The Atomic Show #150 – Presidential Announcement of Loan Guarantees, Small Reactors

On Sunday, February 21, I gathered a group of well experienced nuclear professionals to talk about the impact of President Obama’s February 16, 2010 speech announcing loan guarantees for Southern Company to build two additional units at its Vogtle Nuclear Station. Margaret Harding, Kelly Taylor, John Wheeler from This Week in Nuclear, Dan Yurman from…

The Atomic Show #148 – Hyperion Power Module Update

On January 21, 2010, I caught up with Forrest Rudin and TJ Trapp of Hyperion Power Generation. Forrest is Hyperion’s Chief of Staff; TJ is the Vice President of Engineering. They were on the road meeting with various stakeholders to explain more about their product. They took the time out of their schedule to provide…

The Atomic Show #146 – South Korean Nuclear Technology Development

The United Arab Emirates has recently selected a consortium that includes Korea Electric Power Corp., Westinghouse Electric, Hyundai Engineering and Construction, Samsung C&T Corp and Doosan Heavy Industries to supply it with 5.6 gigawatts of electrical power capacity. The order includes four APR-1400 nuclear reactor power plants and all associated secondary equipment. I made contact…

The Atomic Show #145 – NGNP Fuel Testing Success

On December 4, 2009, I spoke with Dr. Madeline Feltus, the Department of Energy technical program manager assigned the responsibility of coordinating the efforts of a team of scientists and engineers working on the refinement and testing of TRISO fuel particles for high temperature gas cooled reactors. During the interview, Dr. Feltus mentioned a few…

B&W’s mPowerTM Reactor – Who Says America is Behind in the Nuclear Renaissance?

Sometimes, games really do change while few people are watching. That is what happened yesterday when Babcock and Wilcox announced their mPowerTM modular nuclear power plant. The big difference is not the basic technology – after all, the mPower reactor is a pressurized water reactor using the same kind of coolant, the same kind of…

Beyond Electricity – Fission as a Source of Process Heat

One of the great things about working in a city like Washington is the occasional opportunity to attend fascinating gatherings of forward thinking people. Yesterday I was able to take a few hours off in the middle of the day to attend a lunchtime talk sponsored jointly by The Heritage Foundation and Third Way titled…

Atomic Show 81 – More than 100 years of nuclear experience on a phone call

On Sunday, February 10, I got together with four of my favorite nuclear industry correspondents for a chat about the current state of affairs in the electric power industry. You can listen to the show at The Atomic Show #081 – Five friendly atomic geeks. The guests on the show included: John Wheeler – host…