Argentina recently held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Atucha II Nuclear Power Plant, on the occasion of completing its construction – thirty years after breaking ground in June 1981. The project is a source of immense pride in a country that was once a leader in nuclear energy development in Latin America. According to…
The Columbia Journalism Review has published an article titled A Frustrating AP Series on Nuclear Safety that analyses the four part series of “investigative” reports published during June of 2011. Here is an example quote from the article: But the AP series, while it tackles a critically important public policy issue, suffers from lapses in…
Daniel Yergin is one of the most informed and perceptive energy analysts in the world. His recently released book titled The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World is a densely packed political and economic history lesson. It is a worthy follow-on to one of the most dogeared and frequently reread books…
I first met Cal Abel during a flurry of correspondence associated with actions he recommended after the Fukushima event. Cal, a former submarine Engineer Officer and current PhD candidate at Georgia Tech, had produced some rapid response papers with useful ideas for the people responding to the events. One idea in particular that Cal produced…
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is the responsible federal regulator for natural gas pipelines, has issued the report of its year long investigation of the San Bruno pipeline explosion and fire. That September 9, 2010 event, involving a pipeline located directly underneath a residential area, killed 8 members of the public, injured dozens…
One of the persistent propaganda myths about using nuclear energy is that hypothetical accidents that release radioactive material will have dire consequences that render vast areas of land uninhabitable for centuries. It is a good thing for wolves, deer, and boars that they cannot read antinuclear propaganda or watch television. You see, we have done…
When there is an enormous revenue stream at stake, actions taken to delay making any changes can produce a good return on investment. There is no doubt in my mind that people interested in prolonging fossil fuel dominance over the world economy have taken action to insert doubt in the public consciousness about the hazard…
An article titled Backlash Against Nuclear Power Hits the Bottom Line provides some interesting food for thought about the intricate connections associated with the world’s $6 trillion per year energy market. Here is the first quote I want you to ponder. The combination of earthquake, tsunami and human ineptitude produced a fiasco at Japan’s Fukushima…
Yesterday morning I wrote a post titled Where is Hyperion Power Generation headed now? By the time I was ready for a lunch break, I had received an email from the Chief Operating Officer of Hyperion Power Generation offering to fill me in on some of the details that he was able to make public….
CBS TV 6, one of the television stations closest to the North Anna nuclear power station was allowed to take a tour to see the massive damage caused by one of the largest earthquakes that has ever occurred in the US east of the Mississippi River. Caution – the video you are about to see…
Hyperion Power Generation has been one of the more interesting and vocal companies in the small modular reactor (SMR) business during the past few years. I have attended a number of conferences and meetings at which John “Grizz” Deal and/or his sister Deborah Blackwell have been featured speakers or the centers of interested crowds in…
A regular Atomic Insights reader sent me a link to a program produced by Al Jazeera English titled 101 East – Asia’s nuclear addiction that offers an interesting, if somewhat disturbing, point of view about nuclear energy development. About half of the program describes an effort to site a nuclear power plant in Indonesia and…