I returned last night from a short vacation to Washington, DC. I am such an atomic geek that my idea of a vacation is to spend a couple of days at the Nuclear Energy Assembly (NEA) in a dim hotel conference room surrounded by a crowd of business leaders, many in dark suits who qualify…
If I lived in New York City, I would be campaigning against the installation of large, high pressure gas pipelines and for the continued operation of the well-built and well-maintained Indian Point Nuclear Power Station. I would also campaign for the construction of additional nuclear plants. In my opinion, nuclear generated electricity is more compatible…
On May 7, 2013, the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Station is scheduled to stop generating emission free electricity for the last time. The plant is one of the better run and maintained facilities in the US, it has an operating license that is effective until December 2033, and it generates electricity for an average cost of…
Waiting for something to take shape is simply not in my nature. I was trained to look ahead, bring some technology to bear, sense the rocks on the radar and note the shoal water warnings on the chart. Gail Marcus at Nuclear Power Talk recently published a post titled Natural Gas: A Flash in the…
Salon.com published an article on Monday, April 1, 2013 titled Fracking: The next bubble?. The article includes an intriguing section that almost qualifies as a smoking gun in a somewhat convoluted way. The article suggest that the low natural gas prices that have prevailed in North America during the period from mid 2008-2013 have been…
After a number of discussions with people in positions close to the decision to destroy the Kewaunee nuclear power station, I am now about 98% sure that it will be shut down as currently scheduled in May of 2013. I am also about 95% sure that the decision will cost electricity customers in the Midwest…
In a recent paper, Mark Cooper and Peter Bradford advocate expanded use of natural gas, even if that expansion requires using hydraulic fracturing. They believe that fossil fuel plants should continue dumping vast quantities of combustion waste into our shared atmosphere, even after new nuclear energy plants start operating. They dismiss the notion of a…
I’ll admit that I am actively searching for good news about nuclear energy to counter the conventional wisdom that we are losing the market battle to cheap natural gas. I found an interesting take on recent Cabinet appointments in a New York Times editorial titled Two Enlistees in the Climate Wars. Though it appears as…
Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) trace their heritage to William Proxmire, a senator famous for his “Golden Fleece” awards for wasteful government spending. Yesterday, the organization held a press conference to announce that they had decided to award a Golden Fleece to the US Department of Energy SMR (small modular reactor) program. The press release…
I ran across an end of the year post about energy worth sharing Counting Down Top 12 Energy Facts of 2012: 3, 2 & 1. It appears on a blog titled John Hanger’s Facts of the Day. Mr. Hanger claims to be “an expert on energy, environment, green economy, competitive electric markets, and utility regulation…
Dieter Helm’s The Carbon Crunch: How We’re Getting Climate Change Wrong–and How to Fix It has the potential to be an influential energy policy book, not just for the UK but for the rest of Europe and the United States. Helm has been making the rounds to promote the book and recently gave a concise…
Discussions about science and technology are often colored by opinion, world views, and political alliances. Though everyone is entitled to their opinion but not their own facts, it is nearly impossible to remove bias, even in a technical discussion, because everyone has a tendency to pick which facts they prefer to introduce into an argument….