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One of the biggest threats to the continued wealth and power held by the global fossil fuel industry is a “plutonium economy” fueled by abundant resources of uranium that can be converted into fissile plutonium in a breeder reactor. (Yes, I know that a thorium economy is just as big of a...

On June 13, 2012, Allison Macfarlane will be a witness in her confirmation hearing as a new commissioner and the prospective Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Commissioner Kristine Svinicki will also be a witness in her quest to be confirmed for a second term as a commissioner. In June 2007...

On March 23, 2012, Bill Gates was interviewed as part of the Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics conference. There is little doubt that he understands the technology and the opportunity. My main question is why he is not investing more in order to drive the technology even faster. After all, he is one of...

Note: Len Koch, whose participation in nuclear energy research started in the 1940s, wrote the below open letter to colleagues who are striving to restore interest in the progress that they made in research and development of the Integral Fast Reactor during the period from 1954-1994 the year that President...

Gordon McDowell, the film maker who produced Thorium Remix, has released some additional mixes of material gathered for that production effort. One in particular is aimed at those people whose main concern about using nuclear energy is the often repeated question “What do you do with the waste...

In the category of "you learn something new every day - if you pay attention" I have just spend a pleasant couple of hours geeking out on presentations full of graphs of plutonium exposures and depositions of other transuranic elements. The experience helped me to refresh my understanding of...

I have just had the pleasure, and sometimes the frustration, of observing two days worth of hearings by the Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. The venue for the sessions was the Washington Marriott Hotel on 22nd Street, NW, just...

I have been struggling for the past couple of weeks with trying to figure out how to convince some curious and skeptical people that they should stop worrying about the possibility that a nefarious group or country will make a weapon from used nuclear reactor fuel. My position is that there is no way...

During the Senate Republican Conference Hearing on building 100 new nuclear plants over the next 20 years, Senator Robert Bennett asked the witnesses if there were any additional options that should be considered for an American economy that has always been blessed with access to abundant, cheap energy...

A few days ago, I posted a comment pointing to President Ford's Statement on Nuclear Policy dated October 28, 1976 . I put that up on the same day as I posted episode 80 of The Atomic Show , which was an interview with Charles Ferguson a nuclear nonproliferation policy analyst from the Council on...