May, 2012

In the past few days, both ad-supported commercial media and the social media universe have been filled with stories about how scientists on the US West coast were able to find traces of radioactive cesium and could conclusively link that cesium to the material released from the Fukushima nuclear power...

A number of people who have read of my opposition to the appointment of Dr. Allison Macfarlane to be the Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission have counseled me to passively accept a “done deal” because they believe it is obvious that the fix has been in for quite some time. They...

This video was produced by the World Nuclear Association (WNA). It shows that the predicted health consequences of nuclear accidents are often orders of magnitude greater than the actual, measured health consequences of the accidents that have occurred. Instead of the “worst case scenarios”...

Dr. Allison Macfarlane, an associate professor at George Mason University, with a PhD in Geology from MIT, has been nominated by President Obama to be both a Commissioner and the new Chairman of the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency. If the President does not change his mind, that decision alone will be...

On Monday, May 21, 2012, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission released Dr. Greg Jaczko letter of resignation. The first phrase in the letter jumped out at me as an example of why I have been so strongly opposed to his tenure at the Commission. After nearly eight years on the Commission, I am announcing...

For the next three days (May 21-23, 2012), the Nuclear Energy Institute is hosting the annual nuclear industry conference and nuclear supplier expo called The Nuclear Energy Assembly. The meeting, normally held in Washington, DC, will be at the Westin in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over the past several...

I do not have much time in my schedule over the next few days for a long form blog post, but I have lots of thoughts to share on a variety of atomic related topics. If you are interested in that stream of consciousness, follow @Atomicrod on Twitter. Others who have posted interesting recent tweets [...

Will Davis took the lead and tapped his well of colleagues who are nuclear energy professionals to produce a fact filled post for ANS Nuclear Cafe titled ...read more

Linus Pauling was one of the most famous scientists of his era. In the period immediately following WWII, he became active in efforts to ban the bomb and stop atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Like Hermann Muller, he had no compunction against using inaccurate information about the health effects...

This evening I had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Arjun Makhijani, the President and Senior Engineer at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) of Takoma Park, MD. The conversation is available at Atomic Show #183 – Arjun Makhijani Explains Carbon Free, Nuclear Free Strategy Dr....

There is a scary myth floating around the internet. According to the tall tale, the spent fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi unit four poses a dire threat to all mankind. As I explain in the above video, nothing could be farther from the truth. The sources of the lies have a well established history of ...

Reed College is perhaps best known among technologists as the place where Steve Jobs learned about calligraphy – among a number of other useful topics. It is also the only liberal arts college that owns a research reactor that is operated primarily by undergraduates. I hope you enjoyed Will and...

Stories that underly other stories can be fascinating topics for discussion. Yesterday morning, a friend sent me a copy of a letter to Chairman Greg Jaczko from the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Though signed by three other Congressman, the lead signature on...

With a hat tip to Ben Heard at Decarbonize SA, I thought it might inspire you to see two videos side by side. These videos were created in geographic locations that are about as far apart as you can get and still be on Earth. As far as I can tell, neither creative team knew [...] ...read more

In the power system marketing wars, both nuclear fission and natural gas are currently labeled as “low carbon” sources of electricity. Even though nuclear fission reactors can be clean enough to run inside sealed submarines, the forces who oppose nuclear energy insist that there is enough...

John Rowe is the recently retired CEO of Exelon, an electric power generation and natural gas delivery company with the largest fleet of nuclear power plants in the United States. Exelon just completed a merger with Constellation Energy, bringing the total number of nuclear reactors in its fleet to 22...

If you think your fuel bill is high, imagine what it must be for companies with fleets of heavily leveraged 737s, 747s, A300s, A330s, A380s or 777s. ...read more

Though many of you appreciate the long form blogging on Atomic Insights, there are just too many different topics worth mentioning today to try to put together a reasonably coherent post. If you want to engage and see just how many different issues have captured my attention today, I suggest that you...

I’ve been following a couple of conversations about a recent story that has been floating around the web from an antinuclear Chicken Little named Robert Alvarez. According to Alvarez, a man who seems to believe that it is physically possible for dense, corrosion-resistent, solid material to instantaneous...

There was a scene in the ABC documentary titled I Can Convince You About … Climate” that featured Bjorn Lomborg, the self proclaimed “Skeptical Environmentalist”. Lomborg acknowledges that human activity is causing the climate to change due to changing atmospheric chemistry, but...

During the Australian Broadcasting Company documentary titled I Can Change Your Mind About … Climate there is a scene where Anthony Leiserowitz (via Skype video) shares some of what he has learned during his research about climate change attitudes with Nick Minchin and Anna Rose, the show’s...

Jason Mraz, a Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, published a thought piece on the Huffington Post titled Global Warming Is No Longer a Future Problem, It’s a Now Event that inspired me to go and find some of his music. He is the kind of observer of the human condition worth reading and listening...