Jaczko hearings a depressing example of partisan power politics

I am a deeply disappointed supporter of many Democratic platform planks who strongly believes in protecting the environment, building a strong educational system that is freely available to all comers, enabling workers to earn a decent wage for their hard work, increasing the number of jobs available to all residents of the United States, building…

Hearing on Jaczko’s leadership at Nuclear Regulatory Commission

I have spent the past several hours viewing and clipping highlights from an extraordinary hearing conducted yesterday by the House Oversight Committed on “Leadership at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”. If you want a similar experience, you can find the complete hearing video – of both panels – at http://youtu.be/qEduKirfpTY. In the next several days, I…

UK nuclear regulation gaining ground as a gold standard in effectiveness

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has often described itself as “the gold standard” in nuclear reactor regulation. Sometimes that view has been reinforced by the nuclear industry by comments along the lines of “if you can license your design in the US, you can license it anywhere.” I am not sure if that is because…

Jaczko must go

My professional work habits and standards were formed by 33 years in the US naval service, an organization with a proud tradition of developing independent decision makers who could be entrusted with billions of dollars worth of national assets and thousands of lives. Our tradition includes demanding training, strong mentoring programs, regular competitive evaluations and…

Congressional reform act might help to prevent another Jaczko fiasco

I rarely, if ever, open email that is obviously part of a chain letter. I have never ever, passed them along to anyone else. However, this morning I received the following message that seems quite timely because if it was in effect, people like Harry Reid and Ed Markey would have never developed the clout…

Please sign petition at Change.org to ask President Obama to remove Gregory Jaczko from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

John Wheeler who blogs at This Week in Nuclear started a petition on Change.org titled President Barack Obama: Remove Gregory Jaczko from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Here is the description from the “why this is important” tab on the petition page. Gregory Jaczko, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has lost the confidence of…

Open warfare: four NRC commissioners versus Chairman Jaczko

It is a four against one war. On one side is the Chairman, a man armed with essentially no experience or professional training associated with the effective use of the gift of nuclear energy. On the other side are four experienced and well-educated nuclear energy professionals who among them can count close to 100 years…

Open letter to advocates of Generation IV reactors (IFR, LFTR, NGNP, PBHTR)

I participate in a number of email lists and forums populated by people who have an incredible optimism for a wide variety of nuclear fission power systems including sodium cooled Integral Fast Reactors, molten salt based Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, helium cooled Next Generation Nuclear Plants, the molten salt cooled Pebble Bed High Temperature Reactor…

Gasland II coming to HBO just in time to influence 2012 elections

Natural Gas Watch has published a fascinating interview with Josh Fox, the creator of the often mentioned documentary about the impacts of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) titled Gasland. Fox is well into the production cycle for a sequel titled Gasland II; he described the difference between filming the first movie as an unknown documentarian and making…

Examples of regulatory costs for nuclear energy development

This exchange with Robert Bradley, who is a self-described free market advocate, focuses on my frustration with the inability of his “community” to acknowledge the imposed costs of excessive regulation on nuclear energy projects. Robert blogs at Master Resource, the same place where I have encountered Jerry Taylor, who shares some of the same ideas….