My go-to camping dinner is frijoledillas - in a med-large cast iron skillet saute chopped-up onion, chilis, corn (I bring a fresh ear) & garlic, then add a can of beans - my go-to is black beans. Cook it up, adding chili powder & ground foenugreek, some salt, and more water, and as it's cooking down, in a smaller skillet on the other burner, heat corn tortillas, put the beans mix on one half, add cheese of choice on top, fold it over, and cook on each side. You can eat them in a pan or bowl with avocado & salsa on them, or if you want, just by hand. Very easy, and cast iron skillets make for quick cleanup. Boil water for tea or cocoa, splash some in the skillets and swill to clean up. Leftovers make a great base for breakfast huevos rancheros.
I popped a tire late in the evening on the Hole in the Rock Road, on my old 1976 Ford station wagon, loaded with camping gear and my family. We were on our way to Coyote Gulch and the Crack in the Wall/Jacob Hamblin Arch loop.
I finally actually followed the link to the KSL story in Western Energy News and the PR from Bluecastle project. I love how they write much about this stuff in the present tense instead of the future. The featured future Green River nuke would be from Holtec, a company that has actually started the resuscitation of a mothballed old nuke on the shores of Lake Michigan. Not started any of their own 300 MW "small" nukes, and of course experiencing issues that will lead to cost overruns. Holtec's claim to fame is managing lots of these onsite spent fuel cask storage systems through subsidiaries with very innovative financial engineering. Not actually developing powerplants.
Not only don't they even have some baby test reactor, and certainly not one w/air-cooling, the Lake MI nuke uses once-through cooling, not even cooling towers. The return of heated water to the already-heating lake is one "concern" of the locals. That heating is also an ongoing ill effect from one of the West's whopping three total reactors, San Onofre on a bay off the Pacific.
Last year 3 GW of nukes were installed worldwide, just = the 3 GW retired. Additions are poised to increase to maybe 10 GW/yr in five years. Last year 100 GW of utility battery storage systems were installed to add firming, dispatch, etc. to 800 GW PV and wind added each year. Probably 175 GW of new storage this year. Just Australia added 4 GW of BESS in the last 12 months, not much being retired yet.
AU would seem to have some similarities to the Western US. Some recent inane discussion of nukes in CO used Scotland as an example.
Good to read that you are out there letting your camp stove freak flag fly, Mr. Thompson— what with pavement, nukes, water schemes, and other assorted hubris still lurking along the canyon country’s sand, mud, and washboard blessed roads. Onward, El Burro Blanco!
Oh the laughter over this- my Dad and your Dad must have camped together a few times since I was fed the exact same- may I never taste a slimy cow lip again! Great read!
I had a similar midwestern camp cuisine experience on a Boundary Waters canoe trip years ago.
As far as some speculator with an SMR site who "says the units can be air-cooled," good luck. I don't believe there is an air-cooled commercial nuke in the world. Maybe 5 MW some research thing that isn't really for generating power. But at least it shows they understand there is no water left for random lame evaporation projects, whether ag or industrial.
Lord knows what may get permitted with the current crew at the NRC. My second favorite NYT headline of the week was "US Seeks to Give Weapons Grade Plutonium to Startups for Fuel", after the one about the CIA agent busted by the FBI with $40,000,000 in cash and gold bars at home that he actually didn't use for whatever. Doesn't give one faith in the general level of supervision, other than they apparently can issue directives to take the pronouns out of the email signatures.
Air-cooling is way more expensive for a nuke, and probably takes net thermal efficiency down from 35% to 30% most of the year. The geo folks are doing it but they have free fuel. The feds can just start heaping subsidies on the construction costs, or produced power costs 'til the guv'mint pays for 75% of the things and they can point to that "firm" power. Apparently Mark Zuckerberg is yammering about his love of "masculine" energy now. Oy vey!
Sigh. I gotta wonder what sort of trouble folks will get into now that it's easier to drive HRR in rainy conditions. Last October during a pouring rain in Escalante with NWS flashflood warnings for the region, there were visitors asking business proprietors (gov't shutdown had the agency office closed) about Spooky, Peek-A-Boo, other slots for that day. 😳 They were determined to get out there in the rain because it was their only day to "do" Grand Staircase-Escalante NM. Love thinking about the hummers and the recipe for Annie's + Hatch chili & garlic mac. That's going into the road trip recipe kit. 💚🌶️💚 It's good to think about some potholes getting refills and I hope the hummers eat the gnats for protein!
"paving HITRR is a sort of symbolic and even spiritual defeat for those public lands and the folks looking to protect them, I’m also not sure that it will necessarily lead to more impacts to the surrounding backcountry."
Thank you; that's what I was thinking.
People went ballistic over the paving. I'm sympathetic, but personally this didn't seem catastrophic. I was reluctant to say so, as many people have lived in these places 'forever' and I respect their staunch umbrage.
The rest of your post demonstrated you have full credibility - camping in a 2wd p/u and cooking mac n cheese on a Coleman?! - I sold my F150 almost 30 years ago. So I appreciate and respect your perspective.
Related, I live in Moab, and think paving Sand Flats Road would be a helpful improvement.
My go-to camping dinner is frijoledillas - in a med-large cast iron skillet saute chopped-up onion, chilis, corn (I bring a fresh ear) & garlic, then add a can of beans - my go-to is black beans. Cook it up, adding chili powder & ground foenugreek, some salt, and more water, and as it's cooking down, in a smaller skillet on the other burner, heat corn tortillas, put the beans mix on one half, add cheese of choice on top, fold it over, and cook on each side. You can eat them in a pan or bowl with avocado & salsa on them, or if you want, just by hand. Very easy, and cast iron skillets make for quick cleanup. Boil water for tea or cocoa, splash some in the skillets and swill to clean up. Leftovers make a great base for breakfast huevos rancheros.
Not too keen on the recipe JT but them are some fine photographs
Well that's a couple of gut punches
I popped a tire late in the evening on the Hole in the Rock Road, on my old 1976 Ford station wagon, loaded with camping gear and my family. We were on our way to Coyote Gulch and the Crack in the Wall/Jacob Hamblin Arch loop.
Yes. Heavy sigh. Jonathan, Sarah Fields, Uranium Watch, will, and maybe already has, contacted you about this and some greater background. Pam
I finally actually followed the link to the KSL story in Western Energy News and the PR from Bluecastle project. I love how they write much about this stuff in the present tense instead of the future. The featured future Green River nuke would be from Holtec, a company that has actually started the resuscitation of a mothballed old nuke on the shores of Lake Michigan. Not started any of their own 300 MW "small" nukes, and of course experiencing issues that will lead to cost overruns. Holtec's claim to fame is managing lots of these onsite spent fuel cask storage systems through subsidiaries with very innovative financial engineering. Not actually developing powerplants.
Not only don't they even have some baby test reactor, and certainly not one w/air-cooling, the Lake MI nuke uses once-through cooling, not even cooling towers. The return of heated water to the already-heating lake is one "concern" of the locals. That heating is also an ongoing ill effect from one of the West's whopping three total reactors, San Onofre on a bay off the Pacific.
Last year 3 GW of nukes were installed worldwide, just = the 3 GW retired. Additions are poised to increase to maybe 10 GW/yr in five years. Last year 100 GW of utility battery storage systems were installed to add firming, dispatch, etc. to 800 GW PV and wind added each year. Probably 175 GW of new storage this year. Just Australia added 4 GW of BESS in the last 12 months, not much being retired yet.
AU would seem to have some similarities to the Western US. Some recent inane discussion of nukes in CO used Scotland as an example.
Sorry TL:DR again.
Good to read that you are out there letting your camp stove freak flag fly, Mr. Thompson— what with pavement, nukes, water schemes, and other assorted hubris still lurking along the canyon country’s sand, mud, and washboard blessed roads. Onward, El Burro Blanco!
Oh the laughter over this- my Dad and your Dad must have camped together a few times since I was fed the exact same- may I never taste a slimy cow lip again! Great read!
Brrrrp. Great!!👍
Jonathan, what kind of bike do you ride? Would love to see pics!
Gorgeous photos! And now tonight's dinner is sorted...
I had a similar midwestern camp cuisine experience on a Boundary Waters canoe trip years ago.
As far as some speculator with an SMR site who "says the units can be air-cooled," good luck. I don't believe there is an air-cooled commercial nuke in the world. Maybe 5 MW some research thing that isn't really for generating power. But at least it shows they understand there is no water left for random lame evaporation projects, whether ag or industrial.
Lord knows what may get permitted with the current crew at the NRC. My second favorite NYT headline of the week was "US Seeks to Give Weapons Grade Plutonium to Startups for Fuel", after the one about the CIA agent busted by the FBI with $40,000,000 in cash and gold bars at home that he actually didn't use for whatever. Doesn't give one faith in the general level of supervision, other than they apparently can issue directives to take the pronouns out of the email signatures.
Air-cooling is way more expensive for a nuke, and probably takes net thermal efficiency down from 35% to 30% most of the year. The geo folks are doing it but they have free fuel. The feds can just start heaping subsidies on the construction costs, or produced power costs 'til the guv'mint pays for 75% of the things and they can point to that "firm" power. Apparently Mark Zuckerberg is yammering about his love of "masculine" energy now. Oy vey!
America owes Minnesota.
Let us rise, protect the Boundary Waters, and say thank you 👏🏽👏🏼👏🏾👏🏻👏🏿👏 🇺🇲
Sigh. I gotta wonder what sort of trouble folks will get into now that it's easier to drive HRR in rainy conditions. Last October during a pouring rain in Escalante with NWS flashflood warnings for the region, there were visitors asking business proprietors (gov't shutdown had the agency office closed) about Spooky, Peek-A-Boo, other slots for that day. 😳 They were determined to get out there in the rain because it was their only day to "do" Grand Staircase-Escalante NM. Love thinking about the hummers and the recipe for Annie's + Hatch chili & garlic mac. That's going into the road trip recipe kit. 💚🌶️💚 It's good to think about some potholes getting refills and I hope the hummers eat the gnats for protein!
Also, will more folks now drive out to Harris Wash and a certain aeolian weathering pit?
"paving HITRR is a sort of symbolic and even spiritual defeat for those public lands and the folks looking to protect them, I’m also not sure that it will necessarily lead to more impacts to the surrounding backcountry."
Thank you; that's what I was thinking.
People went ballistic over the paving. I'm sympathetic, but personally this didn't seem catastrophic. I was reluctant to say so, as many people have lived in these places 'forever' and I respect their staunch umbrage.
The rest of your post demonstrated you have full credibility - camping in a 2wd p/u and cooking mac n cheese on a Coleman?! - I sold my F150 almost 30 years ago. So I appreciate and respect your perspective.
Related, I live in Moab, and think paving Sand Flats Road would be a helpful improvement.
You don't want to pay for Starlink?
It can be tempting, I must admit. But I really don't want to support Elon, and besides, it's nice to get off the grid when I'm able!
Doesn't give one faith in the general level of supervision.
🤑 For starters, the supervisors are the problem.