I am a longtime fan of FPL, also known as Florida Power and Light. I am a fan because that company employed my Dad for 35 years, gave me neat Christmas presents each year at the company party, and provides my Mom with a nice pension and dividend income. I also liked being able to…
One of my vices is that I love to watch American college football games. Last weekend, I noticed a number of new commercials describing “eureka” moments in which everyday people discovered a new fact about “new natural gas” that turned them into believers that it is a fuel for the future. One of the commercials…
On the second day of the Nuclear Construction Summit, I listened to a series of speakers including independent project consultants, financial services providers, lawyers, ratings agencies, and bankers. In nearly every presentation, I heard or saw evidence supporting the idea that very large, expensive, complex projects can be risky without a lot of attention to…
The Nuclear Construction Summit, organized by Nuclear Energy Insider and eyeforenergy.com, is being held at the Dupont Hotel on Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. It is a compact venue; the organizers initially expected that this first annual conference would attract about 80-100 people, but the full registered attendance is about 159 plus another 25…
During the Nuclear Construction Summit being held at the Dupont Hotel in Washington, DC on October 26 and 27, I had the opportunity to listen to a talk by Luis Reyes, the Regional Administrator for NRC region II in Atlanta, GA. Under the current organization, Mr. Reyes has overall responsibility for all nuclear construction activity…
I got motivated to build a small spreadsheet using tables 1.1 and 3 from the Energy Information Agency’s 2008 US Electric Power Monthly publication. Here is the comment that I have seen in a number of places that I want to clarify (most recently in an article titled THE NUCLEAR ENERGY DEBATE — A CASE…
At Nuclear Talk, Gail Marcus has shared information from a recent presentation provided by Jason Tolland, Counsellor for Environment and Energy at the Canadian Embassy. The audience was a group of folks who graduated from MIT; the topic was the Canadian-US energy relationship. The title of Gail’s post is LNG and Gas Pipeline Requirements: Nuclear…
I watched the Clean Energy speech that President Obama gave to students, faculty and assembled dignitaries at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Friday, October 23, 2009. Though some of my friends and colleagues in community of pro-nuclear writers were a bit disappointed, I found some reasons to be encouraged. I might be grasping…
The Areva Blog has posted a quote of the day from Stewart Brand, which is a “must read”. If you are interested in the interview that was the source of the quote, visit the Newsweek blog to read Stewart Brand, an Icon of Environmentalism, Talks About Embracing Nuclear Power. Once you have read the great…
A friend of mine who has been a professional nuclear engineer for a couple of decades sent me a link to a mid September 2009 blog post at AdWeek.com titled Grey Energizes America’s Natural Gas Alliance: WPP Group shop fires up first salvo this weekend. Here is a quote from the advertising trade press publication:…
This does not qualify as a smoking gun because it does not include a specific anti-nuclear comment from someone who has a visible connection to finding, extracting, transporting, trading or marketing coal, oil or natural gas. However, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled No Uptick Seen for Natural Gas Prices, ENI Says…
Amory Lovins often derides the investment picture associated with nuclear energy projects. As he states it in his recent Grist article titled Stewart Brand’s nuclear enthusiasm falls short on facts and logic. “They cost too much to build and incur too much financial risk.” In contrast, here is his conclusion about alternative sources like wind…