On January 9, 2012, The Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University held a hydrofracking workshop. The organizers invited a number of speakers from both industry and academia to discuss a contentious, but important energy issue from a variety of perspectives. You can read about the workshop on TheGreenGrok on a post titled Minds…
I just received the below solar PV advertisement in a mass email. I am certainly glad that I am not a UK resident and taxed to support this kind of generous payments – guaranteed to be a drain on the economy for the next 25 years. Can anyone please help me to understand what must…
One of the persistent myths left over from the first Atomic Age is that nuclear reactors can only be used to produce electricity in massive, central station power plants. That application is only one of many ways to use the heat from fissioning uranium, plutonium or thorium. In the US, fully 1/3 of the 100…
At least twice in the past few days, I have been challenged about the value of nuclear energy with something close to the following comment posted on during a recent Google+ discussion about energy choices. A good way to measure the safety of nuclear power in America, using objective criteria, would be to require nuclear…
Following the afternoon session of the public meeting about the Lee nuclear power station draft environmental impact statement, I had an interesting conversation with a man from the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR). He had spoken during the meeting about the large amount of taxpayer money that had been wasted on building and then not…
On January 19, 2012, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers held a joint public meeting to solicit comments about the draft environmental impact statement for the William States Lee nuclear power station that Duke Energy is proposing to build about 8 miles outside of Gaffney, SC. The meeting included two…
One of the privileges of being a long time pronuclear activist on the Internet – an activity that I have been enjoying since “atomicrod” started posting in USENET discussion groups in the early 1990s – is that I often see communications between talented, highly qualified professionals that include information that is not well distributed in…
A frequent participant in discussions on Atomic Insights submitted the below as a way to stimulate a conversation in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King. He thought of it as an outline, but with just a little editing it was good to go. I have a dream. I have a dream that access to copious…
I received an invitation by email to read and review a post on a blog called “TXCHNOLOGIST”. The invitation was well worded and inviting, most likely composed by a trained expert in public relations. The subject post, titled Your Prius Won’t Save You: Questions for David Owen, Author of The Conundrum intrigued me. It was…
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is planning to hold two identical public meetings to discuss the draft environmental impact statement for the William States Lee nuclear power station units 1 and 2 that are proposed for a site near Gaffney, SC. The public will be allowed to present comments and ask questions. People who are…
Florida state Rep. Mike Fasano (R-New Port Richey), who voted in favor of Florida’s 2006 Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) advanced cost recovery law, has become the prime sponsor of a new law to overturn that rule. According to a January 11, 2012 op-ed published by the Tampa Bay Times titled No more blank checks…
I just received my copy of Plentiful Energy: The Story of the Integral Fast Reactor. The complex history of a simple reactor technology with emphasis on its scientific basis for non-specialists by Charles Till and Yoon Il Chang. There is no doubt that it is going to be a fascinating read, but I had to…