FED Essay Contest, General Atomics, and Other Items of Interest
9 Comments Published by Dr. Beyster March 2nd, 2010 in FED, San Diego, Technology.FED Essay Contest
I would like to announce a new initiative being sponsored by the Foundation for Enterprise Development. It is the Creating Wealth by Sharing Wealth Nationwide Essay Contest, which is open to students at participating colleges and universities. The contest is designed to energize a national dialogue with students around their views on alternative corporate structures that can improve sustainability, performance, corporate culture, and alignment of incentives in companies of all kinds. The first contest will ask participants to write an essay of between 500 and 750 words on our book The SAIC Solution. There are currently more than 350 students participating at seven different universities, and I believe it will continue to grow. The FED is looking for additional supporters for this program. The idea is a good one, and I hope you will take a moment to look into it.
General Atomics
As many of you know, General Atomics is located here in San Diego. I worked there for 12 years, before I started SAIC. The current owners have created some very useful products. One such product that everyone is familiar with is their line of military and civilian drones, including the Predator. The Predator drone is being used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan for reconnaissance and attack. The company’s newest idea is a compact nuclear power reactor which will be powered by the heat from spent fuel rods from large reactors. According to GA, their process would be able to unlock a significant amount of the energy contained within these fuel rods. In the United States alone, this works out to the energy equivalent of 9 trillion barrels of oil. I will keep a close eye on the development of this new take on power generation and report my findings in this blog.
Other Items of Interest
Last Saturday, February 27th, the whole family drove to the Four Seasons Aviara Resort in Carlsbad. We attended the annual Heart of San Diego Gala for UCSD’s Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center. The UCSD Medical Center cardiovascular department is building new buildings, hiring new staff, and expanding its coverage to become the preeminent cardiovascular center in Southern California. This is an important program for the area, and I support it.
On Friday, the day before our drive to Carlsbad, we took the boat to Oceanside. This was primarily a pleasure trip. However, this upcoming Friday we will be doing ocean sampling for Craig Venter. We’re anxiously waiting to hear the results from our previous sampling efforts and from his around-the-world expedition on Sorcerer II. We’ll let you know.
– Bob
Bob — My husband Sam Cunningham was one of the original group of physicists that founded GA. He knew you from afar in your early days at GA. He was particularly impressed by your experimentalist approach. He will be following your updates on the compact nuclear reactors on your blog with great interest.
Bob, talk with Dennis Buckley about his experience working at the Fort Saint Vrain Nuclear Power Plant which, like the GA EM2 reactor, was helium cooled. Many hard engineering problems some of which were never really solved.
Bob,
Thank you for staying relevant. Yours, Andre
Bill: Thanks for your note. It must have been an interesting experience working with Dennis Buckley at the Fort Saint Vrain Nuclear Power Plant. I’m surprised some of the engineering problems were not solved. I hope GA is able to solve the helium cooling issues with their EM2 reactor. — Bob
Donna: Thank you for your post. I don’t recall your husband right now. Did he work for me? I try to remember those people. Although I have no particular reason to do so, I am curious what’s going on in the reactor business. It’s possible that one or more of the new approaches being pursued by GA will eventually become a good business. Let’s hope so. — Bob
My husband never worked for you. He was an admirer from afar when you were a new experimental neutron nuclear physicist and shot neutron beams. He remembers chuckling when Freddie de Hoffman was worried about your experiments. Sam thought your experiments were first-rate. Sam knew Wittimore and a man named Andy (but Sam doesn’t remember his last name). He also remembers when John Warner came aboard as an administrator at GA. He remembers GA bidding against Westinghouse and General Electric on a project in Peach Bottom PA (?). Westinghouse and GE undercut GA and GA didn’t get the contract. He is very interested in the concept of gas-cooled reactors. That was the GA proposal way back when and reactors have become more conventional with water cooling. Sam’s field was spectroscopy. He was at Princeton when he was contacted by Ed Creutz about the start of GA. We have a picture of the orignial crew at the little red schoolhouse near Rosecrans and Midway. I’ve scanned it, and can send it to you via email if you are interested. And, to top of a series of coincidences,not only did I work for you, but my daughter also worked on CHCS and is now a GA employee working on the predator project to combat piracy.
Donna: Thank you for your post. I’m sure that Freddy de Hoffmann was worried about my experiments. I had a ball with 50 kilograms of U235 that we bombarded with electrons to make neutrons. I would like to see the photo from the little red schoolhouse. You can send it to me at inquire@fed.org. Thanks. — Bob
I am sending two files to inquire@fed.org. One is the picture of the large group taken Aug. 31, 1956. Another is the image of the sheet identifying who is in the picture.
Donna: Thank you for sending the photos — I look forward to seeing them. — Bob