Dr. Leonard Rodberg spent most of his adult life being opposed to nuclear energy. A half a dozen years ago, he abruptly changed his mind. Ever since, he has been a strong and vocal advocate for the increased use of nuclear energy. On Atomic Show #304 Len and I discuss his education, career, his changing…
Projects that last as long as building nuclear reactors in the U.S. are analogous to extreme endurance competitions in which overall progress is the sum of all stages of the race. There is no magic reset button that allows recovery of time lost early in the race, even though the specific events that resulted in…
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) should make an important contribution towards mitigating future inflationary periods. It accomplishes this beneficial goal by providing important support for facilities that increase US clean electricity production. The key sections of the Inflation Reduction Act are new IRS code sections 45Y and 48E. Respectively, these are called the Clean Electricity…
An article titled “US sweetens pot to study siting for spent nuke fuel storage” was published in the January 26, 2023 edition of the Washington Post. The article included a paragraph that credited “environmentalists” as being the main source of opposition to construction of consolidated interim spent fuel (CISF) storage facilities that are either licensed…
Petroleum – a term includes oil, gas and derivatives – wells have been going dry for more than 150 years. Until the late 2000s, the solution to that problem of resource depletion has been to find a new place to drill. We now have the alternative of drilling deeper and using hydraulic fracturing techniques to…
The American Nuclear Society posted an article entitled How a nuclear victory at COP27 started with a teen and a text reporting on the wonderful story of Ia Aanstoot. This is the 17-year old Swedish highschool student who effectively saved the day for nuclear at COP27 by alerting a WhatsApp chat group with the right…
Designers and developers of nuclear power systems that are substantially different from conventional light water reactors face a conundrum. They are required to provide sufficient information to regulators to allow them to confidently predict how the designs will behave under a comprehensive set of postulated operational and accident conditions. Proving their design is safe is…
Last Energy is an innovative new company governed by a philosophy of avoiding the invention of anything that has not been done before. They have created a business that is laser focused on building, owning and operating small (20 MWe), modular pressurized water reactors and selling the electricity they produce under long term power purchase…
Dr. Sama Bilbao y Leon, the Director General of the World Nuclear Association, visited the Atomic Show to provide an international perspective on the revival in interest in nuclear energy deployment. As the head of the organization that represents the global nuclear industry, provides education about all matters related to using nuclear technologies, and lobbies…
A panel of five experts and an experienced moderator addressed the progress being made in creating effective processes to license advanced and non-LWR (light water reactors) at an ANS Winter 2022 panel session titled “Licensing the Future: How the NRC is Approaching Advanced Reactors.” Four out of five of the panelists were cautiously positive and…
Some like to describe the movement towards smaller, simpler, more sophisticated nuclear energy systems as mere hype. But serious, committed, normally reserved scientists, engineers and investors are becoming more and more convinced that real progress is underway based on solid learning from prior experience. Before the end of this decade, there will be a number…
The nuclear energy policy landscape in the US has changed significantly during the past 5 years. Once seen as an issue with enormous differences between the political parties, it has become one of the few topics on which both parties can have a civil discussion and agree on many key provisions in supportive legislation. Matt…