The Obama Administration, under the direction of influential Senators, has provided the names of two people to fill vacancies on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. One of the vacancies exists already; Commissioner Apostolakis, a renowned expert in the field of nuclear reactor safety and probabilistic risk assessment was not offered a second term when his first…
It’s been a busy week, but the following stories appeared on the Atomic Insights radar and are being tracked for additional information. President Obama has revealed the names of the people that he intends to submit to the Senate for confirmation as NRC commissioners to replace the recently retired Commissioner Apostolakis and soon-to-depart Commissioner Magwood….
Platts Energy Week TV carried an important segment on July 13, 2014 discussing the need to make major investments in the US natural gas pipeline infrastructure in order to deliver new sources of gas to growing markets. Chris Newkumet from Platts talked with Don Santa of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and Ben…
Dr. Edward Calabrese has published a new paper titled The Genetics Panel of the NAS BEAR I Committee (1956): epistolary evidence suggests selfâinterest may have prompted an exaggeration of radiation risks that led to the adoption of the LNT cancer risk assessment model. Abstract: This paper extends a series of historical papers which demonstrated that…
After posting Nonproliferation is a disguised antinuclear energy effort, I received the following comment via email. The author has given me permission to share it, with attribution. I know John Holdren well and this article in spot on. John does not weigh energy poverty very high and weighs nuclear weapons proliferation exceedingly highly. This dominates…
I stumbled across a 1983 article titled Nuclear power and nuclear weapons: the connection is dangerous that is the clearest piece of evidence I’ve found to prove that many of the basic talking points of the nuclear nonproliferation crowd are actually aimed at slowing, halting and reversing the use of nuclear energy. These efforts have…
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) to solicit comments from the general public and affected stakeholders about 40 CFR 190, Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Nuclear Power Operations. The comment period closes on August 3, 2014. The ANPR page includes links to summary webinars provided to the…
There was a time when the Royal Dutch Shell corporation demonstrated strong interest in nuclear energy. In 1973, it was approached by Gulf Oil Company, the owner of Gulf General Atomics, as a capital partner for an aggressive expansion program. GA had spent the better part of two decades developing an innovative high temperature gas-cooled…
A couple of weeks ago, Atomic Insights published an article about an initiative by past presidents and fellows of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) to encourage the organization to push for efforts to resolve the issue of the science of the biological effects of low level radiation. Part of the effort includes gathering signatures from…
The Morning Consult has an intriguing article titled Map: State Energy Influence in Washington. The article briefly describes how states that produce various energy fuels have senators and congressmen that migrate to committees that affect the industry in their home territories. It also mentions the curiously large influence that Massachusetts has on energy policy making….