August, 2010

There’s been a lot of work done to expand the relationship of the United States and India, one part of which allows nuclear trade and technology to flow between the two countries. President George W. Bush’s administration worked through a lot of the issues, culminating in a so-called 123 agreement in...

Last week, Margaret Harding, former GE engineering manager, took on a post by UCS’ David Lochbaum that misstated the nuclear events at two reactors. From Margaret: On August 24th, Mr. Lochbaum posted a story on the Union of Concerned Scientists website about an event in 1988, then proceeded to link it...

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories toted up energy use last year (for 2008) and found a marked drop. This year’s version (for 2009) reveals a further drop: The United States used significantly less coal and petroleum in 2009 than in 2008, and significantly more wind power. There also was a decline in natural...

Here’s House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) during the Q&A following his economic speech yesterday: QUESTION: The only repository for nuclear waste planned or conceived or developed for this country is Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and it is stopped dead in its tracks by [Sen.] Harry Reid (R-Nev...

The Patriot-Journal in Pennsylvania sees a solution : We talk and hear a lot about solar and wind power — in fact there are many government-backed programs providing grants and tax incentives for homeowners and companies willing to use these forms of energy production. But another part of our energy...

Last May, Public Utilities Fortnightly published an independent analysis by Navigant Consulting that provided some great comparisons between various energy technologies. One of the comparisons is the number of jobs created on an equivalent basis. To analyze the economic and workforce contributions of...

Even the most solid free marketeer has to have a soft spot for the Tennessee Valley Authority, founded in 1935 by the Federal Government to electrify and perform other tasks in the region. And what a region! The Tennessee valley didn’t get hit by a double whammy in the great depression but by multiple...

So the AP wanted a story and by hell or high water, it got one: The Obama administration's decision to bypass Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository should give Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a boost in his bid for a fifth term. The action is not doing another endangered Democrat...

This is amusing: In expressing conditional support for nuclear energy, [Gov. Deval] Patrick joined Republican Charles Baker and Independent Tim Cahill in backing the controversial energy source. "I agree with President Obama on this one," Cahill said. Similarly, Baker said, "I'm glad...

A colorful three-page fact sheet that discusses U.S.-developed nuclear energy technologies and services. ...read more

Scientific American’s John Horgan relates how Gwyneth Cravens and her book Power to Save the World (now in paperback) brought him to realize that nuclear energy has much to offer and not as many pitfalls as he thought. A fair amount of what he writes will be familiar to readers of nuclear energy blogs...

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This week we get to host the nuclear carnival for the second time since it began. To start off, Charles Barton at Nuclear Green recruited NNadir (former DKos diarist) to share a post. NNadir back in the day wrote some of the most random but fun pieces about nuclear including bits on cesium, technetium...

Here comes the nuclear renaissance, reimagined. Robin Grimes of London’s Imperial College, with a group of scientists from there and the University of Cambridge, has put together a two-stage plan that aims to facilitate a large scale expansion of nuclear energy beginning in 2030. Stage 1 involves replacing...

With the release of the " Pickens Plan " in 2008, natural gas gained added currency as a "bridge" fuel that could reduce our dependence on oil for transportation and displace coal for baseload electrical generation. The appeal was fueled by a rapid rise in the amount of natural gas...

The new START treaty between the United States and Russia (the previous one expired in December) has fallen off the radar a bit since President Barack Obama signed it and sent it to Congress last May. The treaty was not ratified before Congress’ August recess. Here’s what the treaty means to do , in...

Issues in Focus - Water Use is a set of fact sheets on water use and nuclear power:  (1)  Water use, power plants and EPA regulations; (2) Environmental issues must be managed holistically, (3) Cooling towers can have adverse impacts, (4) Fish populations...

A company called Research and Markets has put out a report called France Power Report 2010. I couldn’t begin to afford it – almost 600 Euros – but the description includes some interesting tidbits: Nuclear energy is the dominant fuel in France, accounting for 38.4% of primary energy demand (PED), followed...

Last week at Daily Kos, the Nuclear Information Resource Service published an ill-informed essay composed of inaccuracies and wild assumptions about the Calvert Cliffs 3 (CC3) nuclear project. The NIRS essay argues that the CC3 project suffers from a flawed economic model and concludes that all U.S....

This fact sheet cites a number of scientifically based reviews to refute the claims of a small group of scientists that claims that low-level radiation can be linked to various forms of cancer and other ailments in populations living near nuclear power...

At Slate’s Green Lantern blog, Nina Shen Rastogi takes a judicious look at nuclear energy, writing a bit like a person trying to understand the pros and cons .: I thought nuclear reactors were an absolute no-go for environmentalists. But I keep hearing them touted as a clean energy source. What are nuclear...

This fact sheet explains that the accident at the Three Mile Island 2 nuclear power plant in 1979 was caused by a combination of equipment failure and the inability of plant operators to understand the reactor’s condition at certain times during the event...

Southern Co. is busily working on the site for their two new reactors at its Plant Vogtle site in Georgia, so the Associated Press decided to ask the state’s Republican gubernatorial candidates what they think about nuclear energy in the state. Answer: they’re for it. Here’s former Congressman Nathan...

It takes some amount of bravery to admit you need what you do not like and you will suffer it for as long as you need to : The lifespan of Germany's nuclear power plants must be extended "modestly" in order to gradually reach the country's goal of having renewable energy as its main...

Duncan Currie takes a look at various energy sources and the history of their use – using the books Energy Myths and Realities by Vaclav Smil and Power Hungry by Robert Bryce as a basis – and comes to some conclusions that, at the very least, are true : Compared with solar and wind, nuclear and natural...