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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

Nuclear Cost Data

Power cheaper than coal – thorium AND uranium make it possible

December 12, 2012 By Rod Adams

Bob Hargraves, the author of Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal, recently traveled to Shanghai to present a 30 minute talk summarizing the main points of discussion that he covered in his book. The occasion of the trip was Thorium Energy Conference 2012. Bob is a professor with a good facility for numbers and a talent […]

Filed Under: Alternative energy, Economics, Fossil fuel competition, Nuclear Cost Data, Pro Nuclear Video, Thorium, Thorium Reactors, Unreliables

Ten months to obtain an AEC construction permit

December 7, 2012 By Rod Adams

I’m doing a little history reading today and came across a passage worth sharing. The source is Glenn Seaborg’s “The Atomic Energy Commission Under Nixon” St. Martin’s Press, NY 1993 pg 101-102. In December 1965, the management of Northern States Power Company (NSP) reached an internal decisions that a new generating unit in the 500-electrical-megawatt […]

Filed Under: Nuclear Cost Data, Technical History Stories

Why are North American natural gas prices so much lower than rest of world?

November 26, 2012 By Rod Adams

I’ve been involved in a reasoned discussion with an oil field accountant / attorney about US natural gas prices and total resource base. I thought that it would be worth preserving and sharing that discussion here so that it would not get buried. If you read closely between the lines, you will see why I […]

Filed Under: LNG, Natural Gas, Nuclear Cost Data, Smoking Gun

Rationally comparing financial risk – nuclear versus natural gas (#1 of ??)

November 15, 2012 By Rod Adams

US Electricity Production Costs 1995-2011

Yesterday I wrote about the need to rationally compare the physical risks associated with producing energy by burning natural gas against the similar risks of producing energy by fissioning uranium in a nuclear power plant. However, even when decision makers includes some reasonable estimates for those kinds of risks, they are still often choosing to […]

Filed Under: Fossil fuel competition, Natural Gas, Nuclear Cost Data, Nuclear regulations

Conservative groupthink afflicts US nuclear energy industry

October 5, 2012 By Rod Adams

Though I have a deep and abiding respect for the vast majority of the people I have met who work in the nuclear energy industry, it is time for me to risk losing a few friends with some brutal honesty. Decision making has become unbalanced in the “conservative” direction to a point of a dangerous […]

Filed Under: Atomic politics, Health Effects, Nuclear Cost Data, Politics of Nuclear Energy, Pressurized Water, Radiation

Atomic Show #189 – Energy Subsidies

August 27, 2012 By Rod Adams 12 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: Atomic politics, Fossil fuel competition, Nuclear Cost Data, Podcast

Nuclear jobs, jobs, jobs

August 25, 2012 By Rod Adams

Table comparing energy technologies & job generation

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, […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Fossil fuel competition, New Nuclear, Nuclear Cost Data

Transcript of Atomic Show #61 – Allison Macfarlane, Atomic Agnostic (June 15, 2007)

June 12, 2012 By Rod Adams

On June 13, 2012, Allison Macfarlane will be a witness in her confirmation hearing as a new commissioner and the prospective Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Commissioner Kristine Svinicki will also be a witness in her quest to be confirmed for a second term as a commissioner. In June 2007, I had the opportunity […]

Filed Under: Fuel Recycling, New Nuclear, Nuclear Cost Data, Nuclear regulations, Nuclear Waste, Plutonium, Politics of Nuclear Energy

Real story about nuclear plant liability insurance

January 23, 2012 By Rod Adams

At least twice in the past few days, I have been challenged about the value of nuclear energy with something close to the following comment posted on during a recent Google+ discussion about energy choices. A good way to measure the safety of nuclear power in America, using objective criteria, would be to require nuclear […]

Filed Under: Atomic Advocacy, Nuclear Cost Data

Open letter to advocates of Generation IV reactors (IFR, LFTR, NGNP, PBHTR)

December 9, 2011 By Rod Adams

I participate in a number of email lists and forums populated by people who have an incredible optimism for a wide variety of nuclear fission power systems including sodium cooled Integral Fast Reactors, molten salt based Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, helium cooled Next Generation Nuclear Plants, the molten salt cooled Pebble Bed High Temperature Reactor […]

Filed Under: Atomic Advocacy, Fossil fuel competition, Nuclear Cost Data

Examples of regulatory costs for nuclear energy development

December 7, 2011 By Rod Adams

This exchange with Robert Bradley, who is a self-described free market advocate, focuses on my frustration with the inability of his “community” to acknowledge the imposed costs of excessive regulation on nuclear energy projects. Robert blogs at Master Resource, the same place where I have encountered Jerry Taylor, who shares some of the same ideas. […]

Filed Under: Nuclear Cost Data, Nuclear regulations

Reducing nuclear operational and capital costs by improved technology

November 18, 2011 By Rod Adams

I received a link from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to a fascinating video about their recent efforts to develop CoSecTM, a new resin technology that is more effective at capturing cobalt-60. Most of the radiation doses that nuclear workers receive come from this single isotope. One possible cost savings aspect of this technology […]

Filed Under: New Nuclear, Nuclear Cost Data, Nuclear regulations

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