The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS) hosted an event on May 1, 2009 titled Round Table on the Future of Nuclear Energy. Pieter Van Vliet, P.Eng. provided a presentation on Low Dose Radiation that included a brief on the history of radiation protection, the Linear, No Threshold (LNT) assumption, the documented…
I have had a little extra time on my hands for the last few days. One of the things that I did was a vanity search to see where there was mention of my name on recent blogs. (Sometimes this kind of search can lead to surprising results.) One of the items that I found…
Kirk Sorensen is one of the most enthusiastic “nukes” I know, with a real passion for sharing his hard won knowledge about using molten salt reactors to convert thorium into a fissile material and ultimately into a heat source for a work producing heat engine. With the help of Charles Barton, Kirk runs the excellent…
Carl Pope, one of the predictable opponents to any talk of using atomic fission at an antidote to oil, coal and gas addiction, has published a new propaganda piece rehashing many old and false arguments against nuclear power. You can find it on the Huffington Post under the title of About That Nuclear Revival…. Over…
Jaco Kriek has been the CEO of PBMR Pty LTD of South Africa for five years. On July 7, 2009 he spoke with me for nearly an hour about a wide range of topics. The topics we discussed included the following: History of PBMR as a stand alone company Change in technical direction Customer focused…
On Tuesday, July 7, 2009 Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) chaired a three part hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee aimed at discussing various aspects of the recently passed Waxman-Markey Bill (formally known as the Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009). Judging from the posturing and hard hitting statements of the committee members,…
At the recent ANS meeting, I had the opportunity to talk with some people from the Public Information Committee. One shared the above with me – it is one side of a postcard addressed to: The Outreach DepartmentAmerican Nuclear Society555 N. Kensington AvenueLa Grange Park, IL 60526. Outreach.ans.org I thought you might enjoy seeing it….
Blatantly ignoring a potent competitor is frequently an effective way to marginalize that competitor. The technique can be particularly useful when practiced by a well known or important spokesman from a position that can be considered to be a bully pulpit. When the President of the United States uses several minutes during a State of…
One thing that continues to befuddle me is the consistently repeated myth that nuclear energy is expensive energy. I want you to take a hard look at the above graph. It is a slightly modified version of the original which can be found buried several layers down at the NEI web site under the heading…
I mourn for the hundreds of people who have been directly affected by a the fiery explosion on June 29, 2009 that was caused when a train axle broke in Viareggio, a small city on the west coast of Italy, about 100 km southwest of Bologna. The broken axle caused the train to derail and…
The Associated Press is reporting that Exelon will be delaying its proposed two unit nuclear reactor development near Victoria, Texas. The company attributed the decision to the difficult financial markets and its failure to make the cut for the first round of US Department of Energy loan guarantees. People who have been following this project…