Events

Exelon Corp. is preparing to dismantle the Zion Nuclear Power Plant just north of Chicago: Although the timetable hasn't been set, more than about 500,000 cubic feet of material will be moved, everything from concrete walls, pipes, wiring, machinery, even desks and chairs. Much of it is contaminated with low-level radiation. Enough to fill roughly 80 rail cars, it will be transported to EnergySolutions' site 80 miles west of Salt Lake City. It's easier and cheaper than separating the contaminated...

Terry Barr, president of Colorado-based Samson Oil and Gas, wrote in to the Wall Street Journal today explaining point by point how BP personnel, not BP equipment, caused the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history: Mr. Hayward and BP have taken the position that this tragedy is all about a fail-safe blow-out preventer (BOP) failing, but in reality the BOP is really the backup system, and yes we expect that it will work. However, all of the industry practice and construction systems are aimed at...

It turns out, BP's estimates of the oil billowing into the gulf may have been off by a factor of two, or greater: The new calculation suggested that an amount of oil equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster could have been flowing into the Gulf of Mexico every 8 to 10 days. This assessment, based on measurements taken before BP cut the riser pipe of the leaking well on June 3 to cap some of the flow, showed that approximately 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil could have been gushing into the Gulf each day....

Via Talking Points Memo:

Via Bruce Schneier, an interesting experiment at Wharton School of Business showed students have a bias towards short-term gain—even in the face of certain disaster: It’s not like the students don’t know what’s coming, either. When asked if they understand what’s going on, they always say, yeah, they get it: they’re about to get hit by an earthquake. So if it’s not stupidity or ignorance, why do the students keep losing? Kunreuther and Meyer believe the game demonstrates a psychological bias toward...

From Slate, The Only Political Article You'll Ever Have To Read: Obama now faces some of the most difficult challenges of his young presidency: the ongoing oil spill, the Gaza flotilla disaster, and revelations about possibly inappropriate conversations between the White House and candidates for federal office. But while these narratives may affect fleeting public perceptions, Americans will ultimately judge Obama on the crude economic fundamentals of jobs numbers and GDP. Chief among the criticisms of...

Also known as my baby sister:

Fog? Check. Cable car? Check. Alcatraz? Check. Must be the Powell and Hyde line: More fog? Check. Bridge? Check.

In a move calculated to let millions of people believe that taste has not fled the American continent altogether, Thomas Kinkade has filed for bankruptcy: The Chapter 11 petition was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Jose in the name of the Kinkade production arm, Pacific Metro of Morgan Hill, Calif. It allows Pacific Metro to reorganize and puts an automatic stay on the collection of all judgments, including one for $3 million owed to Karen Hazlewood and Jeff Spinello. "Kinkade is a … deadbeat,"...

From Matthew Yglesias, information about coffee consumption worldwide, which apparently peaks in Finland: The Swedes are actually a bit less coffee-mad than the Finns, Norwegians, Danes, or Icelanders but as you can see here all the Nordic peoples drink a ton of coffee, in the Swedish case a bit less than twice as much per capita as Americans do. The Södermalm area of Stockholm where Mikael Blonkvist and Lisbeth Salander live and Millenium and Milton Security are headquartered is just littered with...