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  • Atomic Show #349 – Josh Gillespie, COO National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC)

    Atomic Show #349 – Josh Gillespie, COO National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC)

    Rod AdamsByRod Adams
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    Idaho National Laboratory (INL) was born in 1949 as the National Reactor Testing Station after the Atomic Energy Commission decided they needed a place to test controlled nuclear fission power systems. Before being taken over by the AEC, the land was controlled and used by the U.S. Navy to test refurbished weapons, up to and…

Atomic Insights Latest Posts

  • Atomic Show #348 – Abdalla Abou-Jaoude MARVEL Program Lead
    Advanced Atomic Technologies · Liquid Metal Cooled Reactors · Micro Reactors · New Nuclear · Smaller reactors · The Atomic Show Podcast

    Atomic Show #348 – Abdalla Abou-Jaoude MARVEL Program Lead

    MARVEL, a creative acronym meaning Microreactor Applications Research Validation and EvaLuation, is a trail blazing reactor development program designed to help the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and the nuclear industry remember how to…

  • Collage of images from Golden Era of Nuclear celebration. Images from Oklo, celebration, Aalo, Radiant, Deployable, and Antares.
    Advanced Atomic Technologies · Atomic Entrepreneurs · Atomic history · Gas Cooled Reactors · Gas cooled water moderated · Innovation · Liquid Fuel Reactors · Liquid Metal Cooled Reactors · Micro Reactors · Smaller reactors

    Celebrating the arrival of the Golden Era of Nuclear Power

    The dawn of the Golden Era of Nuclear Power in the United States was celebrated on June 25, 2026 with music, lights and inspirational speeches. A crowd of several thousand people at Idaho…

  • Atomic Show #347 – Dr. Jeff Waksman, Project Pele and Project Janus
    Advanced Atomic Technologies · Army Nuclear Program · Micro Reactors · New Nuclear · Nuclear deployment · Small Nuclear Power Plants · The Atomic Show Podcast

    Atomic Show #347 – Dr. Jeff Waksman, Project Pele and Project Janus

    The U.S. military has a strong and growing interest in using small and micro nuclear reactors as a means of reducing logistics challenges and improving operational resilience. They like nuclear reactors for their…

  • Atomic Show #346 – Greg Piefer, CEO and Founder, Shine Technologies
    Advanced Atomic Technologies · Atomic Entrepreneurs · Fuel Recycling · Fusion · isotopes · The Atomic Show Podcast · therapeutic radiation

    Atomic Show #346 – Greg Piefer, CEO and Founder, Shine Technologies

    Shine Technologies is a unique nuclear fusion company. The conventional path for nuclear fusion projects is to raise and spend billions of dollars and decades of research and development in efforts to successfully…

Atomic Insights Archive >>

The Atomic Show Podcast

The Atomic Show Podcast includes interviews, roundtable discussions and atomic geeks all centered around the idea that nuclear energy is an amazing boon for human society.

  • Atomic Show #349 – Josh Gillespie, COO National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC)
    Atomic Abundance · Innovation · The Atomic Show Podcast

    Atomic Show #349 – Josh Gillespie, COO National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC)

    Idaho National Laboratory (INL) was born in 1949 as the National Reactor Testing Station after the Atomic Energy Commission decided they needed a place to test controlled nuclear fission power systems. Before being…

  • Atomic Show #348 – Abdalla Abou-Jaoude MARVEL Program Lead
    Advanced Atomic Technologies · Liquid Metal Cooled Reactors · Micro Reactors · New Nuclear · Smaller reactors · The Atomic Show Podcast

    Atomic Show #348 – Abdalla Abou-Jaoude MARVEL Program Lead

    MARVEL, a creative acronym meaning Microreactor Applications Research Validation and EvaLuation, is a trail blazing reactor development program designed to help the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and the nuclear industry remember how to…

  • Atomic Show #347 – Dr. Jeff Waksman, Project Pele and Project Janus
    Advanced Atomic Technologies · Army Nuclear Program · Micro Reactors · New Nuclear · Nuclear deployment · Small Nuclear Power Plants · The Atomic Show Podcast

    Atomic Show #347 – Dr. Jeff Waksman, Project Pele and Project Janus

    The U.S. military has a strong and growing interest in using small and micro nuclear reactors as a means of reducing logistics challenges and improving operational resilience. They like nuclear reactors for their…

Small Module Reactors

SMR developments, politics, investments

  • X-300 Blazing a Different Kind of Trail in Smaller Nuclear Reactor Development

    GEH spent about half a billion dollars designing, testing and certifying the ESBWR. Despite that investment, the 1,520 MWe Enhanced, Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) design documents are just gathering dust with no…

  • Project Dilithium – Boldly going back to a place our ancestors visited and prematurely abandoned

    Project Dilithium – Boldly going back to a place our ancestors visited and prematurely abandoned

    In January 2019, the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) of the U.S. Department of Defense officially informed the world that it was interested in learning more about small, mobile, nuclear generators. The SCO said…

  • NEI Small Reactor Forum Report – Part 2

    The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) hosted its biannual Small Reactor Forum on February 25, 2014. The agenda for the one day event included six well-organized sessions with presentations from three small reactor vendors,…

AP 1000 Saga

Why one of the most advanced new reactors has been challenged.

  • AP1000 saga

    Tragic day in South Carolina as 5,000 people lose their jobs at VC Summer

    Yesterday, about 5,000 people working on the VC Summer expansion project learned that the owners had issued stop work orders effective immediately. They started the day with important jobs paying good wages and…

  • NRC’s imposition of Aircraft Impact rule played a major role in Vogtle project delays and VC Summer failure
    AP1000 saga · Atomic history · New Nuclear · NRC · Nuclear regulations

    NRC’s imposition of Aircraft Impact rule played a major role in Vogtle project delays and VC Summer failure

    Projects that last as long as building nuclear reactors in the U.S. are analogous to extreme endurance competitions in which overall progress is the sum of all stages of the race. There is…

  • AP1000 saga

    GA Power announces a decision deferral until May 12

    Last night, GA Power issued a terse press release stating that it will continue working on the detailed project assessment needed before it can decide whether or not to continue trying to complete…

The Smoking Gun Series

Stories of fossil fuel interests fighting nuclear

  • Smoking Gun Part 18 – An Oldie But a Goodie – Oil Heat Institute of Long Island Ad Using Scare Tactics to Fight Shoreham

    One of the most famous battles against nuclear energy in the US, a struggle whose effects remain important to this day, was fought on Long Island. The saga involved nearly two decades of…

  • Corporate environmental contributions: Greenwashing or worse?

    Ken Silverstein posted a thought-provoking piece on Forbes.com titled Being ‘Good Neighbors’ And Staying Out Of Print Motivates Companies To Be Environmental Stewards. The following quote stimulated me to provide a slightly different…

  • Smoking Gun – Former Royal Dutch Shell Exec Proclaims End to Nuclear Power

    On April 28, 2011, Roland Kupers, a former Royal Dutch Shell executive and current visiting fellow at Oxford University, published an opinion piece titled The end of nuclear power that exposed his dislike…

Investing in Nuclear

Nuclear investments – enabling the transition to a low-carbon economy

  • Parnassus Versus Green Century: A Contrast in Styles

    Parnassus Versus Green Century: A Contrast in Styles

    Cross-posted from Nucleation Capital June, July and August of 2023 were the three hottest months the Earth has ever seen by such a large margin, it left climate scientists agog. Climate disasters are abounding apace, with the U.S. hit by 23 large-scale disasters, a record-breaking year already. In Pakistan, extreme rainfall and flooding affected 33…

  • How Hot is Cold Fusion?

    How Hot is Cold Fusion?

    The 24th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF24) was held at the lovely and spacious Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA over four days in late July. As a venture investor looking at evaluating and investing in a wide range of advanced nuclear ventures, I was invited to participate and/or sponsor the event. While…

Rod Adams

Managing Partner, Nucleation Capital, a venture fund enabling broader investor access to a diverse portfolio of advanced nuclear energy and deep decarbonization ventures. Nuclear energy expert and former submarine Engineer Officer with nuclear propulsion plant experience. Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast.

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