On November 2, 2006, I had the privilege of talking with Regis Matzie, Westinghouse Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. The occasion was an interview conducted for The Atomic Show, a weekly (most of the time) podcast hosted by The Podcast Network. Dr. Matzie talked to me about the current status of the Pebble…
Now here is a headline that makes it fun to wake up in the morning and turn on the computer – Atomic jobs explosion. The story was published on November 3, 2006 on the web site of The Australian in the Features section. Interestingly enough, a link to the story shares the publication’s home page…
Wattenblog: I do not ignore it, at all… Ben Wattenberg, the host of Think Tank, a PBS show, has been blogging since mid summer, 2006. He has some interesting ideas on a lot of topics including nuclear energy. Here is a quote from one of his posts from August, when such thoughts generally pass through…
The Bulgarian Belene nuclear power plant facility was begun in 1984, but never completed. In 2005, Bulgaria decided to renew construction and finish the planned dual unit plant. It invited international bids and received packages from two consortia, one led by the Russian firm Atomstroyexport that includes Siemens and Areva, and one led by the…
A couple of days ago, several of you reported problems with being able to see anything in the right column below my profile. I have made some changes to the code and tested the blog using IE6 running on Windows 2000, which is the combination that seemed to be at issue. (It always worked with…
If you are following the energy industry, you are probably already aware that the British government has released a report called the Stern Review on the economics of climate change. In close association with the announcement of that report, the British government has also made public the fact that Tony Blair, one of George Bush’s…
Peter Beattie, the Queensland, Australia Premier, does not like nuclear power. As he said back in March, 2006: “If power is being generated by uranium we don’t need enough coal. I mean this is … black and white – I am a strong supporter of the coal industry, I’m a strong supporter of clean coal…
I know that many people interested in energy technology do not read business publications on a regular basis, so I thought I would share my reaction to a revealing portrait of a wind energy power broker that was published in the recent Forbes Special Edition titled “The 400 Richest People in America”. The article –…
In a development that should surprise no one, corn prices on commodities markets have increased dramatically this year. According to a recent article on Bloomberg.com titled Corn Rises in Chicago as Export Demand Surges, Supplies Shrink this price increase has been caused by lower production (a drop of 1.9% from last year) and increased demand…
The planned merger of Constellation Energy Group into FP&L has been cancelled at the request of the Constellation board of directors due “continued uncertainty over regulatory and judicial matters in Maryland.” Last month, for similar reasons, a planned merger between Exelon and Public Service Enterprise Group of Newark, NJ was also cancelled. It appears that…
A regular reader has reported some difficulty viewing the Atomic Insights blog sidebar after my inclusion of the Rapleaf symbol. Is anyone else experiencing the same difficulty? (Frustratingly, everything works great from my computer, so it is difficult to troubleshoot.)
Mining Weekly Online published a story on October 27, 2006 titled US group plans to market SA pebble-bed modular reactor that describes Westinghouse’s current plans for marketing three different reactor designs that are each aimed at different markets. The most commonly known product is the AP-1000, the large, pressurized water reactor with passive safety features…