By Paul Lorenzini In the yin and yang of energy policy debates, we know some can get carried away. Normally we ignore the radical fringe, but sometimes their claims take on a life of their own and need to be addressed. One such charge has found its way as an authoritative reference on Wipikedia, alleging…
Many nuclear professionals have been attracted to the technology because of its inherently light footprint when compared to all other alternative power sources. It uses less land, less metal, less concrete, and a tiny volume of fuel when compared to producing a similar quantity of energy from other sources of reliable power, especially when the…
Rick Maltese is a creative artist who spent this afternoon creating an amusing parody of the diffuse, weather dependent, unreliable power sources that some think can beat both fossil fuel and nuclear energy. Share Call Them Unreliable widely! PS – Just in case you would like to have a sing along at your next pronuclear…
Last night I drove to Lexington, VA where the Washington and Lee sustainability program was hosting a screening of Switch (to a smarter future). There was a decent crowd; perhaps 100 or more students, faculty and townspeople. It is an impressive documentary, with inside views of facilities that people rarely see. It also does a…
A colleagues who used to work in the oil and gas industry pointed me to an article from the November 2012 issue of the Journal of Petroleum Technology titled Switch: The New Documentary on Energy’s Future. The article describes a video research project undertaken by Scott Tinker, a former oil and gas company geologist who…
I’ve been spending the past hour or so reading an excellent paper written by a US Naval aviator titled Twenty-First Century Snake Oil: Why the United States Should Reject Biofuels as Part of a Rational National Energy Security Strategy. (Note: The link for the original paper is broken, but CAPT Kiefer has published another version…
On Sunday, February 17, 2013, a group of five nuclear energy professionals gathered to share their thoughts about the current state of the atomic energy business. Participants included: Margaret Harding (@M2harding), 4 Factor Consulting Meredith Angwin (@yes_VY), Yes Vermont Yankee Andrea Jennetta (@NuclearBuzz), Fuel Cycle Week and I Dig Uranium Cal Abel (@cal_abel), PhD candidate…
When the Congress decided to extend the Production Tax Credit for wind energy projects, they made a couple of changes to the law that provide a substantial temptation for unscrupulous developers to take the money and run. While many sources describe the PTC as a $22 per megawatt-hour (indexed for inflation) tax credit provided to…
Bob Hargraves, the author of Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal, recently traveled to Shanghai to present a 30 minute talk summarizing the main points of discussion that he covered in his book. The occasion of the trip was Thorium Energy Conference 2012. Bob is a professor with a good facility for numbers and a talent…
On Friday, Nov 16, I wrote about the potential impact of applying a “peanut butter spread” sequestration algorithm to the NRC budget. (I spent a few years as a government budget analyst, so I sometimes speak the lingo.) If the accountants at the Office of Management and Budget continue on their proposed path, the NRC…
One of my sources posted a link to this brief video clip from Russia Today titled Fukushima Legacy: Nuclear phase-out hits Germans with high energy prices regarding Germany’s Energiewende, a well-publicized effort sold to the German public as a replacement of nuclear energy with renewable energy. According to this and many other stories, the reality…
I stayed up past my normal bedtime to watch the President and his one Establishment challenger engage in a carefully staged and poorly moderated “debate” last night. The supposed topic was domestic policy. One of the largest components of our domestic economy is the energy industry and one of the most significant contributors to our…