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ActiniumJanet Kuypersfrom the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#089, Ac) 7/2/13 So at my old job we had to work with this piece of machinery that in order for it to work, needed to be powered by eight D cell batteries. Yeah, we could have plugged it in, but there never was an outlet in the places where we actually used this machinery. And these eight D cell batteries we had to use were lasting only like two to four hours, so we had to go through anywhere from four to eight sets of batteries a day. I mean, that’s insane, having to go through all that battery power, so I called the manufacturer to see if any battery packs had a longer life, I even asked if rechargeable battery packs existed for it. They said there were no rechargeable battery packs, but a sales engineer there said they had a special long life battery pack that lasts several years. Sounds like a good plan, so I asked for pricing, and found out it was thousands of dollars. Yeah, this battery pack could run from fourteen thousand dollars to upwards of forty thousand dollars... But I was prepared to go to our supervisor with these figures, because yeah, that’s a lot of money, but if we keep using this machine we’ll spend that on batteries in less time. So I called that sales engineer again for more information, and that’s when he told me sorry, we couldn’t buy it. Now, I know it’s expensive, but I had to know what’s up, and he said they could only sell it to NASA, the DOD, and select US government agencies. So yeah, I had to ask why, and found out it was a special radioactive thermoelectric battery for use in outer space. it seems that the radioactive Actinium was the fuel for the work that I need to do. I guess it figures, that the only thing that could help out my work is something insanely rare, and insanely expensive, and it’s best suited for spacecraft — not down here, where I’ve got work to do.... |
also see this poem at Artvilla
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading this Periodic Table poem Actinium at her Beach Poets feature “Periodically on the Beach” 7/21/13 in Chicago (Sony) |
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading this Periodic Table poem Actinium at her Beach Poets feature “Periodically on the Beach” 7/21/13 in Chicago (Canon) |
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading Periodic Table poetry at MOST of her Beach Poets feature “Periodically on the Beach” 7/21/13 in Chicago (Canon) |
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading Periodic Table poetry at her Beach Poets feature “Periodically on the Beach” 7/21/13 in Chicago (Sony) |
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