Petroleum – that term includes oil, gas and derivatives – wells have been going dry for more than 150 years. Until now, the solution to that problem of resource depletion has been to find a new place to drill. Though there is still a lot of oil left inside the Earth, there is a significant…
As frequent readers know, I am a huge fan of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project that has been under development in South Africa since 1993. Though there have been some hurdles over the years, and the project has had to overcome a significant amount of resistance, the PBMR team – originally from Eskom,…
On May 16-18 2005, the Nuclear Energy Institute hosted its annual Nuclear Energy Assembly. The conference, held at the Fairmont Hotel in northwest Washington DC was titled Nuclear Energy 2005: A Time of Opportunity. There were both optimistic and cautionary speeches given during the conference. Some of the speeches are available for download from our…
Two energy companies made the cut in the 2005 edition of Wired Magazine’s annual article about cutting edge companies. This year’s installment of the survey led with the following quote: “They’re masters of technology and innovation. They’re global thinkers driven by strategic vision. They’re nimbler than Martha Stewart’s PR team. They’re The Wired 40.” Both…
On September 11, 2001, three fully fueled transcontinental airplanes became terrorist weapons, causing a huge amount of direct damage and killing more than 3,000 people living and working in the United States. Though terrorist attacks are nothing new, the scale and impact of these three coordinated attacks from the air caused a complete revaluation of…
I have a passion for nuclear power. It began when I was a teenager and has continued to develop for more than thirty years. It fires me up early each morning, causes me to bore friends and family to tears, and often keeps me awake late into the evening. This passion has been the source…
Truckers, farmers, parcel services, chemical manufacturers, airlines, bus companies, and railroads all need uranium to begin replacing oil. No, they do not yet need their own reactors, but they would all benefit substantially if more nuclear power plants were built to allow more uranium to be used instead of oil and gas wherever possible. The…
More than three years ago, I wrote about the Yucca Mountain project, telling you that I thought that the entire concept was stupid because it was based on flawed assumptions. (See Yucca Mountain: Right Answer; Wrong Question) I also promised that I would discuss a better solution in a future article. The future is now,…
Galena, Alaska has a problem that may be solved with an innovative application of nuclear power. The remote village in Western Alaska is a long way from the grid that supplies electricity to more densely populated regions. It is a fly-in village with only local roads. The energy supply is limited to fossil fuels transported…
“It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter, will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and…
Yesterday morning (3 March 2005) I heard a story on National Public Radio (NPR) that reminded me why I chose an engineering focused career instead of one focused on science. (Aside: I carefully avoid calling myself an engineer, though I served as one in the Navy for a couple of decades. My undergraduate degree is…
The ‘n’ word is definitely back in fashion. There are at least five large partnerships in the United States that are preparing to build new nuclear power plants, though all of them are keeping a rather low profile. The five identified efforts include a consortium led by Excelon that is investigating an early site permit…