On October 28, 2015, Westinghouse issued a press release titled AP1000® RCP REACHES FULL QUALIFICATION confirming a rumor I heard during my visit to Knoxville last week. The release contained wonderful, sigh of relief, news indicating that the hard-working, under-the-gun engineers and technicians at Curtiss-Wright’s EMD division had achieved their task of building and successfully […]
New Nuclear
Atomic Show #246 – Carmen Bigles, Coqui Pharmaceuticals Update
In November 2014, I spoke with Carmen Bigles, the founder of Coqui Pharmaceuticals, a company that is preparing to build a $330 million medical isotope production facility near Gainesville, FL. Since that discussion 11 months ago, Coqui has made steady progress in completing their construction and operating license application to the NRC for a class […]
GE-Hitachi and DTE announce additional ESBWR detailed design work
GE-Hitachi issued a press release on October 5 indicating that they will be working with DTE to determine the resource requirements and schedule for performing the detailed design work necessary to build an ESBWR (Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor) as Fermi Unit 3. Though DTE has not announced a decision to build the facility, it […]
Licensing demonstration reactors in the United States
During the joint DOE-NRC workshop on advanced non-light water reactors held last week (Sep 1-2, 2015), John Adams of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation gave a presentation on reactor license classification terminology. It made me squirm in my chair with the desire to interrupt. Probably because he has read and […]
Atomic Show #242 – Moltex Energy – Ian Scott and John Durham
Moltex Energy has developed a unique conceptual design for a molten salt reactor called the Stable Salt Reactor. In this design, the fuel salt is loaded into tubes that resemble the standard cladding tubes into which solid pellets are loaded in a conventional water cooled reactor. The tubes are arranged into assemblies that resemble the […]
Reactor Coolant Pumps for AP1000 still a problem
This is a story that I really don’t want to tell, but bad news is like old fish. It doesn’t smell any better as it ages. All eight AP1000 construction projects are at risk “for want of a nail.” In this case the nail is a reactor coolant pump, the largest one in the world, […]
Who said modular construction would save money on first of a kind units?
On July 27, 2015, the Wall St. Journal published an article written by Rebecca Smith titled Prefab Nuclear Plants Prove Just as Expensive. That piece has been widely shared and discussed on social media with more than 2700 shares on Facebook and more than 150 shares on Twitter as counted from the original article. I […]
Will North Anna 3 be lead ESBWR?
There is a growing perception that the Nuclear Renaissance in the U.S. is dead, killed off forever by low natural gas prices. Some members of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) are not so sure. At the June 7 President’s Reception for the 2015 ANS annual meeting, there were several intriguing discussions about new projects that […]
Moving nuclear energy discussions forward
On Wednesday, June 24 Bloomberg BNA (Bureau of National Affairs) conducted a morning meeting titled A Chain Reaction: The Role of Nuclear Energy in New England’s Energy Mix at the Westin Copley Place in Boston, MA. The timing was fortuitous for me, my wife and I were visiting family in Maine the weekend before the […]
Chevron’s John Watson should follow pronuclear words with nuclear energy investments
During an OPEC meeting in Vienna held in early June 2015, John Watson, the CEO of Chevron, the second largest oil and gas company in the United States, made a comment that deserves more attention and follow up from journalists. The context of the below comment was that Watson was explaining why his company will […]
Stanford climate scientists promote 100% renewable revolution using natural gas money
We’ve been repeatedly told that 97% of climate scientists agree that CO2 emissions from human activity are a major cause of climate change. Scientists who question that assertion are villified as “climate change deniers” and marginalized as representing a fringe point of view. They’re frequently accused of being paid by fossil fuel interests. Politicians, journalists […]
Tale of two Chinas – One surging forward, one retreating
Two stories caught my attention this morning. One came from the Taipei Times, one from the Beijing Review. The first one focused on a future energy supply prognostication from an American “expert” who has a light educational and professional background in energy technology, manufacturing, engineering, economics and market dynamics. The second one documents recent progress […]
