Atomic Show #307 – Mark Nelson, Managing Director Radiant Energy Group
Mark Nelson has been traveling the world in an effort to help create a sustainable pronuclear movement. His focus includes both saving existing plants and encouraging the construction of new reactor in areas that have operating reactors, those that have shut down their nuclear plants and in countries that have never operated nuclear plants. We…
Atomic Insights Latest Posts
IRA’s Clean Electricity Tax Credits (Sections 48E and 45Y) are an under-appreciated boon for new nuclear power
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) should make an important contribution towards mitigating future inflationary periods. It accomplishes this beneficial goal by providing important support for facilities that increase US clean electricity production. The…
Oil and gas opposition to consolidated interim spent fuel (CISF) storage facilities in Permian Basin
An article titled “US sweetens pot to study siting for spent nuke fuel storage” was published in the January 26, 2023 edition of the Washington Post. The article included a paragraph that credited…
Atomic Energy Wells
Petroleum – a term includes oil, gas and derivatives – wells have been going dry for more than 150 years. Until the late 2000s, the solution to that problem of resource depletion has…
Enough with “renewables!”
The American Nuclear Society posted an article entitled How a nuclear victory at COP27 started with a teen and a text reporting on the wonderful story of Ia Aanstoot. This is the 17-year…
Atomic Show #307 – Mark Nelson, Managing Director Radiant Energy Group
Mark Nelson has been traveling the world in an effort to help create a sustainable pronuclear movement. His focus includes both saving existing plants and encouraging the construction of new reactor in areas…
Atomic Show #306 – Dr. Rita Baranwal, Westinghouse AP300
Westinghouse, one of the world’s first nuclear power plant vendors, recently announced a new small modular reactor (SMR) design called the AP300. It is described as a simplified version of the AP1000, four…
Atomic Show #305 – Oliver Stone and Joshua Goldstein Co-Writers Nuclear Now
On Apr 28, the much anticipated film, Nuclear Now, will premier in selected theaters in New York, Sedona and Los Angeles. It will remain available in those venues for a week. On May…
U-Battery – Micronuclear power with intriguing business model
U-Battery was one of the more intriguing presenters at the Advanced Reactor Technical Summit (ARTSIII) held at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory last week. Even though this was a technical summit, the segments…
China’s high temperature reactor – pebble bed modular (HTR-PM) achieves its first criticality
On the morning of September 12, 2021, reactor number 1 of the eagerly awaited HTR-PM project was taken critical for the first time. Initial criticality for any new reactor is a big deal…
Nuclear Fission Vs. Combustion: Inexpensive Machines and Cheap Fuel
Nuclear fission is still in its adolescence, especially when compared to combustion, its major competitor. There is room for process innovations that will improve efficiency, increase flexibility and reduce machinery complexity. Changes in…
AP1000 granted NRC Design Certification
The Westinghouse AP1000 reactor plant design has been awarded a Design Certification by the US NRC. The decision was published in the Federal Register on 30 December 2005 and will become final 30…
Is V.C. Summer really dead or is near term revival possible?
Several leaders in the South Carolina government are actively searching for ways to revive the V. C. Summer expansion project. The project includes construction of two Westinghouse AP1000 power plants capable of producing…
Tragic day in South Carolina as 5,000 people lose their jobs at VC Summer
Yesterday, about 5,000 people working on the VC Summer expansion project learned that the owners had issued stop work orders effective immediately. They started the day with important jobs paying good wages and…
Smoking Gun: ExxonMobil admits plan to take advantage of Fukushima to market gas
As an undergraduate, I was trained to read between the lines and to interpret the words on the page in context with the author’s background and intent. With that in mind, I see…
How did an oil shale investor hamstring his atomic energy competition? (Ancient but impactful smoking gun)
During the contentious effort that resulted in passage of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, Sen Eugene D. Milliken (R-CO) played an important role in establishing an attempted US government monopoly over all…
Smoking Gun research continuing in earnest
In 1993, after I had made a decision to resign my active duty commission and design a small atomic engine, a colleague warned me that “the oil companies will never let you succeed.”…
Nuclear Venture Capital
Nuclear Venture Capital
How Hot is Cold Fusion?
The 24th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF24) was held at the lovely and spacious Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA over four days in late July. As a venture investor looking at evaluating and investing in a wide range of advanced nuclear ventures, I was invited to participate and/or sponsor the event. While…
Nucleating our carbon-managed future
If you’ve studied chemistry, you’ll know that the nucleation point describes the start of a change in physical state, such as from a solid to a liquid, or liquid to gas. Water starting to crystallize into ice nucleates where the first H2O molecules reorganize as a solid. We’re seeing a similar transformation of human society—forced…
Rod Adams
Managing Partner, Nucleation Capital, a venture fund enabling broader investor access to a diverse portfolio of advanced nuclear energy and deep decarbonization ventures. Nuclear energy expert and former submarine Engineer Officer with nuclear propulsion plant experience. Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast.