Atomic Interlude – Heart of Nuclear Reactor

I have been giving some thought to China’s nuclear power development prospects and plans. It seems to me that there are some aspects that might be worth discussing. The publicly announced plans to build 30-50 new plants during the next 15 years are pretty well known, but there are some undercurrents that lead me to…

Quick note – go and read Op-Ed: Nuclear Power is looking for a new identity and the associated comments. The blog is not supportive of atomic energy, but the comments sure are interesting. Off to enjoy the warmth of the coming spring with another lengthy bike ride.

For most of the past thirty years, there has been little incentive to develop nuclear energy systems that release more than a tiny portion of the potential energy found in uranium. The same lack of market incentive has nearly completely kept thorium out of the energy supply market. The perception was that we were doing…

The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission has rejected a power purchase agreement negotiated by Deepwater Wind and National Grid. Their justification is that the agreement did not meet the required standard in state law that a power production project be “commercially reasonable”. The agreement, which was for the output of 8 large turbines installed off…

David Bradish at NEI Nuclear Notes has produced an insightful series of blogs about Amory Lovins and His Nuclear Illusion. The posts enter into a rather detailed analysis of some of the assumptions, deceptions, fuzzy mathematics and ill-founded conclusions reached by my least favorite energy prognosticator. There is something close to lying about a two…

Mr. Gene Karpinski is the President of the League of Conservation Voters, based in Washington, DC. He is excited about the prospects for changes in governmental attitudes toward environmental issues that have arisen from the recent congressional elections. He was interviewed by Bruce Gellerman of Living on Earth on January 5, 2007. Here is the…