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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

Fossil fuel competition

How did an oil shale investor hamstring his atomic energy competition? (Ancient but impactful smoking gun)

January 14, 2021 By Rod Adams 6 Comments

During the contentious effort that resulted in passage of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, Sen Eugene D. Milliken (R-CO) played an important role in establishing an attempted US government monopoly over all atomic energy information.

During the House-Senate conference committee to resolve differences between versions of the bill passed by the two legislative bodies, Milliken gave a speech lasting 90 minutes that supported the highly restrictive Senate version of patent provisions.

Byron Miller, one of the people most responsible for writing the law and shepherding its passage described Milliken’s actions favorably.

After a careful study of the objections raised in the House, he concluded that the Senate section alonie could both preserve the secrecy sought by other sections of the bill and serve the public interest in a field developed entirely at taxpayers’ expense.

Miller, Byron S., “A Law is Passed: The Atomic Energy Act of 1946“, The University of Chicago Law Review, Summer 1948 Vol 14, Num 4. p. 816

Some called the patent provisions that Milliken defended “socialistic”. Others said they threatened the end of the American patent and free enterprise system. Milliken argued that the provisions were necessary to protect the interests of taxpayers by preventing private industry from profiting off of the technology.

Government ownership of all patentable information related to atomic energy helped discourage private investment and development. For eight years, the US invested only a tiny fraction of its vast atomic engineering and science budget in programs aimed at developing atomic energy as a future power source.

Without any support, it was impossible to design and build systems that could compete in the markets dominated by coal, oil and natural gas.

Until the patent section of AEA46 was revised by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, no commercial enterprise made any investments in developing useful atomic energy.

Even though Milliken passionately defended patent provisions that had raised strenuous objections from groups ranging from the American Bar Association and the National Association of Manufacturers to the House Patent Committee, there no evidence of opponents accusing him of having special interest reasons for handicapping useful atomic energy.

Later on, in 1949, Millikin sought to maintain America’s policy of not sharing any atomic energy information with anyone, including Canada and the UK, its closest allies. The security barriers preventing information exchange extended past weapons-related information; they included industrially useful atomic information. At the time, both Canada and the UK were actively pursuing power reactor development.

Looking back from our distant position in history, I’ve learned that Millikin had financial reasons to impede technological breakthroughs that might reduce demand for oil and gas.

Before his election to the Senate, Millikin had served as the president of Kinney-Coastal Oil. He was also part of an oil shale claims partnership that included Karl C. Schuyler, Sr. and George A. Taff. (Shell Oil Co. v. Kleppe, 426 F. Supp. 894 (D. Colo. 1977)

Those extensive leases were subjected to a number of challenges over several decades. Legal challenges were grounded that these claims did not constitute discoveries of a valuable mineral deposit pursuant to 30 U.S.C. § 22 et seq.

Challengers made the argument that shale deposits had no value because they could not be profitably extracted and marketed using available technology and existing market prices. (Shell Oil Co. v. Kleppe, 426 F. Supp. 894 (D. Colo. 1977)

As a Senator, Millikin supported a federal synthetic fuels program, which was aimed at producing useful liquid fuels from shale (kerogen) and coal. That program showed that oil shale had value because it could be mined and converted into useful liquid fuels.

There’s little doubt that Sen. Millikin understood energy’s important role in our industrial economy. Even though he was a self-proclaimed conservative, he advocated for governmental suppression of atomic energy development. He also supported federal programs that might make his own holdings in oil and gas leases more valuable.

Most historical interpretations of the political turmoil over atomic energy control during 1945-1946 focus on the topics of international control schemes, military versus civilian governance, and control of militarily useful atomic secrets. Few, if any, focus on the way that the resulting legislation and governance choices imposed an important delay in efforts to put atomic energy to use in serving humanity.

That’s my focus area.

While my research and broad-based reading on this topic will continue, I felt the need to stop and document a specific, intriguing story that qualifies as a smoking gun.

Note: On Atomic Insights, ‘smoking gun’ is a category of posts that document instances of nuclear opposition that can be directly tied to the desires of competitive industries to maintain their market share. It also applies to individuals whose wealth and power is directly tied to continuation of the Hydrocarbon Economy.

Filed Under: Atomic history, Fossil fuel competition, Smoking Gun

Is there a conspiracy against nuclear energy?

November 14, 2020 By Rod Adams 45 Comments

I have been accused of being a conspiracy theorist for pointing out the blindlingly obvious fact that nuclear energy competes for markets against fossil fuels.

There is abundant evidence showing how hydrocarbon interests have worked to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about nuclear power. Since the stories are spread over the 80 year period since atomic fission was discovered to be an incredibly dense source of heat, they can be overlooked or forgotten. For obvious reasons, there has been some effort to obscure the truth so researchers have to dig and keep working to get attention for their findings.

It’s completely logical to believe that at least some of the people whose jobs, wealth and power stem from one of the world’s largest enterprises recognize and respond to the competitive threat from nuclear energy.

It doesn’t take much of an exercise in deductive thinking to recognize that some of the people who have financial reasons to discourage nuclear energy will build support for their cause by making financial contributions to respected charities. Buying friends among groups that campaign for wildlife or for environmental protection is an investment that can provide major returns when it protects hydrocarbon markets from nuclear energy competition.

It’s not difficult to obscure sources of cash, especially when recipients have policies of confidentiality designed to protect donors from constant appeals from others.

Some ask why hydrocarbon interests haven’t just extended their businesses to include nuclear energy rather than engaging in the kind of discouragement I have discovered.

The answer is that commodity businesses usually suffer when there is too much supply of their primary products.

Even though industrial civilization depends on energy and fuel supply enterprises are enormous, PROFITS from the business are elusive. It is well known to be a “boom and bust” business. Busts nearly always occur as a result of an overabundance (glut). When supplies exceed demand by just a few percentage points, it doesn’t take long for storage systems to fill up. 

When that happens, prices fall precipitously.

Anticipation of a glut from new sources of supply can be enough to cause a substantial market price reduction. Conversely, anticipation of future shortages can produce almost unbelievable cash flows as prices rise when customers build inventories in fear of insufficient supplies.

Nuclear energy continues to pose the threat of making enormous capital investments worth less. When a entire countries like France or Sweden can shift almost all electricity production from coal and oil to nuclear over a 15 year period, it makes bankers, fossil fuel CEOs, sheiks, oligarchs, prime ministers, and others take action to prevent the possibility that others will “get it.”

I’m not sure how to overcome this obstacle to developing clean, abundant, reliable and affordable power, but I am hoping that increased recognition will help.

Note: I composed this as a comment in response to Zion Light’s excellent, heartfelt Medium post titled “Nuclear and nature: the love story no one wants to tell“. I published it as a comment there, but decided to share it here as well.

Filed Under: Fossil fuel competition

Open Letter to Interim Storage Partners and Holtec – please find better locations for your CISF projects ASAP

November 7, 2020 By Rod Adams 19 Comments

Dear Holtec and Interim Storage Partners: Both of you are actively pursuing permission from the US Nuclear Regulatory to build consolidated interim storage facilities in an area of southwest Texas and southeast New Mexico that seemed well suited for the purpose at the time that you began the process. Times have changed since then. One […]

Filed Under: Atomic politics, Fossil fuel competition, Nuclear Waste

Atomic Show #286 – Chris Wright, CEO Liberty Oilfield Services

November 6, 2020 By Rod Adams

Chris Wright is the CEO of Liberty Oilfield Services, which recently became the second largest US company performing the work of drilling and completing oil and gas wells in shale formations. He is a leader in the field of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal well drilling, having been involved in the revolutionary technology development since the […]

Filed Under: Fossil fuel competition, Fossil fuel cooperation, Natural Gas, Podcast

NAVIGANT analysis of Vogtle expansion provided to JEA in Sep 2017 understates fuel price risks

August 22, 2018 By Rod Adams 12 Comments

Aaron Zahn, the interim managing director and CEO of the Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA), believes it is time to give up on the Vogtle expansion project. On August 17, he sent a letter to James Fuller, the President and CEO of of MEAG (Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia) Power detailing his company’s desire to rid […]

Filed Under: AP1000 saga, Fossil fuel competition, New Nuclear, Vogtle

Atomic fission technology is a terrible candidate for a “do not resuscitate” order. Antinuclear groups MUST not be granted right to put one in place

April 10, 2018 By Rod Adams 50 Comments

I’m going to beg forgiveness and literary license for the following extended, potentially inappropriate, and perhaps too personal metaphor. For several weeks, I’ve been struggling with finding my “voice” in dealing with current events related to the U.S. electricity production system. As part of my healing process, I went on a several day long reading […]

Filed Under: Atomic Advocacy, Economics, Fossil fuel competition

Is America’s vaunted electricity supply system on course for rocks and shoals?

April 2, 2018 By Rod Adams 41 Comments

Late last week, while many observers were focused on a long weekend of religious celebrations with friends and families, there were several announcements made in the slowly developing crisis in the American electricity supply system. Operators of a number of several large power plants with the ability to produce electricity night and day, wind or […]

Filed Under: Economics, Fossil fuel competition, Grid resilience

I apologize for falling for a dirty trick that might have been planted by an oil and gas lobbyist

March 29, 2018 By Rod Adams 7 Comments

Though I take some pride in my critical reading skills and resistance to getting snookered by scam stories, I fell for a doozy yesterday. Unfortunately, I ended up propagating what might have been a clever ruse designed to paint nuclear energy advocacy in a bad light. It’s a story worth telling after I apologize profusely […]

Filed Under: Atomic Advocacy, Atomic politics, Fossil fuel competition

Will the U.S cold wave help solve OPEC’s oil inventory hangover?

January 5, 2018 By Rod Adams 23 Comments

Since 2014, investor-focused publications have used terms like ‘awash in oil’, ‘oil glut’ and even ‘world is “drowning” in oil’ to describe the world’s stockpile of already extracted and stored inventory of crude oil. Similar phrases have also been occasionally used to describe inventories of various refined products like gasoline, distillate fuel oil, and kerosene. […]

Filed Under: Atomic politics, Business of atomic energy, Fossil fuel competition

Synergies between nuclear energy and coal

December 7, 2017 By Rod Adams 15 Comments

Some recent converts to nuclear energy advocacy are offended and confused by the fact that nuclear energy and coal have been lumped together in the Department of Energy’s recent effort to return profitable conditions to established power plants that do not depend on favorable weather or just-in-time natural gas fuel delivery. A segment of the […]

Filed Under: Fossil fuel competition, Liquid Coal

Consumers win if electricity production capacity remains high

November 20, 2017 By Rod Adams 19 Comments

There are many pundits writing about the U.S. electricity markets today who hope that their readers haven’t studied market behavior and competitive price formation. They want their readers or listeners to accept their narrative and believe that keeping struggling generators in the market will be a costly market intervention resulting in higher customer prices. The […]

Filed Under: Resilience, Fossil fuel competition

Environmental Defense Fund president has a fundamental misunderstanding of gas markets

November 18, 2017 By Rod Adams 15 Comments

Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), published a commentary in the Wall Street Journal titled How Local Utilities Gamed the Natural Gas Market. The article subtitle briefly explains his theory – They booked large orders and then cancelled at the last minute, which pushed electric prices up by 20%. Krupp’s commentary […]

Filed Under: Fossil fuel competition, Natural Gas

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How did an oil shale investor hamstring his atomic energy competition? (Ancient but impactful smoking gun)

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