CNN has done a masterful job of seizing the opportunity provided by Robert Stone’s thought-provoking Pandora’s Promise to generate a passionate discussion about the use of nuclear energy — a vitally important topic — at a critical time in American history. The decision makers at that somewhat fading network should be congratulated. Of course, generating…
In the above clip from a recent interview on CNN’s Piers Morgan, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. describes how Pandora’s Promise advocates that canceling the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project in 1994 was a mistake. RFK Jr., a man from an iconic family that has been a part of the US moneyed Establishment for the better…
The Idaho National Laboratory released the following exciting news on September 25, 2013. IDAHO FALLS — A safer and more efficient nuclear fuel is on the horizon. A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have reached a new milestone with tristructural-isotropic (TRISO)…
During the 1970s, the antinuclear movement made a collective decision to use “the waste issue” as a weapon to help force the eventual shutdown of the industry. Though the strategy has not succeeded in forcing any plants in the US to shut down, it has prevented a number of plants from being built. Ralph Nader,…
On September 10, 2013, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Allison Macfarlane and the Department of Energy’s Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, Peter Lyons, spent almost two hours testifying in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. They had been invited to the hearing room to tell the committee what their organizations were…
Nye County, NV, the local community that would host the Yucca Mountain used nuclear fuel repository if is completed, really wants the facility to be built. The leaders of the county and the people that continue to select them as their representatives recognize that the facility would generate hundreds of well-paying jobs without imposing an…
The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy held a hearing on July 31, 2013 titled Oversight of DOE’s Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste. It has taken me a couple of days of intermittent watching to work my way through…
A good friend shared a link to a blog titled Taking physics to new audiences: a realisation. It is a wonderful story about a particle physicist who has a twin sister who is a professional historian. Following a conversation about nuclear energy, the physicist has avoided talking to her sister about what she does at…
One of the least understood features of nuclear power plants is that they consume materials that might otherwise end up in nuclear weapons. Of course, activists that battle the use of nuclear energy generally try to turn that feature into a fault. They have convinced more than a few people that without nuclear power plants,…
Darryl Siemer is a professional chemist who spent his career in nuclear waste remediation at the Idaho National Laboratory. While there, he developed a reputation as someone who will not go along to get along and apparently made quite a few waves by suggesting improvements in processes or technical decisions that might have resulted in…
Matt Wald of the New York Times recently reviewed a new book on America’s nuclear waste storage saga titled Too Hot to Touch: The Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste. Aside: Sadly, Matt’s post was one of the last posts ever published on Green, which just announced its demise due to budget constraints. It’s a crying…
One of the most frequently used arguments against using nuclear energy is “the waste issue.” When people ask me, “what do you do with the waste”, my standard answer is “recycle it.” The truly curious then ask for more information. A few days ago, Nuclear Street shared a video produced by Argonne National Laboratory that…