Atomic Insights

Wind Energy Systems Are Good Fossil Fuel Customers

Atomic Insights Blog — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:13:00 GMT

Jason Ribero at Pro-Nuclear Democrats embedded the below video on his site a few days ago . I thought Atomic Insights readers might also enjoy watching it. It is no wonder why tireless fossil fuel marketers like T. Boone Pickens , Joe Romm , John Podesta , Ted Turner , and Tim Wirth are such fans of wind energy. It is good for their sales! Read More......(read more)

Engineering Ethical Code - a Good Basis for Technical Decision Making

Atomic Insights Blog — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:15:00 GMT

Sometimes I pine for the days when America's decision making bodies included more engineers. If that is too far a stretch, perhaps we can at least get back to a situation where there are more people in decision making positions who have been exposed to some of the training associated with building and manufacturing high quality products. While not all engineers are licensed professional engineers...(read more)

International Visitors to Atomic Insights

Atomic Insights Blog — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:01:00 GMT

A few days ago, I posted a map overlay of the US visitors to Atomic Insights for a thirty day period. One commenter asked for information about international visitors. Here is a screen capture of one of the useful reports provided by Google Analytics about Atomic Insights. During the past 30 days, visitors from 98 countries have stopped by at least one time. The total visitor population is a bit over...(read more)

Open, Direct Competition Between Natural Gas and Nuclear Energy In UAE

Atomic Insights Blog — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 06:21:00 GMT

The UAE is one of the world's most richly endowed oil and gas producers, but it has recently signed a contract with a consortium of South Korean manufacturers to build 4 large (1400 MWe) nuclear power plants to supply the electricity baseload in the country. This decision is completely rational. The UAE has a growing, energy intensive industrial base, summer temperatures that frequently exceed...(read more)

Vermont Senate President Peter Shumlin Caught Lying to the American People on Fox News

Atomic Insights Blog — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:51:00 GMT

Watch the latest business video at video.foxbusiness.com Several weeks ago, Vermont Senate President Peter Shumlin called a vote of the Vermont Senate on whether or not to give the Public Service Commission permission to issue a certificate of public good for the continued operation of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station. One of the premises underlying the decision that the Senate made to refuse that...(read more)

Visits to Atomic Insights From Every State in the US During Last 30 Days

Atomic Insights Blog — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:56:00 GMT

I am not terribly obsessive about checking Atomic Insights stats, but I happened to notice the below overlay indicating that there was at least 1 visitor from every state in the United States - plus the District of Columbia during the past 30 days. (The actual tabulated stats indicated that the lowest total was 3 from Wyoming and South Dakota, with 49 of the measured territories in double digits. The...(read more)

How much tritium leaked from Vermont Yankee before the leak was stopped?

Atomic Insights Blog — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:15:00 GMT

A good friend asked me the title question for this blog during the week. The question intrigued me enough to encourage some digging and computations. I would be interested in any questions that you have about the assumptions. Based on reading a number of different articles and checking through the tables provided by the Vermont Department of Health , the fluid that was leaking into the ground contained...(read more)

The Limitations of States Rights - Vermont Yankee Is Heavily Involved in Interstate Commerce

Atomic Insights Blog — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:44:00 GMT

As a sworn defender of the Constitution of the United States, I believe in the importance of making decisions at the right level. Our Constitution does a wonderful job of assigning limited powers to the federal government while reserving the remaining powers to states and individuals. There is healthy tension there and room for debate and discussion on the boundaries. One of the primary strengths of...(read more)

Vermont Health Department Reports One Leak Source Found at Vermont Yankee; All Samples For Isotopes Other Than Tritium are Natural Background

Atomic Insights Blog — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:06:00 GMT

The Vermont Department of Health has a well organized page detailing the results of the search for the source(s) of tritiated water leaks at Vermont Yankee . It includes regular updates, site maps and detailed sample results. Based on an update dated March 5, 2010, a remotely operated pipe inspecting vehicle has helped workers discover a hole in the wall of a pipe that is located in the Advanced Off...(read more)

Science Friday Segment on Innovative New Nuclear Projects - Including Mini Nuclear Power Plants Like Hyperion

Atomic Insights Blog — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:55:00 GMT

On Friday, March 5, 2010, NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow focused on new nuclear technologies . The guest list included, John (Grizz) Deal, CEO of Hyperion Power Generation, Scott Burnell, public affairs officer of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Richard Lester, professor and Department Head of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT and Lester Brown, the founder of the Earth Policy Institute...(read more)

American Petroleum Institute Chief Economist On Marcellus Shale Opportunities

Atomic Insights Blog — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:38:00 GMT

On September 23, 2009, John Felmy, the chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute (API) spoke at the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, PA about the vast opportunities that the API sees for developing the shale gas that is buried about 6,000 feet below the surface. Warning: Felmy is a self-admitted boring economist, but he does a pretty fair job of describing why the oil and...(read more)

Another Blogger for Nuclear Energy - NuclearFissionary.com - Jack Gamble Leads a Team of Fissionaries

Atomic Insights Blog — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:50:00 GMT

Please help me welcome NuclearFissionary.com into the growing world of pro-nuclear bloggers. This new site is a polished team effort with an eye-pleasing layout. It includes several articles on economics, history, policy and technology right out of the starting gate. Go over and say hi to Jack and his team. While you are there congratulate Greg for his web design work and Jason for his excellent article...(read more)

Betting for consumers on the volatile price of natural gas

Atomic Insights Blog — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:52:00 GMT

Decision makers in the regulated part of the business of producing electricity have short memories when it comes to the behavior of natural gas prices , but long memories when it comes to the potential for nuclear power plant construction costs to get out of hand. They publicly worry about the "bet the company" proposition of building new nuclear power plants and ask for as many assurances...(read more)

Details about mPower from Powergenworldwide.com and Chris Mowry

Atomic Insights Blog — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:59:00 GMT

PowerGenWorldWide.com has published a fascinating interview with Chris Mowry, President and CEO, Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) Modular Nuclear Energy titled The mPower TM Modular Reactor . The conversation goes into significant detail about B&W's design decisions, target market, engineering constraints, and desire to make use of its vertically integrated North American manufacturing base....(read more)

NPR - Nuclear Plant Developers Thinking Small

Atomic Insights Blog — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:58:00 GMT