A two-page Policy Forum opinion piece titled Nuclear safety regulation in the post-Fukushima era: Flawed analyses underlie lax U.S. regulation of spent fuel by Edwin Lyman, Michael Schoeppner and Frank von Hippel appeared in the May 26, 2017 issue of Science Magazine, an outlet that has a public reputation as a reliable source of technical…
Jake DeWitte and Caroline Cochran, the cofounders of Oklo, a start up company that is developing a 1-2 MWe nuclear reactor-based power system for remote areas, have been credited with drawing attention to a problem that can be solved by a government policy decision. “Nearly all advanced reactors have a need for low enriched fuel…
Yesterday, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry toured the Yucca Mountain site to get a first hand look at the current state of the facility. Following the site tour, Sec. Perry met with Gov. Brian Sandoval. Here is what the Department of Energy press release said about that conversation. “Governor Sandoval and I had a frank…
The first few words of the first bullet in the Department of Energy’s (DOE) section of the Trump Administration’s Budget Blueprint seem purposely chose to instigate maximum conflict. Provides $120 million to restart licensing activities for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository This phrase, describing a spending item that represents just 0.4% of a $28…
Senator Carper (D-DE) asked each witness at a March 8 hearing about NEIMA – Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act – to give one suggestion for improving the bill. If asked, my answer would be to include findings that emphasize the importance of U.S. government-owned testing facilities that are capable of supporting the NRC licensing…
South Korea (ROK), Japan and the United States all have large nuclear energy programs that are facing a variety of challenges limiting their growth, namely opposition by the nonproliferation industry to wider deployment of enrichment and recycling technologies. There is interest and opportunity to collaborate in developing solutions in areas where challenges overlap. The Global…
Initial version posted Jan 27, 2006 A recent conversation about the dangers of false claims of expertise stimulated me to revise and republish a nearly 11 year-old post. It provides documented proof that Jimmy Carter was not a “nuclear engineer” and never served on a nuclear submarine. He left the Navy in October 1953, about…
Late on a Friday afternoon (September 23), the Department of Energy released an updated performance report on the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). DOE’s internal Office of Project Management Oversight and Assessment in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers produced the report using assumptions and data provided by DOE leadership. The report concludes…
This is a call to action. The Department of Energy is soliciting comments on its excess uranium management plan. The deadline for comments, initially announced as August 18, 2016, has been extended until September 19. That is just 4 days away. Here is a quote from the Federal Register request for information: The U.S. Department…
South Australia is making progress in its effort to profitably address an issue that has slowed nuclear energy’s growth prospects for more than 40 years. On May 9th South Australian premier Jay Weatherill released the final version of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission report that had been briefed to him on May 6. The…
Over the past week or so, I’ve engaged in a “root cause analysis” project to determine why the US is having so much difficulty implementing a plan to take 34 metric tons of nearly pure plutonium 239 — a fissile isotope with virtually the same energy value as uranium 235 — out of our nuclear…
Lightbridge, a company that was originally incorporated as Thorium Power, Inc., has achieved significant technology developments after making a strategic turn in 2010 from thorium based fuels to low enriched uranium metal alloy fuels. As funding dried up from the government agencies supporting their thorium work, the company chose to use its assembled nuclear engineering…