It is possible for engineers to make incredibly complex calculations without a single math error that still come up with a wrong answer if they use a model based on incorrect assumptions. (Originally published May 1996) Pick up almost any book about nuclear energy and you will find that the prevailing wisdom is that nuclear…
Climate Action’s July 16 webinar announcement caught my attention and generated some surprised commentary among people who discuss energy and climate on Twitter. The headline for the event wasn’t all that special. “Rising to the Net-Zero Challenge.” Neither was the subtitle. “As we emerge from lockdown following the global health crisis, can leaders from across…
Zion Lights is a formally trained science communicator, author of a carefully researched book titled The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting, and an experienced environmental activist who worked for a year as a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion. About a month ago, she began openly advocating for an expansion of nuclear energy as a major tool…
Michael Shellenberger’s new book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All has provoked numerous reactions and conversations. It is a carefully researched, 400 page work where 25% of the book is endnotes that document sources for the statements in the book. Michael is a stranger to the “go along to get along” mode of…
Global First Power (GFP), Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) recently announced that they had formed a joint venture called Global First Power Limited Partnership. That venture will build, own and operate an installation called the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR™) at the Chalk River Laboratories site. Mark Mitchell and Eric MGoey…
Atomic Show #278 transcript, lightly edited for clarity. Intro music (00:15): Rod Adams (00:21):This is Rod Adams and it’s time for Atomic Show show number 278. Yes, these Atomic Shows are coming almost regularly these days. I guess it helps to have not only myself, but all of my guests, working from home. Today I…
Abject fear of radiation, even at low doses, is a root cause of the cost and schedule difficulties associated with atomic energy development and deployment. At Atomic Insights, we believe that most of the fear of low dose radiation is not only unwarranted, but it is also purposely created, taught and carefully reinforced by people….
Simon Wakter is a strongly pro-nuclear engineer in a country that passed a referendum officially phasing out nuclear energy since several years before he was born. He has to round up to be called a thirty-something. Simon works in the nuclear energy branch of AFRY, a well-established 17,000 employee, all-of-the-above. engineering company that recently adopted…
It’s clear that Robert Bryce and Tyson Culver like living on a planet populated by humans. They have produced a movie that celebrates electricity as the key enabler of the modern world that we have created. Their film challenges us to keep on building and improving our technology until everyone has abundant, reliable access to…
On December 8, 1953 President Eisenhower announced to the UN that the US knew how to harness atomic energy to produce useful power. He stated that the US was willing to widely share that knowledge. He described an especially intriguing possibility of using atomic energy to bring power to the “power-starved areas of the world.”…
HolosGen has attacked the nuclear power plant cost and schedule challenge from the opposite direction chosen by many nuclear reactor developers. Claiming to be agnostic about the reactor specifics – as long as it produces reliable heat in a small-enough configuration – HolosGen founder Claudio Filippone decided to focus on radical improvements to the “balance…
Managing any business is hard work, especially during a global pandemic with stay-at-home orders in place. It requires creativity and flexibility along with some amount of prior preparation. On May 11, 2020, I gathered a group of representatives from several start-up companies that are developing advanced nuclear technologies to talk about how they are making…