Nuclear Reactors As Art

Hemos recommends the coverage over at Wired of a project to digitize nuclear reactor art. "Not all nuclear reactors are built alike. Power plant designs can vary in their fuels, coolants, and configurations, a fact beautifully illustrated by a series of reactor wall charts originally published in issues of Nuclear Engineering International during the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, the charts have been lovingly collected by Ronald Knief, a nuclear engineer at Sandia National Laboratory. Recently, he completed his collection... and began to digitize the drawings. The first eight out of more than 100 have now been permanently archived online... 'This is not a CAD/CAM-type thing,' Knief said. 'This really is art.'"

Comments

Chicken Little

[Ceiynt]

Oh no, he's helping the terrorists by showing them what a reactor looks like and how it works. The Iranian people can use that to build 100billion teratons of nukes to kill stuff. Hang him.

Re:Chicken Little

[Rebelgecko]

No, a rouge state is one that wears too much makeup.

Re:Oblig Simpson's ref

[Anonymous Coward]

I like "Smilin' Joe Fission" - now that's art!

I am happy that this guy has the capacity to recognize that these blueprints are art. There's a lot of potential in these diagrams. Hopefully this site will be in a constant state of flux, with him adding new pieces of artwork. Even though it would be easy to get grounded by the mundane details of a nuke reactor, I still think that the majority of these diagrams are shockingly interesting.

Everything I see...

[Anonymous Coward]

reminds me of her.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17343737

Reactor Porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Hard-core. Lead-lined.

Great!

[SEWilco]

I give this a glowing review.

No Chernobyl?

[WidescreenFreak]

I can't believe that there's no Chernobyl reactor as art! I think that in its current state it has a very Dali-melted-watch look to it with a bit of Picasso thrown in.