Economics

  • Existing nuclear plants are valuable and worth saving

    ByRod Adams

    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

    ByRod Adams

    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?

    ByRod Adams

    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?

    ByRod Adams

    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

    ByRod Adams

    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

    ByRod Adams

    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…

  • Professional antinuclear greens resist; greens concerned about climate change embrace

    ByRod Adams

    Fissures related to nuclear energy are developing in the monolithic movement known as Environmentalism. The Breakthrough Institute has published a good introduction to the schism titled The Great Green Meltdown: How Economic Arguments Against Nuclear Highlight Environmentalist Delusions. Though this is a simplification, it is generally accurate to describe two sides of the movement that…

  • Greg Jaczko claims nuclear is too expensive and that unreliables will take its place

    ByRod Adams

    The above clip is titled Nuclear power for the future. It describes the industry leading example of the construction project at Plant Vogtle in northeastern Georgia and it includes some opining on America’s energy future by Greg Jaczko the former Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The video correctly points to the fact that…

  • I want a nuclear plant in my backyard. So do some of my neighbors

    ByRod Adams

    Watch more video from the CNN channel on Frequency Though I sometimes suffer from the blues, I am not crazy — I swear. Even though I am just a guy who often blogs in my PJs, I’m also pretty sure that I am not a nobody. In fact, none of us are nobodies, we are…

  • Oil Road and Carbon Democracy – Actinides could disrupt corrupt establishment

    ByRod Adams

    The October 8, 2013 episode of Democracy Now! featured a fascinating conversation with James Marriott, Anna Galkina, and Timothy Mitchell. The three guests shared a passion of mine; they have obviously invested a great deal of time investigating the way that oil and gas dependence influence power politics, economics and the condition of our environment….