I came across an article on RosBusinessConsulting titled Russia floods global markets with O&G that supports my theory that at least some of more crafty segments of the world’s oil and gas providers recognize the return on investment (ROI) available to them from steady efforts to stoke irrational fears about the use of nuclear energy….
One of the biggest threats to the continued wealth and power held by the global fossil fuel industry is a “plutonium economy” fueled by abundant resources of uranium that can be converted into fissile plutonium in a breeder reactor. (Yes, I know that a thorium economy is just as big of a threat to the…
I keep hearing people talk about how much new natural gas supply horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has provided to the US energy market. They keep telling me that is the reason that US gas prices have stubbornly remained at levels about 1/6th to 1/3 the levels in Europe, Japan and India. The ads –…
My friends and family recognize that I am an odd bird. I often wake up in the middle of the night as a result of thinking about things that few others worry about. Tonight was a great example; my eyes failed open at midnight as I thought really hard about how to spread the word…
Dr. Jim Conca recently published an article titled What’s Better? A Carbon Tax or Energy Subsidies? for his column on Forbes.com. I invited him, along with Cal Abel, a nuclear engineering PhD candidate at Georgia Tech with a strong interest in energy economics, for a chat on the Atomic Show. We got a little off…
One of the frequently repeated comments about the way that the ad supported media choses its coverage is that the media tends to focus on “if it bleeds it leads” and on telling dramatic stories. If that was true, why are stories about deadly, dramatic fossil fuel accidents told once and then forgotten while brief…
I’ve spent a fair amount of time during the past few days trying to convince people who promote only certain types of nuclear fission technologies that they are engaging in the wrong battle. They are failing to recognize that all forms of fission take advantage of the incredible energy density found in atomic nuclei to…
As much as I like reading Bill Tucker’s generally pronuclear articles, I recognize that he sometimes gets the details wrong. In a recent American Spectator article titled Nuclear’s Dilemma: Few Jobs, Just Energy, Bill overlooked some important details about nuclear energy’s ability to generate good jobs in comparison to its competitors in wind, solar, coal,…
This past week, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) ran a series of shows focusing on energy development in the United States. The above video is well moderated debate about the topics described in the shows featuring Robert Bryce, a senior fellow from the Manhattan Institute and the author of Power Hungry: The Myth of Green…
James Hansen has been warning the world since the 1980s about the risks we are imposing on ourselves. Unfortunately, not enough people have listened so we are continuing to increase the rate at which we are dumping CO2 into the only atmosphere we have. In the above video [no longer available], Hansen uses clear, unemotional…
On Monday, August 6, 2012, Chevron’s refinery in Richmond, California erupted in flames, spewing thick black smoke that included a mixture of hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and combustion products high into the atmosphere. A shelter in place order was issued and several hundred people experienced enough pain and discomfort from exposure to the smoke to seek…
Richard Muller has a lot in common with Amory Lovins. They both received MacArthur Foundation Fellowships (aka “Genius Grants”) several decades ago – Muller in 1982 and Lovins in 1993. They both get a lot of attention from the commercial media and from elected politicians. They both were active members of large environmental groups early…