My family and I just returned from a terrific coach tour of the UK and Ireland. I liked being a passenger; it gave me the opportunity to see a lot of the country. As people that know me might suspect, I paid a good deal of attention to the energy infrastructure that I could see…
The following post was first created as the response to one more article from a “pro energy” guy who does not understand his competition. The original article can be found at the Energy Pulse web site under the title of Oil Now and Oil Tomorrow. In case you do not want to wade through all…
As frequent readers know, I am a huge fan of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project that has been under development in South Africa since 1993. Though there have been some hurdles over the years, and the project has had to overcome a significant amount of resistance, the PBMR team – originally from Eskom,…
The Alaska state legislature has approved $500,000 to fund a study of using nuclear power reactors – perhaps the Toshiba 4S described here a couple of days ago – to replace diesel generators as a source of electricity in remote areas. Even though Alaska is a large crude oil producer, the residents of the state…
On May 16-18 2005, the Nuclear Energy Institute hosted its annual Nuclear Energy Assembly. The conference, held at the Fairmont Hotel in northwest Washington DC was titled Nuclear Energy 2005: A Time of Opportunity. There were both optimistic and cautionary speeches given during the conference. Some of the speeches are available for download from our…
There are a number of new nuclear power projects in various stages of implementation and planning. One of the more interesting projects is a plant that produces only about 1% of the power output of a “typical” commercial nuclear power plant. Designed to provide needed electricity for a town with a population of less than…
Yesterday morning during my commute, I listened to the May 31 edition of Democracy Now (http://www.democracynow.org/index.pl?issue=20050531) and heard an interesting interview with Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. He made a couple of statements that seemed rather incongruous. On one hand, he described his focused efforts since his election to pass legislation banning uranium mining on…
The nuclear industry is pressing hard for assistance for the initial expenses of introducing a new generation of nuclear power plants in the US. A new bill introduced last week by Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman provides some of the requested assistance, motivated by the fact that nuclear power does not produce any greenhouse…
My friends know me as Rod, but some of them call me Atomic. I have a habit that I want to share with you – I am a preacher of the benefits of atomic energy. I have been writing about this topic for more than a dozen years, starting on the USENET when my Internet…
Two energy companies made the cut in the 2005 edition of Wired Magazine’s annual article about cutting edge companies. This year’s installment of the survey led with the following quote: “They’re masters of technology and innovation. They’re global thinkers driven by strategic vision. They’re nimbler than Martha Stewart’s PR team. They’re The Wired 40.” Both…
On September 11, 2001, three fully fueled transcontinental airplanes became terrorist weapons, causing a huge amount of direct damage and killing more than 3,000 people living and working in the United States. Though terrorist attacks are nothing new, the scale and impact of these three coordinated attacks from the air caused a complete revaluation of…
I have a passion for nuclear power. It began when I was a teenager and has continued to develop for more than thirty years. It fires me up early each morning, causes me to bore friends and family to tears, and often keeps me awake late into the evening. This passion has been the source…