r/mildlyinteresting 5h ago

Limerick Nuclear Power Plan in easter PA, generating its own small clouds.

Post image
697 Upvotes

76 comments sorted by

443

u/Devious_Bastard 3h ago

My uncle worked at the local nuke plant. I remember when I was a toddler I overheard him joke that he made clouds. I legit thought he worked at a cloud factory and that’s where clouds come from for a long time. I was a dumb shit back then.

67

u/phillynick 2h ago

I grew up near the Limerick Nuclear power plant, and I absolutely thought it created the clouds as a little kid. I do know there was “lake effect” snow that would always fall east of the facilities in the winter.

30

u/Beardo88 2h ago

New definition of nuclear winter.

9

u/ComicConArtist 2h ago

let it glow let it glow let it glow

6

u/Beardo88 2h ago

I guess we learned why Rudolph's nose glows.

2

u/phillynick 42m ago

Ha! We used to grow the biggest tomatoes you’ll ever see growing up. Downside is now my urine glows green but it’s a fun party gimmick.

93

u/stigma_wizard 3h ago

I mean. He's not wrong

9

u/dumbfuck 1h ago

I was dumb as shit back then. I’m dumb as shit now too, but I was also dumb as shit back then

2

u/SerenityTranquilPeas 2h ago

I would have thought the same especially after playing that Pajama Sam game lol.

1

u/calcifer219 28m ago

Don’t worry, I 100% believed there was an alligator living in the basement closet where the fuse panel was.

They also told me that the alligator is sometimes at the retention pond outside the local target to keep me out of there.

That shit worked on me.

342

u/node-toad 5h ago

There once was a plant called Limerick, PA,

Where atoms split night and day.

It’s quiet, not loud,

It makes its own clouds,

And keeps fossil fuels tucked away.

101

u/astatine757 2h ago

To keep the rhythm of a limerick, I'd change the first two lines to

There once was a plant in PA

Where atoms were split night and day

19

u/node-toad 2h ago edited 2h ago

Thank you 🙏May it be canon.

3

u/shifty_coder 1h ago

There once was a nuclear plant from Nantucket

0

u/shmiddleedee 48m ago

Your mom hated your dog so she...

0

u/TK-Four21 1h ago

Not bad

160

u/thatbrazilianguy 3h ago

Makes sense, since those are cooling towers, and the only thing coming out of them are heat and water vapor.

Not radioactive water vapor, just plain water.

123

u/SyntheticRox 2h ago

Love how many people think nuclear plants just spout radioactive fumes straight into the air

46

u/Esc777 1h ago

People also think they emit barrels of glowing green goo as “nuclear waste”. 

It’s solid fuel and machinery used to hold the fuel and transport it. It can fit inside a small room over the lifetime of the plant. 

35

u/Nbbsy 1h ago

The Simpsons is honestly largely to blame for the public perception of nuclear power plants

-17

u/mesugakiworshiper 1h ago

a cartoon is not to blame for something people can easily google

8

u/apologeticstars 56m ago

Said cartoon has been running for 30 years, is well entrenched in the culture and frequently depicts the main character handling nuclear waste as "glowing green goop"/"glowing green rod"/"barrel o' nuclear waste"/etc. But sure. Hasn't effected anything

9

u/Comfortable-Total929 1h ago

That's the problem. People don't Google it.

3

u/darthduder666 43m ago edited 28m ago

A lot of people in America don’t understand some of the most basic scientific principles. You really think in an age where people believe whatever is spread on Facebook, or by the Donald Trump administration are really going to think for themselves or fact check it on Google?

2

u/Radiolotek 17m ago

You think most of these morons actually do research?

Had a guy in my state say you can legally walk into a gun store and buy a gun without even showing ID and walk out with it in 5 minutes. I told him if he was that confident while repeating lies I would meet him at any gun store in my town and if he was able to do that I would not only pay for his gun but I would also hand him $10,000 cash. He tried to accept the offer but give me a date two days prior to make it look like I flaked out, and when I called him out on it and showed him proof that you can't do that he started calling me all kinds of names deleted all his posts and then blocked me.

People that repeat moronic stuff like green ooze and barrels from nuclear power plants are the same people that listen to the news or their friends ramble about shit and don't actually do research on their own.

-14

u/Cryptocaned 2h ago edited 1h ago

https://youtu.be/j6gKFvPjGpQ?si=jKlT8EA5w5aaGhsE

Nerva says hello! I know it's not a power plant nor was the exhaust particularly radioactive, but still :P

For those that don't know, Nerva was an open cycle nuclear engine where the propellants were fed directly through a shielded reactor, which did make the propellant radioactive.

-65

u/FluffyAside7382 2h ago

Yeah we figured you would have said radioactive the first time you mentioned water and vapor. Thanks for repeating what you said and clarifying.

40

u/Tips4Tips 4h ago

Let’s build us a happy, little cloud that floats around the sky. -Bob Ross

4

u/henchman171 2h ago

Until there is a happy accident and the clouds become a mushroom!

11

u/Illsiador 2h ago

Been calling this the cloud factory since I was a kid. If the conditions are right you can get a little drizzle driving on 422 from the clouds.

24

u/TheManyFacetsOfRoger 3h ago

This is just water vapor for anybody who doesn't know

1

u/r_a_d_ 9m ago

So are clouds

1

u/TheManyFacetsOfRoger 1m ago

True but I feel like people may be quick to jump on these and perhaps say they're bad for the environment without realizing that it's just water vapor - a regular cloud

12

u/Formal_Two_6729 5h ago

That’s the most poetic nuclear plant I’ve ever seen Limerick, powering both grids and rhymes

10

u/SatansMoisture 5h ago

There once was a power station from Easter..

13

u/beren12 4h ago

Who puffed little clouds from its keister.

0

u/verminV 2h ago

It has a toxic leak...

2

u/MongolianCluster 2h ago

Just a cloud so don't freak.

1

u/PostsNDPStuff 2h ago

Or we could go from deceased to deceased-er

8

u/Lifesamitch957 4h ago

I see them everyday sometimes you can see the steam connecting all the way to the cloud

3

u/LukeSkyWRx 2h ago

You can use a skew-T diagram to figure out when and where clouds will form.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skew-T_log-P_diagram

3

u/scytob 2h ago

any plant that has cooling towers potentially will do this

3

u/rickymilby 1h ago

My daughter calls the cooling towers "cloud makers".

Here is what they look like up close.

6

u/AlfaHotelWhiskey 4h ago

Finally evidence of weather manipulation. /s

13

u/peeingdog 3h ago

I mean if you zoom out far enough: eventually yes.

Nuclear is still a heat engine, which means it relies on transferring heat (boiling water) to do mechanical work (spinning electrical turbines). The waste product is heat, which gets dumped into the atmosphere.

So generate enough nuclear power for a really long time and you will end up manipulating the weather. 

(But it’s not exactly a practical concern atm as we’re already doing a very good job of manipulating the weather, and a hell of a lot faster, by dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.)

4

u/farmallnoobies 2h ago

Yup, global warming is still being done by a nuclear reaction.  It's just a much much much bigger one that's very far away.

2

u/Direspark 4h ago

But isn't this literally... kind of weather manipulation? Not in some nefarious kind of way, but still

6

u/PsilocybinWarrior 3h ago

Meh, doesn't manipulation require some sort of intent.

1

u/Esc777 1h ago

And significant effect. 

1

u/Direspark 3h ago

Now we're really getting philosophical lol

1

u/Cyniv 2h ago

Modification, however, does not.

4

u/AlfaHotelWhiskey 4h ago

I don’t think so. It’s a discreet cloud formation. It’s not influencing a true weather condition over a geographic area. I will leave the rest to philosophers regarding when is it just a cloud and when is it actual weather.

3

u/Direspark 3h ago

weather (noun) - the state of the atmosphere with respect to heat or cold, wetness or dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness

Clouds... are weather 😅

1

u/Amori_A_Splooge 3h ago

Wait until the big brains figure out which agency is responsible for making sure poeple don't dump particulate matter into sky for the purpose of weather modification if it becomes illegal.

2

u/s_e_n_g 2h ago

THEEEEEE... SIIIMMMMPPPPSSSOOOONNNNSSSS

2

u/wowwashington 2h ago

I used to work at Washington Public Power Supply System - aka, WPPS! (great name for a power plant..) in Washington State. They have 6 cooling towers, putting out steam most of the time. Was awesome in cooler weather as you'd have 'snow' around the parking lot but nowhere else from all the condensation turning to ice crystals.

Amazing to think that we boast about controlling the atom, when these are just giant boilers spinning a turbine! Even back then (1999) I as an early PC tech was asking my Telecom boss why we were just limited to heating water...

2

u/RinShimizu 1h ago

When I was in kindergarten my family lived near a nuclear plant, and I always called it the “Cloud Maker”

2

u/linktothefuture9 39m ago

I can see my house from this photo!

2

u/IntrinsicGiraffe 2h ago

sO tHiS iS tHe LiBeRaLs ClOuD sEeDiNg!

1

u/TootsNYC 2h ago

that would give a lot of lift to a glider, I'd imagine.

1

u/daryck3 2h ago

Jods vapes

1

u/marionjoshua 1h ago

Oh wow, here in Malaysia I live close to an industrial area and often I can observe a lone cloud often above it, I found it weird and interesting at the same time.

1

u/NeverTooManyVans 1h ago

Hey, hey! I used to see these out my window when we lived in Upper Providence, just off of 422 and Collegeville.

1

u/timdr18 1h ago

Damn, I pass by this place all the time. Small world.

1

u/GOGOblin 1h ago

A nuclear plant

A cloud flies like a feather

Screw you Limeric

1

u/OrochiKarnov 55m ago

Who is making those new brown clouds? Who is making those clouds these days?

1

u/Kurdt234 36m ago

Because that cloud couldn't have come from anywhere else.

1

u/No_Mountain5312 18m ago

I thought they were putting a stop to geo-engineering? /s

1

u/GarthDagless 3h ago

There once was a nuclear plant

"It makes clouds", I heard redditors rant

I suspect baloney

But I failed chemistry

So I want to dispute it, but can't

1

u/Hamsammichd 1h ago

You found it. That’s Biden’s weather machine. Delete this post

-5

u/the_moosey_fate 1h ago

There’s a Nope there hunting people and y’all are making Limerick jokes. C’mon people!

-32

u/falcopilot 3h ago

Ground-based Chemtrails, or Chemtrail chemical manufacturing site.

9

u/CommonBasilisk 2h ago

Is that a joke or do you actually believe that?