Atomic Insights

At least five people were killed on Sunday, February 7, 2010 at a natural gas fired power plant nearing construction completion. You can read more details including the names of the men who were killed at Middletown Explosion's Victims Were Fathers, Grandfather . Additional Reading Wall Street Journal - The 411 on the Kleen Power Plant and its PE Investor Depleted Cranium - a first hand account...

I just had a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) moment. I have figured out why Chairman Jaczko seems to be working at cross purposes to the Secretary of Energy and the President by insisting that his job as an independent regulator of nuclear energy does not include efforts to encourage its growing use. The fundamental problem is that he does not understand energy technology enough to recognize the...

It has been one really strange winter here in Annapolis, Maryland. We have already had two snowstorms that each dumped something close to 20" of snow. My wife and I just finished digging out from the most recent one yesterday afternoon, but we are now under a winter weather watch with a prediction for another double digit snowfall starting this afternoon. Right after coming in from a couple of...

It is always a pleasure to discover another blogger who is writing about nuclear energy from a perspective of knowledge and sound research. I have recently begun reading a new blog titled Go4Nuclear's Blog . It is being produced by a nuclear engineering student from the University of California at Berkeley. Here is an excerpt from her introductory post published on January 22, 2010: As a junior...

Just in case you want a tiny diversion that provides inspiration on the power of science and technology, here is a short clip of this morning's shuttle launch - mission designation was STS-130. The voice in the background is an friend from my days at the Naval Academy. He was there because one of the mission specialists on the voyage was Kay Hire, also a college friend, company mate and former...

The more I read his work, the more I respect James Hansen's intellect and passion. I am reading his recently published book titled Storms of My Grandchildren and learning more than I ever knew before about his work as an atmospheric scientist studying the earth for the past 30 years. Dr. Hansen and I share a distaste of the proposed "cap and trade" method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions...

On Friday, February 5, Areva hosted a conference call for invited bloggers to discuss the progress that they were making on their Eagle Rock (Idaho) nuclear fuel enrichment facility. Areva was represented on the call by Sam Shakir, the head of Areva Enrichment Services. Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat has a summary write up about the call in a post titled Update on Areva’s Eagle Rock enrichment plant...

There is an op-ed piece in the New Hampshire Sentinel-Source titled READER OPINION: Radiation must be taken seriously written by Kevin Kamps . The op-ed is focused on trying to elevate concerns about tritium found in the groundwater at Vermont Yankee. He is responding to an article that the paper had previously published titled Scientists: Tritium levels not concern, but source is . In other words...

Many of the most virulent anti-nuclear activists have begun focusing almost exclusively on spreading the assumption that nuclear energy means expensive energy. They have been helped in this effort by statements from the established nuclear industry who claim that new plants are so expensive that they require government assistance and incentives in order to get them financed and built. The fundamental...

I was happy to hear President Obama's positive statement during the State of the Union Address about building new nuclear power plants. I was also encouraged when that statement was seemingly followed up with an expansion of the DOE's authority to provide loan guarantees for new nuclear energy production facilities. I was even pleased to hear that the Administration had decided to stop wasting...

Tom Friedman is an author who can never be accused of being boring. People often love him or hate him. In the below clip he wishes for a "perfect storm" that is big enough to convince people that climate change is real, but small enough so that it does not "end the world." That is a rather provocative way to express his desire for a greater understanding and recognition of the dangers...

Here is an interesting lede from a story in RenewablesBiz.com titled Non-conformity Taxing Developers : Ask any renewable energy project developer what saved the market from total collapse in 2009 and the unanimous answer would be the cash grants program from the U.S. Treasury. That's the Section 1603 program changes in the Recovery Act in which project developers were given the option of accepting...

Over the past several days, I have read a series of somewhat troubling and negative articles about the PBMR project in South Africa . There is pressure from the government and discussion about whether or not the large project, which employs about 750 scientists, engineers and technicians , will continue to be funded. There is good reason for concern - the project has been in existence for about 15...

Several weeks ago, I published a copy of an advertisement labeled as a "smoking gun" that was a direct attack on nuclear energy paid for by the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island. Today, one of the people I follow on Twitter shared a link to a blog post featuring an advertisement that might surprise people in a different way - it is a large layout advertisement providing the results of an...

President Obama recently participated in a virtual town hall meeting via YouTube, answering questions submitted by viewers. Here is a clip of a question about investing in nuclear energy. We need to help financially inexperienced people, young and old, learn to recognize the important difference between spending and investing. When you invest money into an asset like a nuclear power plant that will...