For Sunday December 21, 2014, I sent out a standard invite to my list of the usual suspects for an Atomic Show round table. As the responses came in, I realized that random chance had ensured that every one of the people on the call was a grandparent. It seemed kind of appropriate to talk…
Josh Freed, Third Way‘s clean energy vice president, has published a thoughtful, graphically enticing Brookings Essay titled Back to the Future: Advanced Nuclear Energy and the Battle Against Climate Change. It focuses on Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie of Transatomic Power, but it also makes it abundantly clear that those two visionary entrepreneurs are examples…
Ben Heard is one of the most articulate, skilled presenters working for the expansion of nuclear energy. Gordon McDowell is a skilled videographer who has produced a number of useful, informative videos about nuclear fission, normally with a focus on the potential of thorium fueled reactors. The two talented advocates have recently produced and published…
On December 3, 2014, Dr. Wade Allison was invited to give a speech to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. The title of that talk was The Fukushima nuclear accident and the unwarranted fear of low-dose radiation. After Dr. Allison gave his talk explaining why he believed that our current treatment of radiation is governed…
On Nov 20, 2014, Hofstra University hosted its annual Pride and Purpose Debate. This year’s proposition was the following – “Should nuclear energy be expanded to help create a more sustainable future?” The debate included the following panelists: For – J Bret Bennington, professor of geology, Department of Geology, Environment and Sustainability at Hofstra University.Against…
On Wednesday, November 12, I got together with two friends. The three of us were 60% of a group of five writers and bloggers given the opportunity to visit a sampling of nuclear facilities in France owned and operated by Areva. That experience helped form a strong bond. We missed our other two companions from…
Last week I pointed out that Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI) had submitted a letter to a number of scientific advisory groups requesting that they provide clear guidance to governments on the lack of harm associated with exposure to the residual radioactive materials released from the Fukushima Daiichi accident. That initial post also provided…
Dr. Leslie Dewan is a co-founder and the CEO of Transatomic Power, a venture capital-funded start-up based on research conducted at MIT. Along with Mark Massie, the other co-founder, Dewan is exploring a design that uses a molten salt fuel that enables materials currently classified as “nuclear waste” to provide the heat source for a…
Atomic Insights is expanding. I’d like to introduce our newest writer, Evan Twarog. Some of you may recognize his name; in the friendly world of pro-nuclear bloggers, Evan has made a name for himself as a bright young man who started learning the importance of public communications about nuclear energy when he was just 14…
On Sunday, January 23, 1957, a large American audience gathered around their television sets to watch the weekly episode of Disneyland, a popular show created and hosted by Walt Disney in return for an investment from ABC that he used to build Disneyland. On that evening, the audience was treated to a compressed course in…
On September 11, 2014, the American Nuclear Society hosted a roundtable discussion for nuclear bloggers with Allison Macfarlane, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The meeting was broadcast as a webinar, but there were also seats available in the conference room from which Dr. Macfarlane and Margaret Harding (the ANS moderator) were running the…
On August 25, 2014, a group of atomic energy advocates gathered to share experiences and advice about how nuclear energy advocates can more effectively act locally. We discussed ways to find people who are interested in atomic energy, ways to develop social interaction, ways to show our humanity, and ways to make it fun to…