I’m going to go out on a limb – I oppose energy efficiency programs that are marketed as a source of new energy. I know that some people who work in this field are quite sincere, but I have been paying close attention to energy issues for too many decades now to get hoodwinked. When…
Model of mPower™ inside containment As regular Atomic Insights readers know, I gained some of my atomic insights as a commissioned officer in the US Navy. I served for part of my career as an engineering officer on board nuclear powered submarines and gained an up close and personal appreciation for the amazing technology that…
In December of 2009, the Annals New York Academy of Sciences provided publication services for a book titled Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment. Here is how the book is described on a web page with the HTML title of Chernobyl | The New York Academy of Sciences: (The HTML title…
A film editor who owns a getaway cabin in Meredith, New York recently produced her first documentary film focused on her second home town. A motivator for producing the film was her realization that she and her vacation area neighbors would never be able to get away from their new neighbors – an industrial sized…
I wrote yesterday about the press conference announcing the release of Dr. Mark Cooper’s paper titled Policy Challenges of Nuclear Reactor Construction: Cost Escalation and Crowding Out Alternatives. Though I strongly disagree with the conclusions, I believe that the paper is worth reading because it can provide both cautionary information and some indications for ways…
The ANS Nuclear Cafe hosted the 18th carnival of nuclear energy focused blog posts. These carnivals point out key items of interest from people who are regularly writing about nuclear energy from a variety of points of situations and points of view. Please visit 18th Carnival of nuclear energy bloggers for a single stop shop…
On Thursday, September 9, 2010, the Institute for Energy and the Environment at the Vermont Law School, which is not affiliated with the University of Vermont, hosted a phone press conference to announce the release of a paper titled Policy Challenges of Nuclear Reactor Construction: Cost Escalation and Crowding Out Alternatives by Dr. Mark Cooper….
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8CqdECzklI In early 2009 a recently graduated film student and a journalist who grew up on Long Island got together to produce a film about the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant fiasco. Originally planned as a 10 minute YouTube video, the project grew to what might be a documentary lasting 100 minutes. Rod Adams and Gwyneth…
PG&E has confirmed that a twenty-four inch natural gas pipeline in San Bruno, CA ruptured during the evening of September 9, 2010, causing a fireball estimated at 200-300 feet in height that burned for several hours. The fire started at 6:00 pm, just before sunset, and was announced as being contained at 11 pm. It…
Peter Hessler has published a valuable piece of journalism titled The Uranium Widows (subscription required) in the September 13, 2010 issue of The New Yorker that demonstrates the importance of a questioning attitude and penetrating research skills. He visits a uranium mining region, including a town that had been evacuated and expensively remediated by a…
Nuclear energy has a fifty year history of safe and reliable operation. Atomic fission, the only new power source developed during the 20th century, produces the energy equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil per day from approximately 440 commercial nuclear power plants. That energy equivalence figure does not include the energy produced on board…
The American Nuclear Society formed a Presidential Special Committee on Small and Medium Sized Reactor (SMR) Generic Licensing issues in early 2010 with the goal of addressing two dozen issues that were associated with licensing SMRs. After grouping the issues into three broad categories the issues were assigned to three volunteer subcommittees: Subcommittee A: Licensing…