Atomic Show #285 – MMR at Illinois

Atomic Show #285 – MMR at Illinois

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a stretch goal of completing its next research and test reactor by the end of 2025. It has assembled a team that includes several other major universities, national labs, and industrial partners. It has selected the MMRTM, a product that is being developed by USNC (Ultra Safe Nuclear…

Atomic Show #283 – The Good Energy Collective

Jessica Lovering, Rachel Slaybaugh, and Suzy Baker founded and lead Good Energy Collective, a policy research organization that is actively “building the progressive case for nuclear energy as an essential part of the broader climate change agenda.” Inspired by the dynamic leaders and new organizations that are successfully making the case that addressing climate change…

Atomic Show #282 – Chris Keefer, Decouple Podcast

Atomic Show #282 – Chris Keefer, Decouple Podcast

Chris Keefer is the creator and host of the Decouple Podcast. He is an emergency room doctor whose activist bent and desire to make the world a better place has led him to become a nuclear energy proponent. Chris is the founder and a director of an organization called Doctors for Nuclear Energy. One of…

Atomic Show #280 – Zion Lights – Director, Environmental Progress UK

Atomic Show #280 – Zion Lights – Director, Environmental Progress UK

Zion Lights is a formally trained science communicator, author of a carefully researched book titled The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting, and an experienced environmental activist who worked for a year as a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion. About a month ago, she began openly advocating for an expansion of nuclear energy as a major tool…

Atomic Show #279 – Michael Shellenberger talks about Apocalypse Never

Atomic Show #279 – Michael Shellenberger talks about Apocalypse Never

Michael Shellenberger’s new book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All has provoked numerous reactions and conversations. It is a carefully researched, 400 page work where 25% of the book is endnotes that document sources for the statements in the book. Michael is a stranger to the “go along to get along” mode of…

Atomic Show #278 –  Micro-Modular Reactor (MMR) project partners USNC, GFP and OPG

Atomic Show #278 – Micro-Modular Reactor (MMR) project partners USNC, GFP and OPG

Global First Power (GFP), Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) recently announced that they had formed a joint venture called Global First Power Limited Partnership. That venture will build, own and operate an installation called the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR™) at the Chalk River Laboratories site. Mark Mitchell and Eric MGoey…

Atomic Show #277 – Simon Wakter, pro-nuclear engineer in an ambivalent country

Simon Wakter is a strongly pro-nuclear engineer in a country that passed a referendum officially phasing out nuclear energy since several years before he was born. He has to round up to be called a thirty-something. Simon works in the nuclear energy branch of AFRY, a well-established 17,000 employee, all-of-the-above. engineering company that recently adopted…

Atomic Show #276 – HolosGen Claudio Filippone and Chip Martin

Atomic Show #276 – HolosGen Claudio Filippone and Chip Martin

HolosGen has attacked the nuclear power plant cost and schedule challenge from the opposite direction chosen by many nuclear reactor developers. Claiming to be agnostic about the reactor specifics – as long as it produces reliable heat in a small-enough configuration – HolosGen founder Claudio Filippone decided to focus on radical improvements to the “balance…

Atomic Show #275 – Managing advanced nuclear development during pandemic

Managing any business is hard work, especially during a global pandemic with stay-at-home orders in place. It requires creativity and flexibility along with some amount of prior preparation. On May 11, 2020, I gathered a group of representatives from several start-up companies that are developing advanced nuclear technologies to talk about how they are making…

Atomic Show #274 – Thomas Jam Pedersen, Copenhagen Atomics

Atomic Show #274 – Thomas Jam Pedersen, Copenhagen Atomics

Copenhagen isn’t the first city name that comes to mind as the place to start a nuclear company. Denmark has decommissioned its last research reactor and has never had a nuclear power plant. That hasn’t deterred Thomas Jam Pedersen and his colleagues at Copenhagen Atomics. Starting a decade or more ago, they began learning about…