Month: August 2005

As we watch Hurricane Katrina come ashore and pray for the safety of the people who were not able to evacuate, there is little doubt that oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico is going to be seriously affected by this massive storm. Off shore wells and the pipelines that connect them…

While on the road this week, I ran across an article in USA Today – many of our finest hotels provide a free copy of the paper edition – that illustrates the fact that recent, rather dramatic energy price increases are not limited to the visible changes at the gasoline pump. The article can be…

At the end of a letter published in the Cape Times on August 18, 2005, Liz McDaid of Earthlife Africa stated the following: Moreover the installation of 88 000 solar water heaters on residential properties at a cost of R300 million would offset the energy generated by one PBMR (approximately 132 Mw output). I did…

A letter writer in the Cape Times recently attempted to show that the PBMR was a bad investment based on the fact that the project needs to build a number of units before it can reach a cost per unit that will allow it to compete in the very competitive electricity market in South Africa….

There have been serval articles about atomic energy published in the past couple of days. These articles are appearing in prominent places in my local newspapers. Here is a sample: Calvert Residents Content in Nuclear Plant Shadow from the Washington Post on Saturday, August 13, 2005 Power Hungry World Embraces Nuclear Energy from the Washington…

As oil reaches price levels never before seen, I have been thinking about an article I wrote a bit more than four years ago. I called it the 760 Million Mile per Gallon Carburetor. Though the article is a bit of a thought piece, the basic idea is that it is possible today, using technology…

China is rethinking its planned purchase of nuclear power plants from foreign vendors. Areva, Westinghouse, and Atomstroiexport are currently bidding for a block sale of at least four reactors valued at approximately $8 billion. The announcement of the winning bid has not yet been scheduled, but has been widely expected by the end of 2005….

After writing about Iran’s motivations for atomic energy independence, I came across the following article in the online edition of the Harvard International Review – Forced to Fuel – http://hir.harvard.edu/articles/1294/ which discusses, with more detail and rigor – the current electrical power supply situation in Iran.

Oil prices continue to increase with depressing regularity, mainly due to fears that the available supply will not continue to match the growth in demand. It is truly a strange world when one of the main contributors to that fear seems to be the fact that a major oil exporting country is working diligently to…

Yesterday I mentioned the high cost of the competitors for atomic energy in America. The fact that energy is far more expensive now than it was just two or three years ago is not really news – radio, television and newspaper articles that talk about gasoline prices are published with great regularity. Gasoline prices are…

According to the BBC, – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4130532.stm – oil prices in Asia have reached $62.69 per barrel on August 8, 2005. Though there will be plenty of commentators that minimize the impact of that very high price by referring to the inflation adjusted prices from the early 1980s, the fact remains that oil prices are nearly…

Several weeks ago, I mentioned that the governments in the area near the Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station had passed resolutions to encourage the NuStart consortium to build a new plant in their backyard. They have apparently been busy in the past few weeks and have captured the attention of the Alabama state government. The Huntsville…