Communications professionals have often counseled nuclear professionals to stop sounding so much like scientists and engineers. We often purposely avoid emotion because we like to think of ourselves as rational people that make decisions based on hard facts, numbers and quantifiable metrics. Many of the people who have sought and obtained positions of responsibility and…
Over the past week or so, I’ve engaged in a “root cause analysis” project to determine why the US is having so much difficulty implementing a plan to take 34 metric tons of nearly pure plutonium 239 — a fissile isotope with virtually the same energy value as uranium 235 — out of our nuclear…
On Friday, April 29, 2016, the Energy and Power subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing to discuss H.R. 4979 and a draft discussion bill with the unfortunate acronym of NUKEPA (Nuclear Utilization of Keynote Energy Policies Act). Though at different stages of the legislative process, both documents are efforts to…
Sometimes, you have to turn to late night television to find out things that are not covered very well during the network or cable news shows. The below is a clip from the March 22 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. On that show Kimmel interviewed Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialist who is running for…
We had a wide ranging discussion here on Atomic Insights after I posted an article titled Bernie Sanders is listening to the wrong people about energy. Quite a few of the comments led me to believe that the author has developed a slanted or one dimensional understanding of Bernie Sanders’s campaign message. That distorted view…
Many of my friends and colleagues in the nuclear energy community think I’m am on a quixotic mission. Though I have not made any decision on how to vote in November, Bernie Sanders is the candidate who is currently delivering messages that align with my thoughts on the direction that the US needs to move…
The March/April 2016 issue of Mother Jones includes a thoughtful piece by Gabriel Kahn titled Dreamers of the Golden Dream: Does California have a blueprint to fix global warming?. Regular Atomic Insights readers will not be surprised to find that I’ve already decided that California’s chosen path for reducing CO2 emissions and dependence on fossil…
On March 17, 2016 a group of sign-carrying, green tee shirt clad people gathered in downtown San Luis Obispo to show their support for the continued operation of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Station. Organized by Californians for Green Nuclear Power and Friends of Diablo Canyon, the event was covered by reporters from several local…
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent regulatory agency whose focus is the safe use of radiation and radioactive materials. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard from regulators, commissioners, and elected officials that the agency must make its safety decisions without regard to their cost implications. However, as any teenager, project…
Apparently, someone on Senator Feinstein’s staff believes that the concrete delamination (cracking) issue at Crystal River was an age-related issue. With that incorrect knowledge of the situation, they decided that it could be used to publicly discredit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s cooperation in an industry-led initiative to extend the operating lives of nuclear plants beyond…
On February 23, 2016, the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability hosted a debate on following proposition: Is California’s 100% Renewable Strategy Globally Viable? The debate format was a two on two with a moderator. On the side defending the viability of the strategy, Mark Z. Jacobson, the Stanford professor and energy system model…
On April 17, 1958 the Brownsville (TX) Herald published an editorial titled “Congressmen Wanted to Control Gasoline.” It was aimed at actions by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and the Atomic Energy Commission to maintain nearly total control of all aspects of atomic power generation. As described by Snopes, excerpts from this ancient editorial…
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