December, 2008

Well, of course we want Scotland to see the error of their ways and keep their nuclear plants up and running. There seems to be a little pushback on closing them : [Iain] McMillan [director of CBI Scotland , the Scots version of the Chamber of Commerce] said that the proposed local income tax, to replace...

Many thanks to all NNN readers who made 2008 such an electric year: records were set for visitors, page views, and visits. We look forward to an even more exciting 2009. Below, the top 12 most-read blog posts of the year. 1. Barack Obama on Nuclear Energy 2. John McCain on Nuclear Energy and Yucca Mountain...

We were expecting a little better from a story called U.S. Energy Industry Is Wary of Obama, although we think almost all industries are wary of a major change in political authority. Priorities are bound to shift and they have to hope it isn’t away from them. But this story seems to want to go further...

Investors Business Daily has an interesting editorial touting nuclear energy in terms of interest to their readers: the pocketbook. Until recently, there was no domestic capacity to manufacture the huge components needed to build nuclear reactors. Global nuclear giant Areva and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding...

Here is CNN’s Lou Dobbs’ intro to a discussion about the odd weather permeating the country: DOBBS: Welcome back. And let's talk about what is happening across this country. The weather is just unbelievable. And let's also talk about what it all means for discussion of global warming. Unusual...

NuScale Power , the Oregon-based company that is developing small, modular light water nuclear reactors, has received a lot of positive media attention in 2008. Earlier this year they were featured in a Popular Mechanics article, " Mini Reactors Show Promise for Clean Nuclear Power's Future...

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat wrote about what did and didn't work for the nuclear industry in 2008. Plus here's his outlook for the industry for 2009 . Check them out! ...read more

Talk about suffering for your art. Or energy consumption. Swiss-born artist/inventor Annina Rüst has developed Project Thighmaster , a device which allows consumers to measure, and experience, the effects of their energy consumption. From Rüst's artist statement , The system consists of a personal...

Matthew Wald , Energy reporter for The New York Times , has written the cover story for Scientific American 's special edition, Earth 3.0 . Wald's piece, " Can Nuclear Power Compete? ", went online Tuesday and is currently the most-read energy story on the SciAm site. The pull quote...

Making the rounds in his farewell tour , President Bush stopped by the American Enterprise Institute yesterday afternoon and was asked about the progress of the nuclear renaissance during his administration. Mr. DeMuth : Let me ask you two questions, if I may, about energy policy. The first is, are you...

The NRC has approved the Shearon Harris plant 's application for license renewal; extending plant operations for an additional 20 years, through 2046. Per the NRC press release, After carefully reviewing the plant’s safety systems and specifications, the staff concluded that there were no safety...

We’re not terribly critical of energy end users, though our father certainly could be if we let out the air conditioning by leaving the front door open too long. But even we might find our limit. This caught our eye while we were working on a story about the proposed 123 agreement between the U.S. and...

President-elect Obama often mentions the "safety" of used nuclear fuel as a block to a whole-hearted embrace of nuclear energy, so we wondered what thinking was going on that seeks to mitigate or even eliminate permanent or even (long-term) interim storage. We might be all aboard the Yucca...

The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog has an interesting post of a debate between two environmentalists with, shall we say, divergent views of nuclear energy. As it happens, we attended the same debate and Nuclear Energy Overview, the weekly newsletter for Nuclear Energy Institute...

Florida Power & Light (operator of Turkey Point ) has the best idea when it comes to nuclear plant security: host hundreds of crocodiles . ;-) National Wildlife Federation took notice of the crocs in their October/November issue: In the 1970s, engineers designed a 6,800-acre system of canals to cool...

So how is Steven Chu playing as the purported candidate for Department of Energy secretary? Before we look at the developing narrative, let's remember the lesson of John Ford's movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance . Here's the question: Did Senator Ransom Stoddard begin his sterling Senatorial...

NBC's First Read has the story first: From NBC's Savannah Guthrie Obama will name Steven Chu his choice for Energy secretary, Lisa Jackson for EPA administrator and Carol Browner as energy "czar" reporting to the president. It is unclear whether the Browner position is cabinet level...

CNN reports that Electricite de France is in discussions with Constellation Energy to take over half its nuclear business. Now, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the French have taken an interest in the American nuclear marketplace - they have a lot of experience in making the numbers work, which...

Nuclear energy supplies about 40% of the energy in Scotland, but its two plants are due to be retired in 15 years. What then? The Scots have been looking at wind energy, and that's still on course : A new independent report has found SNP [Scottish National Party - the liberals in the Scots' political...

You may be fairly sure that if a country expresses an interest in partnering with other countries to develop or enhance its nuclear industry that the big three - France, America and Russia - will come around in one order or another. But they'll all come calling. Any thought that the 123 agreement...

In The American magazine, Vaclav Smil (a Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba) wrote a "big idea" piece titled " Moore’s Curse and the Great Energy Delusion " (nothing to do with Patrick Moore). Smil's piece rebuts Al Gore's claim that the US can completely...

While this article in the Baltimore Sun initially focuses on job cuts, it later gives a good summary of the choices shareholders will have in deciding the fate of Constellation. Here is what I want to talk about: The EDF proposal unveiled Wednesday called for selling half of Constellation's nuclear...

We've sort of figured that if electric cars get a full hearing that they will not be plugged into a house socket, even a specialized one, but that a market will develop to sell voltaic gas. This seems at least intuitive, since the displacement of gas stations would encourage the development of an...

This would be interesting to see ! ...read more

Here's some food for thought ... copying from Pro Nuclear Democrats' post , check out how much one million barrels of oil looks like compared to a person and a house (see if you can find the person): The US consumes nearly 21 of these cubes each day ! Jason Ribeiro also created a picture of what...