Reading the morning email from The Economist, I discovered to my amazement that the Israelis have a problem besides the personality transplant on back order for Bibi Netanyahou. (Should note that Typepad's suggested spelling for Bibi's last name was "Hootenanny.") Seems that they have a small reactor we gave them for experimentation purposes which is being decommissioned as it should be because it's outlived it's usefulness. Then, there's a bigger one out in the Negev desert that doesn't produce anything except plutonium and similar stuff...and it's a year younger than Barrack Obama. The recommended retirement age for one of these things is 40 years; this one is 53 years old.
What the hell, what could go wrong? Well, it's worth pointing out that the reactor was made in France in the 50s...I for one wouldn't be all that excited about depending on the well-known French quality engineering system that existed 70 years or so ago. Wine, bread, cheese, sausage, cider--they have that down. But, nuclear reactors?
Would you want to have your children's future depend on the equivalent of a '58 Citroen?
There's more discussion of it here...
