On Saturday, November 21, 2009, at about 4:00 pm installed radiation monitors inside the containment building at Three Mile Island Unit One showed higher than normal readings. The normal actions for such indications were taken. People in the area were directed to leave the building while the source of the radioactivity was located. Once they…
On November 22, 2009, flush with good feelings about the recent American Nuclear Society (ANS) Winter Meeting, I invited four others who attended the meeting to get together for a conference call to talk about what we heard and learned. The show is a bit longer than average, but it is worth every minute! Lisa…
Some of you have graciously let me know that you are impatiently awaiting the next episode of the Atomic Show after a long period of silence. Please rest assured, there will be a new show soon. My goal is to get it produced and posted by Tuesday morning – US east coast time.
On November 16, 2009, at the American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting, Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) gave a speech titled Nuclear Energy in a Carbon Constrained World that included the following intriguing paragraph: “I plan to introduce a second bill, to complement Senator Udall’s bill. My new bill would require the Secretary of Energy to develop…
During the ANS Winter Meeting, I stopped by the B&W booth and had a chat with some of the booth representatives about the progress that the company is making on its mPowerTM modular reactor. We had a good conversation about steady progress and a project that is meeting its planned milestones. I received a promise…
I have had a busy week trying to time share between a day job and at least some attendance and coverage of the American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting. While searching for other views of the event that I might have missed earlier in the week, I found the below segment titled Nuclear Industry Holds Winter…
Fox 11 News out of Green Bay, Wisconsin has been airing a story on the future of nuclear power. The most recent segment was a journalistically balanced view about used nuclear fuel – what most people call “nuclear waste”. One part of this story that bothers me is that the plant owners and their representatives…
Gail Marcus, who blogs at Nuclear Power Talk, shared a story on Saturday November 14, 2009 about a song contest that she supported during her tenure as president of the American Nuclear Society. It was inspired by memories of the artistic work produced during the Great Depression with government support that was designed not just…
I am highjacking the Atomic Insights feed and blog site for a brief advertisement. People who visit the site instead of receiving posts via RSS feed might have noticed a series of profile photo changes as I went clean shaven for the first time in 28 years and as I have gradually replaced my mustache…
I saw a deceptive headline in my Google Alert for new nuclear power plants this morning. Can you imagine – a headline writer who chooses a deceptive headline! The story, titled FACTBOX-U.S. Coal Plant captures and stores 2% of its carbon comes from Reuters News Service. It sits above an article that provides some interesting…
Like many people who blog, I use it as a tool to communicate with people who share a common interest, but not a common location. Sometimes, however, there are wonderful opportunities to actually meet people in person with whom you have shared thoughts and ideas for several years. I had just such an opportunity last…
The November 1009 issue of Scientific American carried a cover story titled A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables by Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi. That article has received some pointed criticism from some of my favorite pro-nuclear bloggers and podcasters, including John Wheeler who produced an episode titled…