October, 2008

I just read Lester Brown's guest post at Grist titled Waste of Energy: The Flawed Economics of Nuclear Power . Considering the fact that one of Lester's primary sources is Amory Lovins's "The Nuclear Illusion" (4.2 MB PDF), I was not at all surprised to recognize some substantial...

I just watched a half hour long message that matched my political desires for leadership with one glaring exception. In a long list of energy programs that included wind, solar, natural gas, clean coal and automotive fuel standards, not one word was said about the important contribution that can be made...

The Reason Foundation recently hosted a moderated discussion between William Tucker , author of Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Long Energy Odyssey , and Jerry Taylo r, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute . In addition to the initial essays...

I just have to get this off of my chest. There is a meme that is going around - particularly in the conservative press and from the lips of wealthy people being interviewed - that there are a large portion of workers in America who do not pay taxes on their income. The example of this misinformation...

Luke Weston, over at Physical Insights , published a post reminded me that I have not yet welcomed Finrod, a frequent contributor to discussions on Atomic Insights, as another blogger for nuclear energy . That designation is the nuclear bloggers's way of continuing the tradition started by our old...

Yesterday I pointed to some major news outlet articles about the newly announced joint venture between Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding and Areva. The JV will build large nuclear plant components in a location adjacent to the shipyard. I was not surprised to find follow-up article in a local new source...

My Google Alert summary on "new nuclear power plants" this morning is chock full of articles from major news publications like the Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney.com, Forbes, International Herald Tribune, and the New York Times. All of them are pointing to signs that the sleeping giant - the...

It is encouraging to find that some members of the investment oriented press are beginning to "get it" with regard to the opportunity provided by nuclear power. They are also beginning to understand that the old anti-nuke mantra of "we do not know what to do with the waste" is being...

The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog has an October 17, 2008 post titled Coal Storage: Clean Coal’s Next Big Hurdle? . It attempts to put the challenge of storing CO2 from coal fired power plants into the same bin as the challenge of storing used nuclear fuel. It gives a completely...

An good friend just sent me a letter (yes, it was digital, but not your typical "email") that included mention of a topic important to both of us, but somewhat difficult to explain. Ted mentioned that most nuclear advocates do not spend enough time talking about the important difference in...

You can tell that the nuclear renaissance is entering the mainstream when personal finance journals like Kiplinger.com start talking about the companies and their projects and letting people know where some of the investment opportunities lie. I came across an interesting article titled Miniplants to...

I know that Atomic Insights is starting to have some of the impact that I want it to have because the blog is getting more and more commentary from outside of the community of people that already like the idea of using atomic power. One of the main reasons I do this is to try to provide an independent...

On October 14, 2008, I watched CNBC's premier of "The Nuclear Option" , a 35-40 minute video documentary about using nuclear fission as a power source. The show was squeezed into a 60 minute television time slot shared by many minutes worth of commercials, but that is par for the course...

I would hate to be called a "shill" for the established media, but I am very interested in seeing what CNBC's Melissa Francis will be showing us tonight when The Nuclear Option airs at 9:00 pm eastern time. After watching the show, I hope to provide some commentary. It might go up early...

I received a comment on a recent post letting me know about a new CNBC Original production titled - The Nuclear Option . It will be shown starting October 14, 2008. Check your local schedule for a listing, but the web site says it will be shown at 9 pm Eastern Time in the US. I would have preferred to...

I have a new hero, even though I have not yet read his book. Joe Shuster is a retired entrepreneur who is spending $200,000 of his own money to promote the idea that the United States needs to build about 800 new nuclear power plants in order to stretch supplies of fossil fuels far into the future. Joe's...

Yesterday morning I noticed a scary story on the front page of the Baltimore Sun. David Murrin, and Marcellous Butler are working to build a wind farm with 10 large turbines on Greenbury Point, just upwind from the Annapolis harbor . Them's fightin' words, as they used to say in my Dad's...

Atomic Show #108 is an edited version of the press conference held after the opening session at ASME's 4th International Topical Meeting on High Temperature Reactor Technology. ( Note: The conference is also known as HTR 2008.) Unfortunately, I am having a tiny technical challenge with the Atomic...

Craig Severance recently wrote a commentary that he calls analysis titled The Case Against Nukes . The piece has been picked up by EcoWorld.com and is currently prominently featured on the home page. Though the author blurb that follows the article claims that Severance was the co-author of a book published...

Again, I have an uncharacteristically off-topic comment/question for your consideration. In nearly every article I have read in the past couple of weeks, the lending/credit crisis in America has been blamed on home mortgages made under less than stringent lending rules and on complex financial instruments...

Many of you are intensely interested in the energy policies that will be implemented following the US election. It is often much easier to hear 5-10 second sound bites and chants like "drill baby drill" than to find serious discussions about what the candidates and their staffs are really thinking...

Friends of the Earth is running an internet ad campaign that attempts to link the current world financial crisis with the future prospects of nuclear power. Paul Gunter - a career anti-nuclear activist - has tried to make the same link. From a logical argument point of view, the effort is a real stretch...