17 Comments

  1. “When the public fears something like nuclear power or fracking then our government makes bad regulations.”
    Your guest really hit on a general truth.

  2. I think you and your guest might agree on a national energy policy that shifted the use of natural gas from electric generation to powering vehicles and shifting electric generation from natural gas to nuclear.
    My national energy policy would include increasing nuclear electric generation toward 50%. Maybe the other 50% would come from hydro, 15% and renewables, 35%.

  3. Isn’t the phrase “affordable, domestic, and abundant” wonderful?
    I believe this phrase is used in the natural gas ads on TV.
    But actually the only energy industry that can not claim this description is the oil industry. This phrase accurately describes coal, solar, wind, and nuclear.
    Nuclear would claim this phrase because the plant and the bulk of the operational cost is domestic even if most of the uranium comes from overseas.
    I wonder what three adjectives best describes nuclear electricity. Maybe “affordable, clean, and abundant” or “reliable, clean, and abundant”?

  4. How can I find out how much the natural gas TV ads cost? These little ads seem to run on all channels and year-round. Does an ad campaign on all channels and year round cost closer to one million dollars or 10 million dollars or 100 million dollars?

    Of course, I would like to see a similar campaign for electricity from nuclear.

  5. “Affordable, Abundant, and American” is more alliterative, and runs the emotional flag up the pole. Like it or not, marketing is all about feelings.

    If we reprocessed, or went to fast spectrum reactors, the supply could be truly American for a while, using up our “waste”. Until then, the Southwestern states, and our friends in Canada, have more than enough to supply us with a secure source.

    Anyway, even if every atom of fuel didn’t originate here, the technology certainly did.

    1. @Atomikrabbit

      Until then, the Southwestern states, and our friends in Canada, have more than enough to supply us with a secure source.

      Don’t forget the 119 million pound deposit on private, rural land right here in Virginia that is, for some bizarre reason, off-limits. After all, Virginia is a state with about 150 licensed coal mines, so the concern about mining uranium cannot actually be the safety that opponents claim.

    2. Transatomic Power’s reactor design needs 65 tons of SNF actinides per 520 MW(e) unit at 1.8% enrichment.  Not coincindentally, this is approximately the description of “spent” LWR fuel.  We have some 70,000 tons of SNF (95% or so actinides), which ought to be able to start on the order of 500 GW(e) of their reactors.  Their fuel consumption, at 1 ton per GW-yr, would be adequately supplied by the existing LWR fleet.

      I wish TAP’s white paper had more detail on thorium.  If thorium’s neutron economy allowed the use of Th+DU as makeup fuel after startup, the USA’s supply of DU would make us fuel independent for centuries without mining another gram of uranium.

      That may be a calculation I can do myself.  I’ll have to look into it.

  6. Great Talk

    Maybe it’s time for a book on nuclear energy from a well informed ex navy guy – hint

      1. Once the book is out (avoid self-publishing), you will be “qualified” in the eyes of the mainstream media as a bonafied nuclear expert, and eligible for recruitment as a commentator when the need arises. You or your publisher may need to work with a publicist to get the word out, and a book tour with media interviews would be in order.

        Hopefully in the near future, in the event of breaking nuclear news, the CNN editors’ digital Rolodex will turn to Adams before Alvarez.

        1. I don’t know about that. Our friend Helen once said that Robert Alvarez at one time was “tall, and dark and handsome and a guitar player”. Rod might be only 1 or 2 out of those 4.

          Self-publishing might not be that bad, Dr. Phil’s new book is published by his son’s publishing company.

  7. BTW, Rod, the volume levels of the intro and outtro are a great deal higher than the podcast itself.  I always get my ears blasted.

  8. re: Invited Atomic Show Contestant

    Michael Mariotte on 13, 2014 at 1:42 pm c/o GreenWorld http://safeenergy.org/2014/06/06/poll/comment-page-1/#comment-2434

    Well, I have been at NIRS nearly 30 years and have never been asked to participate in one of these, so not sure who you’re talking about. But I have publicly debated nuclear industry people often in a variety of fora, including NEI CEO Marvin Fertel, their top lobbyist Alex Flynt and many more. If the timing can be made to work (which is admittedly difficult for me these days), I’d be happy to debate on your forum too.

    Michael, NIRS
    http://nirsnet.wordpress.com/

  9. Careful! This guy eats pro-nukers for breakfast! It’s why they’re all so chewn out at promoting nukes while this guy’s got a wave!

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