Prague Journal

Monday, June 13, 2005

Regina, who is a political science prof visiting from Adelphi University in New York, invited me to attend her talk about nuclear safety in the European Union. Apparently, there’s a plant here in the Czech Republic, as well as France, Germany, UK, but no country has solved the problem of “spent fuel” storage. Neither the US nor the Czech Republic has a long-term waste repository. EU guidelines for nuclear safety standards are unclear; the directive merely states that there should be a “high standard.” Coincidentally, the Czech nuclear power plant, Temelin, near Ceske Budejovice, disconnected its first reactor from the grid shortly after 5:00 p.m. today, due to a signal fault in the generator cooling system in the non-nuclear part of the plant. The reactor’s output will supposedly be reduced to about 30 percent initially and then will then be disconnected. Apparently, it is be possible to see what the problem is only after the system is completely cool. A second reactor has been shut down since early April for a three month standard check that will include the replacement of about a quarter of the fuel. Obviously, there are concerns about assuring an uninterrupted supply of electricity in the country, as well as the cost of electricity which is set to increase next year.
An interesting sideline about her talk is that it was attended by 13 students from DU, mostly GSIS, here on a 5-week study tour. Prague seems to be a very small place.
There were some more Colorado-Prague connections this afternoon. I had gotten an e-mail from my daughter’s good friend Lee who had visited us earlier this fall, asking to host her friend Matt, a recent CU grad, for a few days who’s traveling around Europe. I met him at Obecni Dům for coffee and then took him to dinner at Na Staré Faře for dinner and palacinky (ice-cream crepes) for dessert. He’s a nice young man, a math major and Frisbee player. I was able to set him up for Frisbee practice and dinner with Veena and her friends for tomorrow.
Late this evening we got a call from our son Matt, who is back in Denver after a week in Seattle, and ready to start a summer job this week. He’s house-sitting for a former teacher, which is a very nice situation for him. I think he’s happy to be back in Denver to connect with his friends and we’ll be happy to see him in August before he goes back to college.

posted by JWinn @ 10:46 PM