One of the premier energy industry information sources is Platts, a McGraw-Hill company. They have an excellent, well organized web site with valuable information for the public that is available for free. If you are in the industry, however, they offer a number of services that can make the difference between success and failure. The…
NuStart Energy, the consortium that includes both plant suppliers and utility companies, has awarded a contract to Enercon Services, Inc. to lead a team of specialist firms in a project to produce Combined Construction and Operating Licenses (COL) for two separate projects. One will be a two reactor Westinghouse designed AP-1000 project at the Tennessee…
Christopher Meisenzahl at the Amateur Economist and Curmudeon blog had an interesting post about the need for more nuclear power on his blog. I provided the following comment, which I am repeating here so that I can ensure that the words get recorded for posterity. Besides, I need to do a post and put all…
There is an amazing article by Edward Wheeler, PhD on EcoWorld.com titled Nuclear Power: The Cleanest and Coolest Choice?. It is certainly worth reading. Here is the letter that I sent to the editor: Dear Editor: Let me first thank you for an informative and thought provoking article about nuclear power from an environmental point…
It appears more and more likely that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) will be the victor in the bidding battle for control of Westinghouse Electric Company. On 7 January 2006 The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review published a story on the topic written by Thomas Olson titled Mitsubishi may acquire Westinghouse. The major highlights of the story are that…
John Wheeler started a weekly podcast titled “This Week In Nuclear” on 27 December 2005. I really enjoyed the first two episodes and immediately added it to my growing list of podcast subscriptions. John’s updates are going to add value and enjoyment to my long commute. Thanks to Eric McErlain at NEI Nuclear Notes and…
One of my many weird hobbies is writing early morning letters to authors and editors of news stories about energy topics. I figured that it might be a good use of this blog space to post some of those gems, since some of them never see the light of day. (Occasionally, however, I get them…
There is a thoughtful article in the 6 January 2006 edition of the Christian Science Monitor titled Europe warms to nuclear power. The author, Mr. Peter Ford, reports on the changing perceptions and plans regarding nuclear power in a number of different European countries including Switzerland, the UK, Germany, Finland, Bulgaria, and even Italy. He…
Several days ago, in my initial post about the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute, I alluded to the fact that the European Union leaders must accept some of the blame for the Europe’s growing vulnerability to aggressive use of easily interrupted natural gas as a political weapon. I made a comment that deserves some follow-up. Here is…
As of 4 January 2006, Ukraine has agreed to a natural gas price that is two times the level that it paid last year. Russia has agreed to keep supplying it with fuel at the new price. Neither side is very happy about the arrangement; Russia wanted the Ukraine to pay a market price that…
On 2 January 2006, Deutsche Welle published an article on their web site titled Gas Dispute Reignites Atomic Energy Debate. In that article, the German Economics Minister, Michael Glos, is described as wanting to initiate a discussion about Germany’s planned shutdown of its nuclear power plants. He is careful to indicate that he does not…
On 2 January 2006, the Financial Times published an article by Thomas Catan titled Dispute likely to boost arguments for nuclear power. It looks like I am not the only one who thinks that the development of favorable opinions about new nuclear power projects is a logical result of the controversy over Russian natural gas…