I have a number of acquaintances who either work or have worked for ExxonMobil. Most of those ExxonMobil employees were people I met at the Naval Academy or at alumni functions. They are some of the brightest and numerically competent people I have ever met. Figures from 3rd Quarter 2010 Earnings Reports When looking at…
There was a bit of encouraging news coming from South Carolina during the earning season. SCANA Corporation, the only Fortune 500 corporation in the state, issued a presentation that included a progress report on its V. C. Summer New Nuclear Deployment (NND) project. Here is an extract of that presentation showing the original budget, the…
Vermont Tiger is running a fascinating series of revealing articles written by Rob Roper. The articles focus on Peter Shumlin, the President Pro Tem of Vermont’s Senate and a leading candidate as Vermont’s next governor, and his intriguing relationships with David Blittersdorf, the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG), and Vermont Yankee. Part I of…
It is earnings season – that time of the quarter where publicly traded companies issue their quarterly reports. The third quarter ended on September 30 and it normally takes a few weeks to close out all of the transactions and produce the numbers. While perusing reports in the Wall Street Journal from companies that interest…
The Miami Herald has published a story titled Hole found in nuclear plant containment building. The article is about a rust-caused hole the size of a quarter that was found in the containment liner at one of the Turkey Point nuclear units during a recent routine refueling outage inspection. The story is rather typical “he…
Some people will attempt to contort any issue into a reason to avoid the use of nuclear energy. On October 26, 2010, NPR published an Associated Press story titled Concerns Raised Over Pipeline Near Indian Point that describes how Paul Blanch, a man described as “an energy consultant from West Hartford, Conn.” has filed a…
I am going to take a moment of publisher privilege and write about a topic that is not specifically atomic, nuclear, or energy related. As I read about election predictions based on polling numbers, I am reminded of a story I learned during one of my statistics classes. We had just learned the mathematical formula…
Southern Maryland Newspapers Online has published a article titled Reactor under microscope that provides some interesting details about Constellation Energy’s offer to sell its stake in Unistar to EDF. It describes a letter from Constellation’s Mike Wallace expressing a strong desire on the part of Constellation’s management to encourage and assist with the project, even…
I keep close tabs on developments in small nuclear reactors, so I was intrigued this morning to notice that many returns in a news search with that phrase kept turning up obituaries for Bob Guccione, the founder and long time publisher of Penthouse Magazine. Here is a quote from the New York Times version: The…
During one phase of my professional career, I realized that I needed to learn more about manufacturing and operating a business. A typical person with my upbringing – son of a school teacher and an engineer – might have decided that the best way to fill in that knowledge hole was to go back to…
I have been musing a bit this morning about the impact of the cost of money for nuclear projects in the United States compared to the cost of money for other energy investments. I have a spreadsheet model that I built based on the methodology described in Appendix 5.A — Calculation of the Levelized Cost…
If you happen to know anyone at the Maryland PIRG, NIRS, Counter Punch or other groups who are gloating about the recent Constellation Energy announcement that they are not interested in moving forward with building the Calvert Cliffs Unit 3 nuclear plant at the present time, show them this video from Southern Company’s Plant Vogtle….