On January 12, 2022, the New York Power Authority posted a poll on its Twitter feed. It asked people to vote for the clean energy technology they would like more of in 2022. The poll listed electric vehicles, green hydrogen, solar and geothermal. Within a couple of hours, more than sixty users had responded to […]
Atomic Show #294 – Mikal Boe, Core Power Founder and CEO
Mikal Boe has spent 30 years in and around the commercial shipping industry. Several years ago, he began wondering how his industry was going to meet the increasingly stringent rules for air pollution and CO2 production that were being implemented by governing regulators, especially the International Maritime Organization (IMO). His extensive technical research led him […]
Catching Oklo — a rising star!
Update: On Jan 6, 2022, the NRC denied Oklo’s COA application “without prejudice.” Power published an article titled NRC Dismisses Application for Oklo Advanced Nuclear Reactor that provides a solid early summary of the action and its implications. A new generation of clean energy is on the horizon Oklo is a clean energy company that […]
Atomic Show #293 – Robert Bryce – Journalist and Bird Watcher
Robert Bryce is an admired journalist, book author, filmmaker, public speaker, Congressional witness and podcaster who has focused on energy, power and its implications for mankind’s prosperity. In his free time, he loves to watch birds. He recognizes that electricity is the lifeblood of modernity. He is saddened by knowing that there are billions of […]
Atomic Show #292 – Andrew Crabtree, Founder, “Get Into Nuclear”
Andrew Crabtree is a former professional rugby player and banker who decided to transition to the nuclear industry in 2007. He had recognized that the banking industry was going to be in for a rough time. In other words, he was able to read the handwriting on the wall just before the financial crisis that […]
What makes smaller nuclear power systems so exciting?
Let me start by dispelling the notion that I think smaller, modular, manufactured nuclear power systems – often called SMRs or micro reactors – are the be all and end all solution to anything, including climate change or energy security. Though not THE solution, they have the potential to be a crucial, uniquely capable part […]
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 for the people involved in the project; this one is a big deal for the future of nuclear energy. It might also […]
A Path from Coal to Nuclear is Being Blazed in Wyoming
Many of those who care about finding solutions to the physical distress that our climate is experiencing, as reported on this week in a landmark 1,300 page report by the IPCC‘s Sixth Assessment Working Group 1 (Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis), are not looking at Wyoming. But based upon the announcement made in […]
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 […]
Five Myths about the Lone Star Blackout
By Meredith Angwin When we hear something terrible has happened to someone we know, we are concerned for them. We are worried. We want to help. And let’s face it, we are also concerned that something like that might happen to US. Our self-concern often takes the form of a list: “All the reasons […]
Atomic Show #291 – Kalev Kallemets, Fermi Energia
Fermi Energia is an Estonian company whose mission is to provide its home country with an independent, clean, safe and affordable electricity production system by 2035. That system will be anchored by base supply from small modular nuclear reactors. It is a lofty mission for a small company in a country whose land mass and […]
Preliminary lessons available to be learned from Feb 2021 extended cold spell
A large number of “hot takes” are appearing now that the cold wave that began arriving on Feb 11, 2021 has moved into areas where sub-freezing temperatures in Feb are normal. If the politically charged nature of the takes could be harnessed, the energy released would be able to keep quite a few homes supplied […]
