Reuters has published a story titled PSE&G gets NJ approval to spend $515 mln on solar with some amazing numbers – and at least one that is flat out wrong – related to solar energy systems. The first numbers which should cause people to question the value of this approved project is that it will…
The continuing saga of the USEC project to build a new enrichment facility at the Piketon, Ohio facility using a recently developed and tested technology called the American Centrifuge is getting more intriguing each day. On July 28, 2009, publications specializing in stock market reporting contained blurbs explaining the activity in USEC stock on July…
According to a July 26, 2009 article in the Washington Post titled Miners Boycott Tenn. Over Alexander’s Bill: It Would Ban Mountaintop Removal, a group of coal miners from West Virginia have decided to quit visiting Dollywood and the Knoxville Zoo in an attempt to show their displeasure with Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN). Ostensibly,…
The New York Times published an article on July 22, 2009 by Kate Galbraith titled Slow, Costly and Often Dangerous Road to Wind Power that provides some thought provoking details on the difficulty associated with moving 50 yard long turbine blades, tower sections, and the large nacelles that house reduction gears, generators and control systems…
It is with great pleasure that I provide a somewhat tardy welcome to what might become one of the most referenced energy information sources in the blogosphere. Ted Rockwell has decided that it is time to try his hand at “new media” and share his 60+ years worth of energy industry experience at Learning About…
For a variety of reasons, I was not very productive for most of the month of July. I have finally gotten around to adding another installment to the Adams Engine™ story titled Seeking Simplicity, Finding Complexity. Hope you enjoy learning – slowly – a little more about simple cycle gas turbines connected to high temperature…
Kirk Sorensen, one of the most enthusiastic energy geeks I know, spent the 40th anniversary of man’s first walk on the moon talking to a group of Google employees about LFTR. I have written about LFTR’s on Atomic Insights several times in the past; I even gave it a slightly different spelling – Liftr™ –…
Any experienced “nuke” worth his or her salt can provide dozens of examples gleaned over their careers of extra costs that provided no increase in value or safety. I will never forget my first introduction to the ways that layer upon layer of requirements have been added over the years. These layers insidiously slow progress…
Though it is most often framed as an academic question where smart people use formulas, spreadsheets and debating techniques to prove that their favorite fuel is better than others, the reality is that energy is a terribly useful product that has real value. The number of potential customers is equal to the human population and…
Every month, the US Energy Information Administration issues a report called Electric Power Monthly that provides a snapshot of statistics on the production of electricity in the United States. It usually takes several months to process the data provided by utilities and merchant power generators, so there is a three month gap between the report…
Peter Behr has written a thoughtful piece about the somewhat confusing – to outsiders – legislative battle royale over climate change/energy legislation that is working its way through the US Senate after squeaking through the US House of Representatives. You can find the report on the New York Times web site in the Energy and…
Gizmodo published a blog entry by Adam Frucci titled The China Syndrome And Why We Wussed Out On Nuclear Power in which he describes how a coincidental sequence of events turned a 1979 “B” movie into a blockbuster that is still making money today. While The China Syndrome was still in theaters during its first…