I remain baffled about why so many people who consider themselves to be political liberals fight the use of nuclear energy. It is not only an emission-free, reliable, low cost power source with a demonstrated record of safety, it is also a source of some excellent, career employment at wages that allow people to raise…
Stephanie Cooke is a reporter, editor and author. She recently published a book titled In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary Tale of the Nuclear Age. I first became aware of her work earlier this month when I read a discouraging column that she had written for the New York Times titled After Fukushima, Does Nuclear Power…
Kirk Sorensen is an inspiring speaker and teacher who is motivated by an incredible vision. As he eloquently describes in the video below, he has excavated and dusted off ideas and documentation from the archives at Oak Ridge National Laboratory about using thorium in molten salt reactors. According to back of the envelope calculations by…
Guest post by Andy Dawson One anti-nuclear argument that’s frequently made is that nuclear is slow to deploy – that renewables can make inroads into carbon production rather faster than can building new nuclear stations. I was recently provoked into taking a look at this, in the context of the UK’s 2020 and 2030 CO2…
One of my favorite jokes about the difference between scientists and engineers is the one in which a scientist and an engineer are both put into a room with a pot of gold on the other side. They are given the rules of the challenge – the gold will be given to the person who…
Dr. Wade Allison, the author of Radiation and Reason addressed the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) Food Safety meeting on October 3, 2011. Unlike Arnie Gundersen (sometimes misspelled as Gunderson), an unlicensed nuclear engineer from Vermont who has been working hard for several months to encourage an unreasonable fear of radiation, even at…
On October 13, 2011 the Reuters news service published an article titled NRC delays reactor certification to study Japan damage that led with the following paragraph. WILMINGTON, N.C., Oct 13 (Reuters) – U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission certification of new reactor technology has been delayed by the agency’s evaluation of the earthquake and tsunami damage to…
One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as…
Gordon McDowell, the film maker who produced Thorium Remix, has released some additional mixes of material gathered for that production effort. One in particular is aimed at those people whose main concern about using nuclear energy is the often repeated question “What do you do with the waste.” Many people who ask that question think…
On October 10, 2011, Thorium Remix became publicly available. The video is worth watching – there is a lot more information than can actually be squeezed into five minutes, so the headline of this post is actually a bit of a tease.
I have frequently wondered why Representative Ed Markey is such a powerful antinuclear activist. The mystery has not been just trying to understand why he is so actively opposed to nuclear energy, but how he accumulated so much legislative power so early in his career. A few days ago, I started piecing together some interesting…
My wife and I just spent a glorious weekend with some old friends who were entertaining a number of people I had never met at their lake house. As I too often do when socializing over adult beverages, I got engaged in a conversation about energy. One of the participants stated that he thought that…