Year: 2010

During the State of the Union address on January 27, 2010, President Barack Obama stressed the importance of energy innovation investments in his discussion about leading an economic recovery through infrastructure construction. Here is what he said at the very top of his list: “But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need…

Several of my regular sources of information about the happenings associated with nuclear energy, including John Wheeler’s This Week In Nuclear and Meredith Angwin’s Yes Vermont Yankeehave published stories about the recent flurry of news regarding the discovery of tritium in ground water on the site of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. I have…

During the January 21, 2010 hearing held by the US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the subject of the Department of Energy’s Research and Development program, Senator Bernie Sanders made some statements about nuclear energy that begged comment. I have put together a video clip that inserts my comments as he makes his…

Yesterday, I shared by introduction to Dr. Bruce Yandle’s “Bootleggers and Baptists” theory, which is aimed at trying to explain the often strange alignments of groups that support the imposition of prescriptive regulations. Here is the essence of the theory: Durable social regulation evolves when it is demanded by both of two distinctly different groups….

I have been trying for several years to explain why I believe that our current nuclear regulatory environment has been influenced by a “strange bedfellows” marriage of interests that joins frightened “environmentalists” with rent-seeking fossil fuel interests who want to slow down or even eliminate competition from nuclear energy suppliers. I have documented evidence of…

On January 21, 2010, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing to receive testimony on the research, development, priorities and imperatives needed to meet the medium and long term challenges associated with climate change. The only invited witness was Dr. Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy. There were a number of interesting…

A couple of weeks ago, I met with Marc Gunther, a journalist who is a contributing editor at Fortune magazine and author of four books, at a local coffee shop for a conversation about energy. He has just posted an article describing our meeting and summarizing the conversation. Please forgive my vanity, but I recommend…

I spoke yesterday evening with Forrest Rudin and TJ Trapp of Hyperion Power Generation. TJ is Hyperion’s Vice President of Engineering, Forrest is the Chief of Staff. You can listen to our conversation at Atomic Show #148 – Hyperion Power Module Update. We were able to delve into some significant detail about the current state…

I took a day of leave from my day job on January 20, 2010 to attend a workshop titled Nuclear Power for Commercial Ship Propulsion sponsored by the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) and the Center for the Commercial Deployment of Transportation Technologies (CCDoTT) of the California State University, Long Beach. It…

It is not hard to find examples of a serious marketing push by the natural gas industry in our nation’s capital. The industry recognizes that important decisions for the future of the industry and its long term profitability are going to be made within the next few months. I snapped a few photos of the…

In July 2007, all seven units at Japan’s Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power station were shutdown for extensive inspections and minor repairs following an earthquake that registered a 6.8 on the Richter Scale. In May 2009, Unit 7 became the first of the seven to be restarted; it entered into full time commercial service on December…