In the above clip from a recent interview on CNN’s Piers Morgan, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. describes how Pandora’s Promise advocates that canceling the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project in 1994 was a mistake. RFK Jr., a man from an iconic family that has been a part of the US moneyed Establishment for the better…
During the 1970s, the antinuclear movement made a collective decision to use “the waste issue” as a weapon to help force the eventual shutdown of the industry. Though the strategy has not succeeded in forcing any plants in the US to shut down, it has prevented a number of plants from being built. Ralph Nader,…
Nye County, NV, the local community that would host the Yucca Mountain used nuclear fuel repository if is completed, really wants the facility to be built. The leaders of the county and the people that continue to select them as their representatives recognize that the facility would generate hundreds of well-paying jobs without imposing an…
One of the least understood features of nuclear power plants is that they consume materials that might otherwise end up in nuclear weapons. Of course, activists that battle the use of nuclear energy generally try to turn that feature into a fault. They have convinced more than a few people that without nuclear power plants,…
One of the most frequently used arguments against using nuclear energy is “the waste issue.” When people ask me, “what do you do with the waste”, my standard answer is “recycle it.” The truly curious then ask for more information. A few days ago, Nuclear Street shared a video produced by Argonne National Laboratory that…
The first Atomic Show of 2013 is a geeky, chemistry laden discussion aimed at helping to answer the question that many people who fight nuclear energy try to use as their trump card “What do you do with the waste.” It often makes their head spin or makes them put their fingers into their ears…
The ANS Nuclear Cafe recently posted the above video in a post titled Nuclear Cafe Matinee: Nuclear Recycling in 4 Minutes. It is a useful example of the kind of information that needs to be made more accessible to the public. I hope you share it widely, but more importantly, I hope it inspires you…
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…
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…
Note: Len Koch, whose participation in nuclear energy research started in the 1940s, wrote the below open letter to colleagues who are striving to restore interest in the progress that they made in research and development of the Integral Fast Reactor during the period from 1954-1994 the year that President Clinton and Hazel O’Leary, his…
Two young graduate students describe their plans to develop something called the Waste Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor (WAMSR). The biggest applause line in the talk was the following: Right now in the world there are about 270,000 metric tons of high level waste that exists. We can take that waste, put it into our reactors…
Gordon McDowell, the film maker who produced Thorium Remix, has released some additional mixes of material gathered for that production effort. One in particular is aimed at those people whose main concern about using nuclear energy is the often repeated question “What do you do with the waste.” Many people who ask that question think…
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