On 29 December 2005, the Washington Post reported that Yevgeny Adamov, the former head of Minatom – the Russian nuclear ministry – will be sent back to Russia, reversing an earlier decision to send him to the United States to face trial for conspiracy, money laudering and tax evasion. The charges stem from accusations that…
The Westinghouse AP1000 reactor plant design has been awarded a Design Certification by the US NRC. The decision was published in the Federal Register on 30 December 2005 and will become final 30 days after publication. Westinghouse Senior Vice President Daniel S. Lipman made the following statement about the AP1000 design: “The AP1000’s reliance on…
The Sun News MyrtleBeach Online web site published an interesting editorial on 29 December 2005 titled Green vs. Nuclear. I like the subtitle even better – “Renewable energy can’t come close to meeting S.C. near-term power demand”. The editorial writer seems to take some serious pride in the fact that South Carolina might be the…
On 28 December 2005, John Rennie, the editor in chief of Scientific American posted an interesting blog entry titled A New Breed of Nuclear Reactors?. The entry talks about a 27 December 2005 New York Times article by Matthew Wald titled Scientists Try to Resolve Nuclear Problem With an Old Technology Made New Again and…
Yesterday I finished reading Seth Godin’s All Marketers are Liars, a fascinating book with terrific advice on how to build markets by being “remarkable”. Godin does not really believe that marketers are liars, he teaches that good marketers are storytellers that use ancient techniques to bond with their customers and meet their needs. The subtitle…
Back in November, 2005, when I attended the American Nuclear Society (ANS) Winter Meeting, I listened to Alan Waltar talk about his current project called the “Atoms for Peace Reactor”. Alan is a Past President of the ANS, the author of “Radiation and Modern Life: Fulfilling Marie Curie’s Dream” and “America the Powerless: Facing our…
Asahi.com published an article on 23 December titled Westinghouse sale could tilt balance in global nuclear power industry. The story mentions that the final decision for the sale of BNFL’s Westinghouse unit could come next month, and that the final price is now expected to range between 200 and 300 Billion yen. At today’s exchange…
PBMR (Pty) Ltd continues to make progress in its effort to build a demonstration pebble bed reactor by 2010. In its latest step in the long journey, the company has signed a $2.6 Million USD contract with Westinghouse Electric Company for the basic design of the PBMR instrumentation and protection system. The work has an…
In recent months there has been a growing awareness that Ontario, Canada needs new power sources, both to supply a growing demands and to replace old, coal-fired power plants. The provincial government has committed to retiring the coal plants because of their contributions to global climate change, acid rain, and other environmental problems. Nuclear power…
In an article written by Eve Samples for the December 19, 2005 edition of the Palm Beach Post titled FPL nuclear plants draw shrugs, Charles Grand is described as an environmentalist and as the head of the Presidents Council of Hutchinson Island. He has apparently spent much of the past year in a successful battle…
In an article titled Russia, Ukraine Quarrel Over Gas, published in the Washington Post on December 17, 2005, Peter Finn describes the relationship between natural gas supplies and Eastern European politics. Apparently, Russia is not too happy with recent efforts by its former proxy to establish a more independent political and economic infrastructure. In response,…
In the 1980s, TXU began building a large electrical power plant designed to burn local lignite – brown coal – in Robertson County, Texas. The facility is called Oak Grove. J. B. Smith, a Herald-Tribune staff writer, published a story about the project titled Robertson County plant seen as an economic boost by some, polluter…