James Conca recently published a commentary on Forbes titled Closing Vermont Nuclear Bad Business For Everyone. A major thrust of Conca’s initial post was highlighting the rapidly rising prices of electricity in New England that are being driven by an increasing reliance on natural gas as reliable power generators like the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant […]
Economics
Helping people understand the power grid
Yesterday, the Institute for Energy Research launched a project to help people gain a better understanding of the electric power grid, a marvel of modern society that most people take for granted — unless its product delivery is interrupted for more than a few minutes. This information project is timely, especially considering all of the […]
Atomic Show #220 – Atoms for California
Andrew Benson from Atoms For California contacted me last week to find out if I was interested in having a conversation about the history of nuclear energy in California, with a special focus on the history of the antinuclear movement in that trend-setting state. It sounded like a great idea for an Atomic Show so […]
Amory Lovins-speak: Three misleading statements in a 15 second sound bite
I had the opportunity to be in the audience during the above talk. You might notice my impolite interjections; I have often been accused of being very poor at hiding my real reactions and feelings. There is a reason why I stopped playing poker during game nights on the USS Stonewall Jackson. I was losing […]
Uranium supply concerns associated with EEU
Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed an agreement to form a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) on May 29. Uranium market watchers should pay close attention and understand the potential implications of the alliance on the stability of the world’s uranium supply, even though the alliance has been dismissed as unimportant by some media pundits. For example, […]
Mark Cooper is wrong about SMRs and nuclear energy
Mark Cooper of the Vermont Law School has published another paper in a series critiquing the economics of nuclear energy; this one is titled The Economic Failure of Nuclear Power and the Development of a Low Carbon Electricity Future: Why Small Modular Reactors are Part of the Problem and Not the Solution. It is not […]
Existing nuclear plants are valuable and worth saving
Many currently operating nuclear plants are in danger of being permanently shut down due to temporary conditions including low, but volatile natural gas prices, improperly designed markets that fail to recognize the value of reliable generating capacity, quotas and mandates that result in certain types of electrical generators receiving direct monetary payments in addition to […]
Vermont Yankee and B&W mPower – Victims of Wall Street Greed
Though it has been a little quiet here on Atomic Insights in the past few days, I have been working on some stories documenting financial maneuvers in the US energy industry — especially as it related to nuclear energy. You might be interested in reading Save Vermont Yankee. If not you, who? If not now, […]
Should anti-fossil expansion movement align with pro nuclear movement?
On April 11, 2014, Roger Annis, a member of the Vancouver Ecosocialist Group, gave a talk at the University of California Santa Barbara. The talk was titled Oil, tar sands, coal, natural gas: What’s behind the expansion drive of Canada’s and North America’s fossil fuel industries? It is a fascinating talk with some excellent slides […]
SMRs – Why Not Now? Then When?
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, […]
SUNY Maritime Student Advocates Commercial Nuclear Ship Propulsion
Stimulated by early atomic optimism, naval successes and Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace initiative, four nations built ocean going ships with nuclear propulsion plants. The US built the NS Savannah, Germany built the Otto Hahn, Japan built the Mutsu, and Russia built a series of nuclear powered icebreakers. For reasons that are beyond the scope of […]
Energy versus Power – Energy delivered rapidly equals power
A BusinessWeek article titled Putin $14 Billion Nuclear Deal Wins Over Russia Critic Orban recognizes the importance of recent Russian power deals to supply gas, oil, and nuclear energy facilities. There is widespread confusion about energy versus power. Conversations about the business of selling hydrocarbons or electricity are described as being about energy, but the […]
