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 […]
Nuclear Cost Data
Ten months to obtain an AEC construction permit
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 […]
Why are North American natural gas prices so much lower than rest of world?
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 […]
Rationally comparing financial risk – nuclear versus natural gas (#1 of ??)
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 […]
Conservative groupthink afflicts US nuclear energy industry
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 […]
Atomic Show #189 – Energy Subsidies
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 […]
Nuclear jobs, jobs, jobs
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, […]
Transcript of Atomic Show #61 – Allison Macfarlane, Atomic Agnostic (June 15, 2007)
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 […]
Real story about nuclear plant liability insurance
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 […]
Open letter to advocates of Generation IV reactors (IFR, LFTR, NGNP, PBHTR)
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 […]
Examples of regulatory costs for nuclear energy development
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. […]
Reducing nuclear operational and capital costs by improved technology
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 […]
