Atomic Show #252 – Security, Future of Energy, HEU

On the evening of April 10, 2016, I met with two good friends and fellow nuclear energy bloggers for a wide ranging discussion about nuclear energy. We talked about the following topics: Nuclear energy’s role in the future of energy supplies Impact of the Nuclear Security Summits initiated by President Obama Demonization campaign being waged…

Mr. Atomic Goes to New York for The Future of Energy – Part 1

On April 4 and 5, I had the pleasure of attending the 9th annual The Future of Energy Summit organized by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) and held at the Grand Hyatt next door to New York’s Grand Central Station. The organizing theme of this year’s event, The Age of Plenty, the Age of Competition…

California’s “fix” for global warming is one step forward, two steps back

California’s “fix” for global warming is one step forward, two steps back

The March/April 2016 issue of Mother Jones includes a thoughtful piece by Gabriel Kahn titled Dreamers of the Golden Dream: Does California have a blueprint to fix global warming?. Regular Atomic Insights readers will not be surprised to find that I’ve already decided that California’s chosen path for reducing CO2 emissions and dependence on fossil…

Another day, another model “proving” capabilities of weather-dependent power

On January 25, 2016 the NOAAnews (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency news) web site published a brief article with the following alluring headline: Rapid, affordable energy transformation possible NOAA, CIRES study: Wind, sun could eclipse fossil fuels for electric power by 2030 As the headline creator hoped, I couldn’t resist reading more. I was shocked,…

Vermonters say they want industrial wind to go the way of the billboard

As a native of South Florida, I’ve probably logged at least a million miles driving on its interstate and U.S. highways. Most Americans have probably had at least a small taste of that experience. The contrast between Florida’s highways and those in Vermont is stark; Florida’s are littered with billboards. They often advertise products or…

Assembling reliable off grid power system for emergency preparedness

Many advocates of unreliable power sources like wind and solar blithely toss out the concept of “storage” as the panacea that makes their favored energy sources viable competitors in the potentially lucrative business of supplying on demand power. I’m skeptical because I have some experience with operating and budgeting for power systems that use batteries…

Reliable partnership between natural gas and renewable energy

Naomi Oreskes is the Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. She is also the author of the December 16, 2015 opinion piece published in the Guardian titled There is a new form of climate denialism to look out for – so don’t celebrate yet….

Don’t Nuke the Climate – A Response to NIRS from Rauli Partanen and Janne M. Korhonen

By Rauli Partanen and Janne M. Korhonen Earlier this year, we wrote a piece called “A most unwise campaign.” Writing as independent researchers, members of the Finnish Ecomodernist Society, and in association with non-profit organization Energy4Humanity, we criticized some of the claims prominently made in support of one of the staples of established anti-nuclear activism:…

Solar and wind tax credit extensions will put more nuclear plants at risk

Update: (Posted 4:40 pm December 18) It’s too late. The House and Senate passed the spending bills and went home for the holidays. Sorry to have been too late on this one; the several thousand page bill was just released a couple of days ago. It took a little time to read and understand the…

SMRs – lots of noise but DOE budget that’s 1% of annual wind tax credit

I’ve been spending some time watching, rewatching and clipping interesting excerpts from the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water subcommittee hearings on the FY2016 Department of Energy budget. It’s not everyone’s idea of entertainment, but it’s fascinating to me to watch publicly accessible discussions about how our government makes decisions, sets priorities and spends the money…