The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Augmented Inspection Team (AIT) held a public information meeting on June 18, 2012 to present findings from their investigation into the cause of the excessive steam generator tube degradation found in units 2 and 3 of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). Southern California Edison (SCE), SONGS owner and…
With a hat tip to Ben Heard at Decarbonize SA, I thought it might inspire you to see two videos side by side. These videos were created in geographic locations that are about as far apart as you can get and still be on Earth. As far as I can tell, neither creative team knew…
On March 23, 2012, Bill Gates was interviewed as part of the Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics conference. There is little doubt that he understands the technology and the opportunity. My main question is why he is not investing more in order to drive the technology even faster. After all, he is one of the world’s…
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…
I just received my copy of Plentiful Energy: The Story of the Integral Fast Reactor. The complex history of a simple reactor technology with emphasis on its scientific basis for non-specialists by Charles Till and Yoon Il Chang. There is no doubt that it is going to be a fascinating read, but I had to…
By: Donald Jones, P.Eng. There is a widely held belief that commercial nuclear-electric plants are only capable of baseload operation when in fact they can be more flexible than a natural gas-fired generating station. This belief has led the Ontario government to restrict nuclear generation to 50 percent of total demand, in its Long-Term Energy…
I spent about 15 years trying (unsuccessfully) to get a small modular reactor company off the ground. Our concept was based on an adaptation of the successful German pebble bed demonstration reactor called the AVR. In 2003, Tsinghua University in China completed the construction of the HTR-10, which was essentially a direct copy of the…
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…
Yesterday morning I wrote a post titled Where is Hyperion Power Generation headed now? By the time I was ready for a lunch break, I had received an email from the Chief Operating Officer of Hyperion Power Generation offering to fill me in on some of the details that he was able to make public….
CBS TV 6, one of the television stations closest to the North Anna nuclear power station was allowed to take a tour to see the massive damage caused by one of the largest earthquakes that has ever occurred in the US east of the Mississippi River. Caution – the video you are about to see…
Hyperion Power Generation has been one of the more interesting and vocal companies in the small modular reactor (SMR) business during the past few years. I have attended a number of conferences and meetings at which John “Grizz” Deal and/or his sister Deborah Blackwell have been featured speakers or the centers of interested crowds in…
I’ll admit my bias – my father spent his whole career in the business of making electricity. I learned very early in life just how important that job is. Some of the unsung heroes that I have celebrated over the years include the linemen who restored our electricity nearly two weeks after Hurricane Hugo decimated…