I have shamelessly borrowed the title of one of the talks given during the first day of the Nuclear Energy Insider 4th Annual Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Conference as being representative of both the rest of the agenda and the conversations that I had in the hallways during the breaks. For the past five years,…
On Friday, March 28, 2014, I had the privilege of attending a symposium at Dartmouth College titled Three Mile Island 35th Anniversary Symposium: The Past, Present, and Future of Nuclear Energy. If you are curious and have a free nine hours, you can watch an archived copy of the main event on YouTube. The thing…
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) hosted its biannual Small Reactor Forum on February 25, 2014. The agenda for the one day event included six well-organized sessions with presentations from three small reactor vendors, the industry trade group, the regulatory agency, and several outside observers with a significant interest in the technology from a variety of…
The Thorium Energy Alliance recently announced the dates and agenda for its 2014 annual conference (TEAC-2014). I had the privilege of attending the first TEAC and meeting some passionate, technically astute people. I’m still in touch with some of the friends I first met there. My schedule has not allowed me to attend the last…
Nuclear Energy Insider has announced that it is planning its 4th annual conference aimed at people who are professionally interested in small modular reactors. The conference will be held March 31 – April 1, at the Ritz-Carlton in Charlotte, NC. The organizers have lined up a veritable “who’s who” of people involved in SMR design,…
The month of November is chock full of nuclear energy related conferences. I was fortunate enough to attend four informative and professionally engaging events. Unfortunately that left little time for gathering friends together to produce a new Atomic Show podcast. This is a downpayment on remedying that situation; during the show preps I realized it…
By Ed Pheil I mentioned at the Thorium Energy Conference 2013 that accelerator driven systems (ADS) were likely to hurt the nuclear industry more than help it with the following discussion. The ADS proponents are justifying their participation, including with thorium, on the basis of two concepts that cater to the anti-nuclear crowd. A) ADS…
President Obama should task John Richardson with a mission similar to the one that President Dwight Eisenhower gave Hyman G. Rickover. Richardson is the current leader of Naval Reactors (NR), the organization that Rickover built. If directed, NR could begin a new assignment to show others how to manufacture complete nuclear fission power systems starting…
In the past half dozen years, the term “small modular reactor (SMR)” has entered the nuclear energy lexicon. Numerous projects have been initiated to develop various concepts, all aimed at producing nuclear reactor based power plants that are small enough to be built in a factory setting to take advantage of concepts like series manufacturing…
For the past 17 years, the American Nuclear Society has sponsored a utility working conference for members who engage in the demanding, but rewarding work of operating and supporting the fleet of 104 nuclear power plants that provide approximately 800 billion emission free kilowatt-hours each year to the United States power grid. The conference has…
A few days ago I mentioned that I was attending the Utility Working Conference sponsored by the American Nuclear Society. It is an annual meeting that has been held in the same location for about 15 years and it provides the opportunity for industry leaders, vendors and regulators to discuss and make steps towards solving…
I am at the Amelia Island Plantation on the northeast coast of Florida for the annual American Nuclear Society Utility Working Conference. The meeting, which has been held during the same week in August at the same location since 1994, is a chance for leaders in the nuclear portion of the electric utility industry to…