The six months since Fukushima has brought out a certain class of professional worriers who ignore history to fret about topics that have already been the source of concern for many years. In this particular case, the worriers want to assert that nuclear power plants are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of earthquakes, which are…
Update: (September 1, 2011) I have changed the title to be more assertive. There is no longer any doubt in my mind that the lack of foresight WILL result in delayed reviews of new license applications though there will be strenuous efforts to foist the blame for poor performance onto the applicants. End Update. Ever…
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman, Dr. Greg Jaczko, has expressed his frustration with the voting process in effect at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He is the same man who defended that process rather vigorously when it allowed him to pocket veto a vote about legal requirement for the NRC to continue its evaluation of the…
During the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on August 2, 2011, Senator Lamar Alexander invested his five minutes of question time wisely by engaging Chairman Jaczko in an important philosophical discussion; does the mission of the NRC to protect public health and safety include a mission to enable the construction of new nuclear…
On August 2, 2011, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing with all five members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The subject was the 90-day report by six career regulators with recommendations for actions to take as a result of their interpretation of the sketchy information that has been discovered so far…
In the March 23, 2010 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Steven Chu published an op-ed piece titled America’s New Nuclear Option that describes the Administration’s growing interest in smaller nuclear energy systems that can be produced in factories and delivered nearly complete to sites around the country and around the world. Here is…
Dr. Allison MacFarlane is an Associate Professor of Environment Science and Policy at George Mason University. She is also a self proclaimed nuclear agnostic who is not sure that nuclear power can grow much. About a month ago a friend sent me a link to an interesting panel discussion that was held at MIT on…