On Thursday (December 10, 2015), the Virginia chapter of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) held its traditional annual joint meeting with the Virginia chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The evening’s invited speaker was Marshall Cohen, who became the first full time director of the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium (VNEC) in July…
On November 6, 2015, a Friday afternoon, the White House hosted a Summit on Nuclear Energy. The seats in the conference room had been filled before much information about the event had been released, but the organizers provided a live stream on the web. That turned out to have been at least as informative as…
I applaud reasoned, long term thinking that aims to use science, technology and deep understanding of human wants and needs — aka politics — to set a course for success. You can find one of my favorite current examples of an effort that meets my criteria in the expansive, lightly populated, rather dry state of…
Yesterday, I wrote a quick post that linked a recently issued UBS report’s negative views about the economic viability of merchant nuclear power plants in the US to UBS’s large portfolio of troubled loans to companies involved in various aspects of the natural gas extraction technique known as “fracing” (alternatively spelled as fracking in many…
UBS Investment Bank holds a large portfolio of loans to companies involved in extracting natural gas using the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Because of the healthy fees associated with generating those loans initially, UBS, along with several other large investment banks, supported drilling programs for production that was not justified by the…
On July 27, 2015, the Wall St. Journal published an article written by Rebecca Smith titled Prefab Nuclear Plants Prove Just as Expensive. That piece has been widely shared and discussed on social media with more than 2700 shares on Facebook and more than 150 shares on Twitter as counted from the original article. I…
On Wednesday, June 24 Bloomberg BNA (Bureau of National Affairs) conducted a morning meeting titled A Chain Reaction: The Role of Nuclear Energy in New England’s Energy Mix at the Westin Copley Place in Boston, MA. The timing was fortuitous for me, my wife and I were visiting family in Maine the weekend before the…
StarCore Nuclear is a Canadian company whose co-founders, David Dabney and David Poole, are experienced engineers and businessmen. They have spent most of the past six years developing a technology and a business model aimed at providing reliable, emission-free electrical power and heat to remote locations. The basis of their technology is a high-temperature helium…
Before readers get too excited, I need to acknowledge that the Today Show in the below video is broadcast from Sydney, Australia, not New York City. However, it is still kind of exciting to have a TV newscaster chanting “Go Nuke!” The broadcaster’s excitement is based on an announcement by Liberal Party Senator Sean Edwards…
On February 16, 2015, an AP article by Ray Henry titled Nuclear plants delayed in China, watched closely by US firms contained a short paragraph that has contributed to a number of sleepless nights. I’m pretty sure there are plenty of other people affected in the same manner who have far more at stake than…
Interest is growing in building right-sized reactors. In the relatively near future, there will be operating demonstration plants in China, Argentina, and Russia proving that the nuclear industry has learned that the one-size fits all model cannot work if the chosen size is in the range of 1,000 MWe. There simply are not enough customers…
Evan is a New Hampshire resident who will be graduating from high school in 2015 and plans to pursue a career in engineering. Few innovations have shaped the world as dramatically as the development of the airplane. In less than a century, mankind went from riding horses to flying non-stop half way around the world….
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