There are some legitimate questions raised by the opponents of Yucca Mountain. There are also some arguments that have little basis and are simply a continuation of the scare tactics that anti-nuclear groups have been using against the technology for nearly three decades. The opposing groups normally make the following claims in their papers and…
Theodore Rockwell is the author of The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made a Difference. He was one of Rickover’s key team members in the early days of the Navy nuclear power program. This letter is published with his permission. The following letter was written by Mr. Rockwell to the Washington Post. It was not…
By nature, I am a procrastinator. I often live by the motto “Never do today that which you can put off until tomorrow.” In fact, I sometimes extend that idea to “Never do at all that which you can put off indefinitely.” Some of my associates vehemently disagree with my way of thinking, but I…
There is a current sense of urgency that “something” must be done about spent nuclear fuel. The Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the interests of the nuclear utilities and the nuclear plant vendors, has placed the issue of the front page of its bimonthly newsletter no fewer than six times in the past year. Short…
Ukraine Reactor Shutdown (March 26, 1996) – Ukraine’s energy supply took another hit when a hydrogen leak forced the shut-down of a reactor at the Pivdenny (Southern) nuclear power station at the weekend, the state nuclear power authority said on Monday. “We can’t say how much hydrogen leaked out, but it wasn’t much. With this…
AECL Signs Indonesian Agreement (January 17, 1996) – Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) has signed a technical co-operation agreement with Badan Tenaga Atom Nasional (BATAN), Indonesia’s atomic energy agency. The agreement will help Indonesia become familiar with CANDU technology and thereby facilitate consideration of CANDU for adoption as the basis of Indonesia’s planned power…
The Presidential emissary told King Saud that the U.S. would make its nuclear technology available to Europe if the Suez Canal was used as a tool of blackmail. The decision to encourage nuclear exports was made within months of the Suez Crisis of 1956. The diffusion plants’ capital cost had largely been assumed by the…
The history of nuclear power technology is often as much a political study as it is a technical study. Perhaps no other technological development has ever been so tied to the actions and interests of government bodies and foreign affairs. In this issue of AEI we will focus on the early market struggle between the…
In the period from 1966 to 1964, there were two basic reactor choices being offered for commercial electric power production. American companies were offering reactors that used ordinary water under pressure as the reactor coolant. British and French companies were offering reactors using pressurized CO2 gas as the reactor coolant. There were substantial technical differences…
For natural uranium reactors, primary selection criteria is a low neutron cross section. A material that absorbs more than its share of neutrons would prevent the reactor from being able to produce any power at all. After making the coolant and moderator choices, certain other details moved higher on the priority list. Core engineers needed…
In the early 1950s, PWR pressure vessels large enough for a submarine plant were within the capabilities of the existing manufacturing infrastructure, but vessels large enough for electrical power generating stations were not. Like the American pressurized water reactor systems, gas cooled reactors operate at elevated pressures. Unlike water, however, which is kept under extreme…
Interestingly enough, the first industrial scale nuclear power plant for electrical production was Calder Hall 1, a carbon dioxide cooled reactor that began supplying Great Britain in May, 1956. This reactor and others like it have been reliable, long-lived sources of electrical power. In the December 1995 issue we focused on the design decisions made…
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