The nuclear industry’s strategy of working in individual U.S. states to obtain support for financially stressed plants has stalled. Despite successfully implemented efforts in New York and Illinois to provide assistance that is narrowly targeted at a handful of especially vulnerable units, no other state has been able to get a support measure out of…
A pernicious myth was forcefully attacked in June when the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a paper titled Evaluation of A Proposal for Reliable Low-Cost Grid Power with 100% Wind, Water, and Solar. The abstract of the new paper, which was developed during the past year by Christopher Clack and a team…
“Don’t wait for a serious crisis to occur. Create one that can be more carefully controlled to your advantage.” Credit: Fictional natural gas futures trader whose last name might be Dulles or Bundy One of my favorite sources for natural gas industry news and opinions is RBN Energy LLC. Their blog is near the top…
A two-page Policy Forum opinion piece titled Nuclear safety regulation in the post-Fukushima era: Flawed analyses underlie lax U.S. regulation of spent fuel by Edwin Lyman, Michael Schoeppner and Frank von Hippel appeared in the May 26, 2017 issue of Science Magazine, an outlet that has a public reputation as a reliable source of technical…
I received a pleasant surprise near the end of May while performing a spot check of my modest portfolio of individual stocks. Lightbridge (NASDAQ: LTBR), a holding that hasn’t performed well for several years, had nearly doubled since my check a week before. Since then it has ratcheted up another 20% or so. My online…
I apologize for the lack of recent articles. Since the last week in May, the headquarters of Atomic Insights has been hosting a family summer camp for three really happy and energetic children ranging in age from 2-7. During rare and short free time, I’ve been engaging on Twitter or moderating comments here, but finding…
Nuclear energy in the Republic of Korea is being threatened as a result of the May 9 presidential election of Moon Jae-in. Since at least 2012, when he suffered a narrow election defeat, Moon has advocated a halt to nuclear plant construction, prohibiting license extensions and achieving a “nuclear zero” policy by 2060. With the…
Yesterday, the President announced his intent to fill two vacancies at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The White House press release names Annie Caputo, currently serving as senior policy advisor for Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY) on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to a seat with a term expiring June 30, 2021. As stated in…
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been seeking input on regulations that should be repealed, replaced or modified. The comment window opened on April 13 and closed on May 15. In response to the request, members of Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI) prepared a document containing scientifically supported arguments for eliminating regulations that contain…
Jon Talton of the Seattle Times published a piece in reaction to the recent kerfuffle about a structural collapse at an old, wooden beam-reinforced tunnel roof at the Hanford site in eastern Washington. The tunnel has been the storage location for equipment and obsolete components that were used several decades ago when the site was…
Jake DeWitte and Caroline Cochran, the cofounders of Oklo, a start up company that is developing a 1-2 MWe nuclear reactor-based power system for remote areas, have been credited with drawing attention to a problem that can be solved by a government policy decision. “Nearly all advanced reactors have a need for low enriched fuel…
The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA), S. 512, is a draft bill reported out of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee on March 22 that directs both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and U.S. Department of Energy to make significant changes in the way they treat nuclear energy technology development. While it…