Nuclear Street - Nuclear Power Plant News, Jobs, and Careers

Jay Hakes, an accomplished author and historian, visited the Atomic Show to talk about his recently published book, Presidents and the Planet: Climate Change Science and Politics from Eisenhower to Bush . Sometimes referred to as “the untold story of climate change,” Hake’s book is an enlightening jaunt through a history discovered during long days in archives and Presidential libraries ...read more

Julie Kozeracki was the lead author for a U.S. Department of Energy strategy document titled Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear published in September 2024. The document was the result of a multi-agency, multi-lab effort to update a previously issued report. During our conversation, Kozeracki described how the report was informed by changes in the market, by a study of experiences ...read more

Westinghouse’s eVinci is a 15 MWth, 5 MWe micro reactor. Westinghouse often refers to it as a nuclear battery. Unlike conventional nuclear power plants, eVinci uses no water and doesn’t produce steam. The eVinci is not “just another way to boil water.” There are no pumps in the system that moves heat out of the reactor. Instead, the system uses 24′ long heat ...read more

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a construction permit on September 16, 2024 to Abilene Christian University (ACU) to build a molten salt research reactor. This marked the first university research reactor approval in 30 years. It is the first liquid fuel reactor ever approved for construction by the NRC and only the second advanced reactor approved since the NRC was created in 1974. ...read more

Matthew Marzano has been nominated to be the next Commissioner for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). He brings a unique collection of attributes and experience that will make him a valuable contributor to the agency at an important time in its evolution. Based upon analysis that I detail below; Atomic Insights recommends that the Senate Environment and Public Works committee – having already ...read more

Urenco is one of the few companies in the world that enriches uranium. It’s one of an even smaller group of enrichers that aren’t owned by the Russian, Chinese or Iranian governments. It plays a key role in the western world’s nuclear fuel cycle. That role became even more important after February, 2022. With the increasingly firm prospects of a long term increase in demand ...read more

NRC’s Newly Aligned Mission Will Accelerate Nuclear Energy Deployment With resounding bipartisan, bicameral support that also achieved enthusiastic support of the Executive Branch, the US has enacted a new law announcing its support of nuclear energy. It has the potential to make an even larger impact on global atomic energy use than the combination of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and President ...read more

The Nuclear Company exited a period of operating in “stealth mode” about a month ago. That exit was sufficiently well planned and executed that it is likely that Atomic Insights readers have already heard of the company. The Nuclear Company was incorporated a year ago. Its founding team has been working diligently to build the relationships and agreements needed to accomplish their ...read more

Brian Gitt, the Business Development lead at Oklo , visited the Atomic Show to describe his employer’s business model and current prospects. Oklo is an advanced fission and fuel recycling company with an expansive vision for becoming a competitive clean energy supplier. It plans to provide heat and/or electricity as a service from a fleet of small fission power plants that it owns, operates ...read more

Atomic Canyon is a six month old company that is developing AI tools to improve the efficiency of routine tasks associated with developing, licensing, building, owning and operating nuclear plants. Their first product, called Neutron, uses AI to modernize searching the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 52 million page collection of publicly available documents that are currently accessible through ...read more

Emmet Penny is an unlikely, but effective pronuclear advocate. He earned his degrees in fine arts and great books and worked for several years as a professional poet – along with working in a bookstore as a way to keep paying the bills. He gradually transitioned from poetry into writing thoughtful essays on a variety of topics. One of those pieces caught the attention of Michael Shellenberger ...read more

Doug Sandridge, Oil and Gas Executive for Nuclear Doug Sandridge is a lifelong oil and gas guy whose father was a geological engineer. While he was growing up, Doug lived a significant portion of his life overseas as his father’s job took the family to several different locations. When it was time to go to college, Doug returned to the United State to attend the University of Oklahoma. He ...read more

The Feb 6, 2024 Energy Gang podcast was titled “ A pause in US gas export approvals: a big win for the climate? US hits the brakes on gas exports!” It was described as a gassy episode with a focus on international natural gas trading, the impact of the Biden Administration’s pause on issuing new permits that would enable future growth of what is already the world’s largest ...read more

I wish I knew why some nuclear advocates feel that it’s worth their time to spread as much negative information as they can find about the potential utility and value of advanced nuclear power technologies. IMO, modern water cooled reactors qualify as advanced in the same way as a modern BMW engine qualifies as advanced even if it is still using the same Otto Cycle (4-stroke spark plug ...read more

Here is another instance of climate reporting that treats nuclear fission as if it barely exists. Before COP28, Cipher published an “Exclusive” that led off with “The United States is working behind the scenes to ensure nuclear power is not excluded from an expected global pledge to boost renewables at the upcoming climate summit in Dubai, Cipher has learned.” (Emphasis ...read more

The Energy Gang’s Dec 15 episode discussed the major outcomes from COP28. Ed Crooks ( @Ed_Crooks ), Dr. Melissa Lott @mclott , and Amy Harder ( @AmyAHarder ) completed the show without mentioning nuclear energy. That episode of the long-running, respected energy podcast was produced just four days after a focused episode reporting on #nuclear energy’s important role at COP28. As reported ...read more

James Krellenstein is a physicist, consultant and nuclear energy historian. He is currently employed as a senior advisor to Global Health Strategies. He started up their decarbonization practice with an emphasis on nuclear energy along with renewables. He was the lead author on GEH’s report on ways to reduce global dependence on Russia for necessary supplies of enriched uranium. He had the ...read more

I’ll start with a disclosure. I’m still long on NuScale in my personal portfolio and have no intention of changing that position in the near future. I believe that the company has a good product and excellent potential for growth. The image above with Jose Reyes and me is from a visit I paid to the NuScale test loop in October 2014. Yesterday (Nov 8, 2023), an expected shoe dropped ...read more

Stefano Buono is a physicist and the successful founder of Advanced Accelerator Applications, a multibillion dollar company that pioneered the use of several therapeutic medical isotopes. After making several people very rich, including himself, he sold the medical isotope business and returned to his early 1990s field of study – nuclear fission reactors using molten lead as a coolant. About two ...read more

By Valerie Gardner Cross-posted from Nucleation Capital June, July and August of 2023 were the three hottest months the Earth has ever seen by such a large margin, it left climate scientists agog. Climate disasters are abounding apace, with the U.S. hit by 23 large-scale disasters, a record-breaking year already . In Pakistan, extreme rainfall and flooding affected 33 million people, killing more ...read more

Commissioners on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are worried. They see a pending avalanche of license applications for new reactors, fuel production facilities, uranium mines, transportation containers, and waste repositories with an insufficiently sized and trained licensing workforce. They seem to be increasingly aware of their role in enabling a clean energy transition and they want to avoid being ...read more

Craig Piercy, the Executive Director and CEO of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), sat down with Chair Chris Hanson of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to talk about the NRC’s role in nuclear energy development and the way that the agency is responding to growing demands for its services to the American public. This post focuses on the first five minutes of the interview. Piercy ...read more

Zeno Power makes cost-effective radioisotope power systems (RPS) for some of the most challenging environments in the solar system. Its systems use a proprietary package that allows a wider variety of isotopes to perform functions previously reserved for Pu-238, a rare isotope that is slowly produced at great expense. What is the value of RPS? RPS’s produce power and/or heat by usefully ...read more

Mary Jo Rogers is a trained clinical psychologist who developed her interest workforce safety cultures and leadership in the nuclear power sector while consulting and working for ComEd (later Exelon). At the time she began her work, ComEd was a perennially under-performing utility with new leaders that were committed to turning it into the best nuclear plant operator in the United States. That leadership ...read more

Each year since 1998, POWER Magazine has hosted a conference titled Experience Power that brings together utilities, suppliers, customers and energy leaders to discuss trends in the electric power sector. The event is currently organized as three colocated conferences, one focusing on electric power insights, one on distributed power and one on hydrogen. The 2023 edition of the event was held ...read more