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Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Conferences

Nuclear energy growth prospects and secure uranium supplies

April 28, 2022 By Rod Adams Leave a Comment

Uranium Panel: Discussing a Uranium Bull Market, New Nuclear and Sentiment for a Decarbonized Future

The 121 Mining Investment event held in Las Vegas on March 30 and 31 included a panel discussion with leaders from three uranium mining companies, each of which has an asset base of potentially lucrative mining prospects mostly located in North America. The fourth member of the panel was a managing partner at Nucleation Capital, a venture capital fund focusing on opportunities in the advanced nuclear sector, including suppliers of key system components front end to back end.

The panel included a lively chat about the prospects for new nuclear power plants, life extensions for existing power plants – including some that had previously announced closures, the implications of HALEU requirements for advanced reactors and the potential for micro and small reactors to supply power to mining operations that are often located in remote, off-grid locations.

The panel included following participants:

Rod Adams, Managing Partner, Nucleation Capital; Jon Bey, CEO, Standard Uranium; Ross McElroy, CEO, Fission Uranium; Andrew Ferrier, Managing Director, Okapi Resources

Background: The 121 Group hosts a series of events designed to help growing companies, especially those focusing on raw material supply, meet with investors that are interested in the growth potential for those companies and the sectors they serve. Those conferences are called 121 Mining Investment events.

Aside: 121 is pronounced 1 to 1, not one twenty one. A key feature of the events is the opportunity for companies to schedule face to face meetings with interested investors. The booth set-up for the event in Las Vegas was different from any that I have seen before. The three walls of each booth were inflatables with a continuously running blower. They reminded me of the system used for bounce houses at birthday parties for kids. Sound isolation was impressively effective. End Aside.

Filed Under: 121 Mining Las Vegas 2022, Business of atomic energy, New Nuclear, Uranium mining

Are we finally approaching lift-off for a real Renaissance?

February 9, 2019 By Rod Adams 61 Comments

Obituaries of the “Nuclear Renaissance” have been widespread and frequent in the years since the Great Recession and reactions to the Great Northeast Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami. I’m pretty sure those obits have been premature in declaring the subject to be dead.

Last week, I attended the 6th Annual Advanced Reactor Summit and Technology Showcase. The event alllowed me to reconnect with some of my favorite atomic innovators and to meet, in real life, a long-time friend and colleague in the atomic advocacy community.


It’s worth remembering that the historical period we refer to as “The Renaissance” took about 50 years of foundation-building before taking hold and flourishing in a burst of human creativity and achievement that lasted about 300 years.

While already on the US West Coast, I spent the weekend in the heart of Silicon Valley engaged in fascinating discussions about atomic investment opportunities and challenges in an under appreciated branch of high technology.

Ever since that transformative experience, I’ve been thinking deep thoughts and trying to find words with which to describe and explain my optimism for a new Atomic Age.

My reflective moments have been punctuated and reinforced by such experiences as watching several committee hearings during which there was near universal agreement that we have a CO2 production crisis in need of solutions, that nuclear energy is an important tool that must be refined and used more effectively, and that America still has a virtually unmatched set of advantages that enable advanced atomic development.

I won’t attempt to provide details here about individual presentations from the AR Summit that provided encouragement, but if you are curious, you might want to search Twitter for my tweets that included the hashtag #ARSummit.

Among the talks and discussions that I found most valuable for my recent reflections were David Wright’s description of his regulatory and leadership philosophies; talks about additive manufacturing and its associated capacity for continuous, in process inspections; talks about methods for accelerating irradiation testing and model verification; talks about new uses of silicon carbide and SiC-SiC composites; talks about molten salt systems designed for easy fabrication and lower capital costs; and discussions on the summit sidelines about multiagency progress in addressing radiation protection models and the underlying science justifying substantial changes.

My visit to the heart of American startup and high tech investing culture reminded me that we are a country that is full of human, financial, physical and technical capital. We have a well-established process for bringing the disparate ingredients of success together in a way that can produce surprisingly rapid and repeatable revolutions.

We know how to recognize opportunity, how to solve problems and how to spread those solutions around the world.

Stand by for the next Atomic Age. You can call it Nuclear Renaissance 2.0, if you prefer.

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, 6th AR Summit, New Nuclear

Kairos – Developing advanced nuclear energy in Alameda

November 13, 2018 By Rod Adams 67 Comments

In some ways, Kairos Power has a familiar sounding story. It is a California-based start-up founded by three bright people, all with a tie to Cal Berkeley (UCB). They have decided to turn their grant-funded tech research into a for-profit company. One of the founders, Dr. Per Peterson, is a long established UCB professor with […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, ANS Winter 2018

Serious, timely, vital conversation about effects of ionizing radiation

October 24, 2018 By Rod Adams 29 Comments

Recently, the American Nuclear Society and the Health Physics Society hosted an historically important meeting on updating the scientific basis for low dose radiation protection standards. Attendees discussed the effects of low dose radiation, the existing radiation protection construct that has evolved to minimize the impact of those effects, and ways to take advantage of […]

Filed Under: Health Effects, LNT, Low Dose 2018

Making sense from radiation protection controversy

October 3, 2018 By Rod Adams 27 Comments

During the past two days, I’ve spent 20-30 hours listening to and participating in a sometimes heated and often polite discussion about the health effects of low dose radiation and the rules established or needed to ensure adequate protection. It’s part of a controversy that has deep roots and stubbornly entrenched sides with a much […]

Filed Under: Low Dose 2018, Health Effects, LNT

Displacing LNT assertion with evidence

September 30, 2018 By Rod Adams 4 Comments

A joint ANS/HPS (American Nuclear Society/Health Physics Society) meeting titled “Applicability of Radiation Protection Models to Low Dose Protection Standards” (hashtag #LowDose2018) will kick-off tonight. This much anticipated event has attracted 200 medical, radiation and nuclear energy experts to the booming metropolis of Pasco, WA. The site is appropriate, Pasco is one of the three […]

Filed Under: Health Effects, hormesis, LNT, Low Dose 2018

Optimism, pessimism, realism and everything in between before the official start of the Advanced Reactor Technical Summit V

February 23, 2018 By Rod Adams

I’ll start with a thank you and a congratulations to the Nuclear Infrastructure Council, David Blee, Caleb Ward and all supporting staff for assembling a great cast of attendees and speakers at the fifth annual Advanced Reactor Technical Summit. The event was a high quality, well run and skillfully moderated affair that provided valuable learning […]

Filed Under: ARTSV Feb 2018

Broad Interest in Nukes, Especially SMRs, at National Clean Energy Week

October 11, 2017 By Rod Adams 2 Comments

National Clean Energy Week was conceived in June by the Coalition of Responsible Energy Solutions. During July and August the organizers attracted partners, sponsors and speakers. They developed a week-long agenda and located venues for the expo, symposium and panels. Festivities began with a welcome reception for invited guests at Google’s Washington, D.C. office on […]

Filed Under: Climate change, Clean Energy, NCEW 2017

U.S. DOE to Follow Industry Lead In Setting Priorities Under Trump

August 20, 2017 By Rod Adams

R. Shane Johnson recently briefed representatives of the U.S. nuclear power industry about the the strategies and programs that the Department of Energy (DOE) is developing to implement the Trump Administration’s vision for nuclear energy. Johnson is the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. He’s the senior career civil servant in […]

Filed Under: Atomic politics, Politics of Nuclear Energy, UWC 2017

Impressions from the ANS Utility Working Conference 2017

August 12, 2017 By Rod Adams

With generous support from several Atomic Insights readers, I was able to attend the welcome reception and the first day of the annual Utility Working Conferenc organized by the American Nuclear Society (ANS). This year’s conference title was The Nuclear Option – Clean, Safe, Reliable & Affordable. This event has been a fixture in the […]

Filed Under: Conferences, UWC 2017

Atomic Rod is live tweeting from ANS UWC 2017

August 7, 2017 By Rod Adams

I am at the ANS Utility Working Conference and tweeting frequently today. If you want to follow along or review the archive, my Twitter account is @atomicrod.

Filed Under: Conferences, UWC 2017

Terrestrial Energy making progress towards commercializing Advanced Small Modular Reactor

April 11, 2017 By Rod Adams

Simon Irish, the Chief Executive of Terrestrial Energy, provided a project update to the 7th Annual SMR and Advanced Reactor Summit organized by Nuclear Energy Insider. What Is Terrestrial Energy Doing To Move Its Design To Market? His company is developing an Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSRTM). He noted that he had last provided information […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Business of atomic energy, Nuclear Energy Insider SMR

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