The Unfathomable Heart – On “Nukey Poo”

The plaque on obs hill makes zero mention of the containment failures, or the ensuing and ongoing cleanup - I was last in McMurdo in ‘16 and they were still scraping off contaminated tuff. I gather the bulk of the material was used for tarmac at a naval base in the US.

Irony of ironies, as the author notes, the most visible thing from obs hill are the huge diesel tanks.

Real damn shame that it tainted the idea of nuclear power on continent. Why they don’t just run the whole show off a nuclear icebreaker, I never quite understood, apart from the whole “diesel is cheap” argument.

You’d think wind would be a good option, as it’s often blowing a hooley across the sound, but the turbines at Scott are apparently out of service more often than not, either due to high winds, ice accumulation, or frozen lubricants - and they’re barely a decade old.