On January 18, I joined Carl and Richard, the hosts of Dot Net Rocks, for an hour long conversation about nuclear energy. We spanned a number of topics including current light water reactors, breeder reactors, accidents, safety records, SL-1, NR-1, Mars Rover, pebble beds, IFR, and traveling wave reactors.
Please go visit and listen.
Rod Adams is Managing Partner of Nucleation Capital, a venture fund that invests in advanced nuclear, which provides affordable access to this clean energy sector to pronuclear and impact investors. Rod, a former submarine Engineer Officer and founder of Adams Atomic Engines, Inc., which was one of the earliest advanced nuclear ventures, is an atomic energy expert with small nuclear plant operating and design experience. He has engaged in technical, strategic, political, historic and financial analysis of the nuclear industry, its technology, regulation, and policies for several decades through Atomic Insights, both as its primary blogger and as host of The Atomic Show Podcast. Please click here to subscribe to the Atomic Show RSS feed. To join Rod's pronuclear network and receive his occasional newsletter, click here.
During the weekend in Knoxville, TN, I met some marvelous people who were friendly, energetic, personable, excited by life, and ready to learn how they could take small steps to make the world a better place. As reported on Saturday morning, I dressed in blue jeans and a high visibility tee shirt sporting an atomic…
On November 22, 2011, I spoke to the student ANS chapter at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. It was a fairly compact, but enthusiastic gathering of bright individuals who have recently decided to make a career in nuclear technology. Some are interested in nuclear medicine, some in the materials used in nuclear reactors, and…
Last night, CNN Presents aired a completely one sided and inaccurate portrayal of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. It extensively quoted both Arnie Gundersen and Bernie Sanders and included a staged interview that made the Nuclear Regulatory Commission look both incompetent and unresponsive. That episode is scheduled to be repeated tonight. Here is a…
If a special session occurs and the press ignores it, did it really happen? Ted Rockwell, one of my favorite nuclear pioneers, was unable to attend the American Nuclear Society annual meeting despite having worked diligently to help organize a President’s Special Session titled “Low-Level Radiation and Its Implications for Fukushima Recovery.” He eagerly looked…
Nuclear4Climate posted the below video on their YouTube channel yesterday. It features Kirsty Gogan, the Executive Director and one of three cofounders of the U.K. based civil society group Energy for Humanity. Though there is a small issue with sound quality, I think you’ll agree that Kirsty makes a strong case for nuclear energy as…
Yesterday I came across a New York Times front page article from July 7, 1971 titled Nation’s Energy Crisis: Nuclear Future Looms. It is the second article in a three part article on the energy crisis that was capturing America’s attention in 1971 – two years before the Arab Oil Embargo. The discovery knocked me…
How much work is it to move the fuel from those huge ungainly casks to a central location in US?…
@Rob Brixey The project you mention were not the kind of commercial prototypes I am suggesting. As far as I…
Vallecitos BWR was a prototype in its day. But that was built during the AEC (collaboration) vs NRC (regulation) paradigm.…
That makes sense. I suppose that as long as the storage system allows for relatively easy access to the casks,…
@jon grams I hear what you’re saying. But I’ve also heard from people who work at certain long-view companies that…
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Thanks for taking time to be their nuclear “Big Gun”.
Another small step towards getting your invite from CNN someday to match wits with Machio Kaku. The professor would be well advised not to bring a solar knife to a nuclear gunfight.
The only caveat I have regarding the interview was that you could hear in the guys’ voices the bated breath to slam you with far more deeper and pointed questions about reactor mishaps and issues and evacuations, especially when they’re spitting distance of besieged Indian Point. It was strange they didn’t bring up exactly what happened at TMI and Fukushima which is the silent 800-pound gorilla in the room when talking about nuclear energy nowadays (maybe just being kind to a guest), and it’d be very interesting to hear the listener feedback their talk show receives from that. I liked it when you brought up the single long-ago mortality score of U.S. nuclear plants and one of them asks “can you really say that??”. It would’ve been fun to point out to the audience how many routinely die in the operation of oil and gas plants even outside accidents and the entire neighborhoods they somethings flatten when they have one (like just mentioning it really wouldn’t hurt). Unfortunately not many of the public have that kind of perspective; when some of them heard you mention that single fatality I bet they jumped up and said “See?? Nuclear’s killed people! Shut ’em all down!!” That would be comical weren’t that kind of logic the main driver of the anti-nuclear movement. I hope to hear an Atomic Show roundtable of your nuclear blog peers discussing and dealing with the media’s handling of nuclear issues and the lack of fairness and science education in most reporters in particular. Aside, I wonder if a nuclear blog reader letter-campaign to the mass media would get you in as a legit consultant to balance off the contagious presence of Kaku.
James Greenidge