DOE official says the Obama administration is “still thinking” about nuclear energy It’s doubtful that Dallas Morning News reporter Elizabeth Souder was intentionally trying to be funny in her column published Sept 22 on the Department of Energy’s “stop sign” policies when its comes to reviving the nation’s nuclear energy industry. She interviewed Steven Koonin , (left) the undersecretary for science ...read more

Late last year there was a lot of hype about a series of cell phone videos recorded by a new security guard at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station of fellow guards dozing off while in a room identified as a "ready room". Having never actually been on the commercial side of the nuclear business, I am still having some difficulty with understanding why it would be a big deal. In the military ...read more

A couple of days ago I mentioned that the Maryland Public Service Commission would be holding a series of meetings in southern Maryland for people interested Unistar's proposal to build a third nuclear power plant at Calvert Cliffs. Here are the details for the time and place of those meetings: What: Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) When: August 4, 11 & 19 at 7:00p.m. Where: Holiday ...read more

National Geographic will debut its newest show "World's Toughest Fixes" with an excellent, in-depth look at how the PPL Susquehanna nuclear plant replaced its turbine this past spring. Here is a 7-minute video teaser of the show that will air Sunday, September 28, 9 PM Eastern time. ...read more

Stan Jakuba at Energy Tribune wrote a piece titled " Obama’s Stumble: Wind Power " in which he explains the limits of President Obama's renewable goals and what the President should promote as well (I'm copying the whole thing because I think it's that good): I like Barack Obama but I have doubts about his presidency when I hear him saying that the US will “double the amount of ...read more

Here’s a story we certainly had no reason to expect: The United Arab Emirates said Monday it had appointed former United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix as the head of a new nuclear advisory board of experts. The nine-member advisory board will meet twice a year starting this February and will help the Persian Gulf state develop nuclear energy, the official WAM news agency reports, citing ...read more

A couple of days ago I mentioned a new pro-nuclear blog titled "Some Truths of Things" written by a grad student in Melbourne, Australia. In that post I also mentioned that he has written a detailed academic paper - still a work in progress, but with references and citations - that is a rebuttal to Helen Caldicott's "Nuclear Power is Not the Answer." At least one reader asked me to post a link to that ...read more

A story titled GOP House candidate Bill Flores backtracks on loans for nuclear power plants caught my eye this morning. It tells the story of Bill Flores, who is running for congress in the Texas district that includes the Comanche Peak nuclear power station. Luminant, one of the owners of the units on that station, has been working for a number of years to design and license two additional units for ...read more

Yesterday, a commenter by the name of Georg provided links to seven YouTube videos about ionizing radiation that he and Kansas State University members just created. After viewing them, I highly recommend for anyone to take a gander on over . The voice of the videos is alluring and the graphics are simple and creative. For me, the video on Quantities and Units of radiation (below) was the best of the ...read more

PayScale talks to Michael Flagg. He's got some interesting insights for anyone who's thinking about a career as a nuclear engineer. Also, be sure to check out Michael's blog, FutureJacked . ...read more

This comment from President Barack Obama struck us as a little odd: He said Congress needs to pass a bill that includes Republican preferences such as incentives for nuclear energy and "clean coal" technology, as well as Democratic proposals for incentives to develop alternative energy sources like solar, biodiesel and geothermal energy. "I think that on energy, there should be a bipartisan ...read more

One of the memes continually repeated by the forces of opposition to nuclear power is that "Wall Street does not like nuclear power." The most recent time I have run across that quote was in an article titled Out of the Shadows: Can Japan's Nuclear Power Renaissance Reduce Global Emissions? on a blog named Japan Focus . Here is the context of the quote: The prize is a share in the contracts ...read more

Andrew Revkin at the New York Times Dot Earth blog published a blog this morning titled Should Major Emitters Focus on the Sun . Within his blog is a presentation with graphs of historical research investments in various energy technologies that shows a small share of the overall budgets being provided to solar power research. Andy's interpretation of that graph is a common one - he wonders if ...read more

You learn something new every day. One of my Google Alerts brought me a letter-to-the-editor from David Hollein, who indicated that he was once the "Westinghouse senior engineer assigned for all the Commonwealth Edison Company nuclear reactor sites". His letter, published on June 15, 2008 by the Daily Herald (Suburban Chicago's Information Source) and titled Don't dismantle Zion reactor ...read more

A recent acquaintance provided me with a link to a tool he has created for US citizens to provide feedback to their representatives about the American Energy Act (HR 2828). Please try out the tool and let me know what you think. The tool includes a link to the Thomas.gov site where the draft legislation is posted, so you can do something that few legislators do for such complex legislation - you can ...read more