On Tuesday, October 27, three leaders from X-Energy spoke to the Virginia ANS chapter about their company and the Xe-100, the high temperature, pebble bed gas reactor power system that they are designing. During the presentation, meeting attendees learned that X-Energy is an early phase start-up with a total staff of a few dozen people,…
On October 28, 2015, Westinghouse issued a press release titled AP1000® RCP REACHES FULL QUALIFICATION confirming a rumor I heard during my visit to Knoxville last week. The release contained wonderful, sigh of relief, news indicating that the hard-working, under-the-gun engineers and technicians at Curtiss-Wright’s EMD division had achieved their task of building and successfully…
This morning I ran across a relatively new blog titled Ecomodernist Mom that deserves to be visited with some regularity. I feel a bit of a kinship to the publisher; she lives in Florida but loves mountains enough to feature them in her site’s banner. She’s a busy mom struggling with raising kids in suburbia,…
Note: The initial version of this post was written based on an incorrect interpretation of the Roman numeral date stamp at the end of the video. The film was made in 1963, not 1968. The post was revised after a commenter provided the correct production date. End note. I have a theory about why the…
During the weekend in Knoxville, TN, I met some marvelous people who were friendly, energetic, personable, excited by life, and ready to learn how they could take small steps to make the world a better place. As reported on Saturday morning, I dressed in blue jeans and a high visibility tee shirt sporting an atomic…
Yesterday I participated in a packed schedule full of prepared talks by well qualified, highly credentialed nuclear energy professionals. It was in a beautiful, high capacity venue at the Knoxville Convention Center. Sound systems worked well, the MC kept us on schedule and there were several responsive assistants who provided microphones to those who had…
Yesterday afternoon, I spent a few hours watching about a hundred excited students rotate through several experienctial learning stations set up by volunteers for National Nuclear Science Week in Knoxville, TN. Representatives of the isotope production facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory had provided a remote manipulator simulator. The students were able to take turns…
A couple of days ago, I came across an inspirational logo. I liked it so much that I contacted the person who had posted it on the Nukes page on Facebook. It was on a flyer announcing a series of talks about atomic energy at the Dallas Makerspace by a group called Atomic Energy Interest…
Jigar Shah is the founder of SunEdison, a former CEO of the Carbon War Room, and is currently the President of Generate Capital. He is also a member of The Energy Gang on Greentech Media. Jigar and I have been engaged in some lively discussions on Twitter about the future of solar and nuclear energy…
National Geographic Explorer — now part of the Rupert Murdock media empire — published the below clips of Bill Nye, the bow-tied science guy, beseeching “deniers” to stop denying so that we can all get to work. He calls for an immediate halt to the use of fossil fuels and their replacement with “renewable energy”…
About a week ago, my UPI energy update feed provided an attention-grabbing headline Major reserve discovery confirmed in Golan Heights. The story subtitle was even more intriguing. Leadership of company behind the find seen as close to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. According to the story, exploratory wells drilled by Genie Energy’s Israeli subsidiary, Afek Oil…
In November 2014, I spoke with Carmen Bigles, the founder of Coqui Pharmaceuticals, a company that is preparing to build a $330 million medical isotope production facility near Gainesville, FL. Since that discussion 11 months ago, Coqui has made steady progress in completing their construction and operating license application to the NRC for a class…