Howard Shaffer is a Rickover selected former Navy nuclear officer, he helped to build and operate several plants in the US and Taiwan, and volunteered throughout his career to share nuclear information with anti-nuclear advocates. Howard Shaffer is a retired nuclear engineer who received his initial nuclear training and experience as a member of the…
John Wheeler, Kelly Taylor, Robert Margolis, and Michael Stuart visit with Rod Adams about a variety of topics including Ft. St. Vrain, energy comparisons, energy price inflation, and the recent UK government decision to encourage new nuclear power plants. First of all, I apologize for the sound quality. I goofed something up with the settings…
Ted Rockwell has been there and done that when it comes to nuclear power plant design and construction. He was a key member of the team that built the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the first solely commercial nuclear electric generating station in the world. On December 18, 1957, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station started supplying…
Dr. Jeremy Whitlock was one of the first nukes to recognize the value of web-based communications. He started the Canadian Nuclear FAQ in 1996. He is a second generation nuclear professional. Enjoy. Dr. Jeremy Whitlock is a second generation nuclear profession who lives with his family in Deep River, a town he describes as an…
Ray Haroldsen is an atomic pioneer who began working at the National Reactor Testing Station in January 1952. He talks today about his experiences with EBR 1 and the BORAX series of reactor experiments. A good friend of mine contacted me recently and told me that I needed to interview Ray Haroldsen for the Atomic…
Bob Bromm is a professional mechanical engineer. He has recently been assigned to a new job with the team that has a contract to provide architect-engineering services for a two reactor ABWR for NRG. As we have discussed on a number of occasions, the renaissance in atomic energy has begun. For show 67, I had…
Shane and Rod discuss boiling water reactors, one of the two types of established light water reactors. There are two main types of light water reactors, pressurized water reactors (PWR) and boiling water reactors (BWR). They share some characteristics, but also have a number of differences. There are plenty of sources of information on the…
Shane and I discuss commercial nuclear ship history and future opportunities Commercial nuclear powered ships were tried in the 1960s and 1970s with little follow on units. The United States built the NS Savannah, Germany built the Otto Hahn, and Japan built the Mutsu. None of these remain in operation today and all demonstrated various…
We’re back after a couple of weeks off. The atomic geeks chat about uranium, which has an interesting history in politics, discovery and economics. Uranium is as common as tin and can be found in measurable quantities almost anywhere in the world. Its price often varies by several hundred percent over short periods of time,…
The atomic geeks chat about the new radiation warning symbol, France’s interest in selling large plants to South Africa, Japan’s new mixed oxide fuel plant and much more. Enjoy the ride! Half of Atomic Show 50 comes to you from a food court in Norfolk, VA – I am on travel this week. Shane and…
Topics on the show range all the way from rural electricity to atomic airplanes. The desire for electricity and the services that it provides is growing throughout the world. In many places the main source of that power is burning diesel fuel in small generators. Much of the conversation was spurred by an article in…
Making Deserts Bloom – Nuclear Power in the Middle East Shane and I chatted about recent announcements by Morocco, Algeria, UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia that they have been talking with the International Atomic Energy Agency about developing nuclear power programs. All of the countries have indicated that they are interested in using nuclear…