Energy discussions often frustrate me, partially because so many people in the discussion ignore what customers want. Perhaps my view is wrong, but my conclusion is that people really want power, not energy. There is a fundamental difference; power is energy per unit time. Power units measure the rate at which energy can be consumed;…
There are 34 nuclear reactors located in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. Of those, 7 were shutdown for planned maintenance. Three units tripped due to disturbances on the grid or issues with one of their redundant cooling systems. The other 24 remained operational and supplied as much power as the grid could accept. On Sunday,…
Ben Heard, one of the most effective nuclear energy communicators I know, has produced a report titled Zero Carbon Options – Seeking an economic mix for an environmental outcome in partnership Brown & Pang. It has been peer reviewed by energy and climate experts Professor Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change at…
One of the best things about nuclear energy is that the fuel is cheap and densely concentrated. That characteristic enables facilities to be hardened against external events, and has the potential to reduce the vulnerability of nuclear energy facilities to infrastructure damage that happens outside of the facility. The low cost fuel also enables a…
Donald Hoffman is one of the few entrepreneurs in the nuclear industry. His company, Excel Services, has been a profitable professional services provider to the nuclear industry for more than 25 years. Don is a leader who is willing to take calculated risks and also willing to recycle his profits back into his industry. Most…
I’ve spent a fair amount of time during the past few days trying to convince people who promote only certain types of nuclear fission technologies that they are engaging in the wrong battle. They are failing to recognize that all forms of fission take advantage of the incredible energy density found in atomic nuclei to…
On Sunday, August 12, 2012, I wrote a brief commentary about how the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) had managed to produce a week long series about the changing landscape of energy production in America without a single mention of the ‘N’ word – nuclear. Daniel, an Atomic Insights regular, was interested enough in finding out…
Ben Heard of Decarbonise SA shared a teaser video clip from a recent Big Ideas debate titled We’ve seen the future and it’s nuclear. In this clip, Ben spends his allotted 9 minutes telling people how he became convinced that the only path to an abundant, reliable future energy supply system that minimizes CO2 and…
On July 23, 2012, busy schedules aligned and I had the chance to talk with Richard Martin, the author of SuperFuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future and Kirk Sorensen, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Flibe Energy, a start-up company formed to “develop small modular reactors based on liquid-fluoride thorium reactor…
Several months ago, Suzy Hobbs of PopAtomic Studios and the Nuclear Literacy Project gave me a signed print of the Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant with some Photoshopped cooling towers. She created the print as part of her effort to show nuclear plant owners how their massive concrete structures could be used as an excellent canvas…
If a special session occurs and the press ignores it, did it really happen? Ted Rockwell, one of my favorite nuclear pioneers, was unable to attend the American Nuclear Society annual meeting despite having worked diligently to help organize a President’s Special Session titled “Low-Level Radiation and Its Implications for Fukushima Recovery.” He eagerly looked…
Meredith Angwin, who blogs at Yes Vermont Yankee, published a book review post titled Superfuel: A Book I Wanted to Love. The book is a tribute to thorium and the people that Richard Martin refers to as “thorium-heads”. The villains in the book are the people that Martin calls “nuclearati” – otherwise known as the…
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