Gordon McDowell is a Canadian film-maker who has a strong interest in molten salt reactors using thorium. However, he is also supportive of other forms of nuclear energy as beneficial sources of emission-free energy. You can find more of his work on his YouTube channel. Like many of my associates and colleagues, Gordon has a…
On Tuesday, May 27, 2014, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted to accept its professional staff’s recommendation to leave its current policy regarding spent fuel storage in place. Despite a large amount of public and political pressure, it will not require licensees to expedite the relocation of used nuclear fuel from carefully engineered and seismically qualified…
On December 12, 2013, the US Department of Energy announced that it had selected NuScale as the winner of a cost share program to develop small modular reactors. This morning, NuScale distributed the following press release announcing that the agreement with the DOE had been finalized for up to $217M over the next five years….
Mark Cooper of the Vermont Law School has published another paper in a series critiquing the economics of nuclear energy; this one is titled The Economic Failure of Nuclear Power and the Development of a Low Carbon Electricity Future: Why Small Modular Reactors are Part of the Problem and Not the Solution. It is not…
The above trailer for Stories from Tohoku is both heart-rending and heart-warming. It reminds us of the tragedy that struck the northeast Japanese coast on March 11, 2011 that has been too often overlooked in all of the discussion about the temporally-related, but far less devastating, events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Atomic…
Many currently operating nuclear plants are in danger of being permanently shut down due to temporary conditions including low, but volatile natural gas prices, improperly designed markets that fail to recognize the value of reliable generating capacity, quotas and mandates that result in certain types of electrical generators receiving direct monetary payments in addition to…
I received an update from Benjamin Haas, the SUNY Maritime student who has been working on nuclear powered ship designs from a complete systems perspective for the past three semesters. He and his team have not just focused on the technical aspects of designing a power plant and a ship that could take full advantage…
Update: (June 20, 2014) Here is the chart of B&W’s stock price during the past year. It is interesting to note the 10% drop between May 9, 2014 and May 18, 2014 and the fact that the stock continues to trade in a range centered around the new, lower price established after that drop. End…
Though it has been a little quiet here on Atomic Insights in the past few days, I have been working on some stories documenting financial maneuvers in the US energy industry — especially as it related to nuclear energy. You might be interested in reading Save Vermont Yankee. If not you, who? If not now,…
About two years ago, I made a trip from Virginia to Gaffney, South Carolina to talk at a public meeting being held about the draft environmental impact statement prepared for the proposed William States Lee nuclear power station which will include two 1140 MWe Westinghouse AP1000® reactor units. That proposed new power plant project is…
The Wall Street Journal has published an article titled China National Nuclear to Raise $2.6 Billion in IPO that describes the plan for a major nuclear power plant owner to go public. Here is a quote from the article: China aims to reach 200 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2030, up from 14.6 gigawatts last…
On April 11, 2014, Roger Annis, a member of the Vancouver Ecosocialist Group, gave a talk at the University of California Santa Barbara. The talk was titled Oil, tar sands, coal, natural gas: What’s behind the expansion drive of Canada’s and North America’s fossil fuel industries? It is a fascinating talk with some excellent slides…