vitrification (turning waste into glass and then burying it several miles underground) is costing 11 billion dollars. As we were driving along, our tour guide would say, "and this is costing XXXX billion dollars, and this X billion amount," and I was like, "Holy crap!" However, when I found out Russia is not even taking care of their waste, just letting it pollute their country and kill off their people, I realized: heck. Its worth spending a trillion if it means it won't kill us all off. I'm worth more than that anyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;)

All very fascinating--if you have questions, ask me. Otherwise, I'll leave the history (mostly!) alone (for now!).

Other than that, you want to know my plans? Staying in bed for as long as possible listening to music. Studying really hard. Writing three major papers. Taking my Mom out to eat for a late Mother's Day "surprise."

One of my classmates is writing her SEnior paper on the Madaba Plains Project, an excavation site in Jordan that she (and my roommate) have gone to excavate in the past few years, digging up pots, houses, bones, etc.. She couldn't think of a good interesting title, so another classmate came up with this one: "Superglue and Pot." I am superlatively impressed.