On February 3, 2014, The Hill Ballot Box blog published a call to action for nuclear energy and medical radiation therapy professionals titled EPA seeks to modernize nuclear standards. The EPA says it has not changed its radiation protection standards since the 1970s. Radiation health researchers would probably agree that there is a need to…
By Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI) We are writing to express our concerns with a January 30, 2014 article by Rita F. Redberg and Rebecca Smith-Bindman. The article is alarmingly titled, “We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer”, and is accompanied by a frightening cartoon that appears to be a doctor holding an X-ray film, and…
By Paul Lorenzini Two recent reports ought to frame the conundrum for environmental activists who oppose nuclear power and offer guidance for all who are concerned about carbon. Renewables and efficiency are not enough The first was BP’s Energy Outlook 2035. It challenges the prevailing narrative that has been driving the thought of many environmentalists…
NuScale was the sole winner in the latest round under the DOE’s Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for small modular reactors (SMR). The DOE announced its decision in December 2013. As a result of that decision, Westinghouse has shifted internal resources from working on a 225 MWe SMR to focus more on continued refinements and completion…
I just realized that a new Twitter friend — @ActindeAge — had also started a blog named The Actinide Age. The publisher is an Australian working for a manufacturing company that is not related to nuclear energy, but that would benefit if energy was cheaper because of a less constrained supply. You can learn about…
The health effects of low level radiation are a continuing topic of conversation here and in many other places around the web. The Establishment view is known as the Linear No Threshold (LNT) assumption. Using that model, which was first applied to radiation standards development in 1956, every dose is assumed to impart risk to…
It’s time to help people outside of Georgia and South Carolina understand exactly what kind of infrastructure development they are missing.
Hermann Muller, the 1946 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology and Medicine, insisted that there was no threshold of risk from ionizing radiation. His opinion has had a long lasting influence on standards for radiation dose. He was wrong. History is complicated. Influential people often impose their will with long-lasting results. The stories can be difficult…
World Nuclear News published an article titled Consistency required for Fukushima return that mentions several topics worth increased discussion. It mentions the report recently completed by the IAEA that complimented Japan on its efforts to decontaminate areas that were affected by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station radioactive material releases. Then it went on to…
The Thorium Energy Alliance recently announced the dates and agenda for its 2014 annual conference (TEAC-2014). I had the privilege of attending the first TEAC and meeting some passionate, technically astute people. I’m still in touch with some of the friends I first met there. My schedule has not allowed me to attend the last…
On January 24, 2014, the The Society of Environmental Journalists and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program presented a panel discussion titled The Year Ahead in Environment and Energy. I found out about it via this tweet from Andy Revkin: Video: Enviro journalists on Keystone, gas boom, western drought, much more at…
By Paul Lorenzini Germany’s nuclear phase-out has an obvious and unavoidable consequence: they will burn more fossil fuels and emit more carbon. They may succeed in lowering carbon emissions using some artifact (comparisons to some historical year) but only a fool would contend that their carbon emissions will be not be higher than they otherwise…