On December 12, 2013, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced the selection of NuScale as the winner of the second round of funding under the Department of Energy Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). That announcement, which had been due since sometime in September, must have been quite welcome to a lot of really talented and […]
Smaller reactors
Root cause of Naval Reactors policy of strict secrecy about nuclear propulsion plant design
As a Navy nuke, I was carefully taught to believe that everything we learned about atomic energy had to be strictly protected from release to anyone who was not “cleared”, especially anyone who was not a US citizen. I started to question that policy after I completed my tour as the Engineer Officer on the […]
Naval Reactors should be empowered to show the way – again
President Obama should task John Richardson with a mission similar to the one that President Dwight Eisenhower gave Hyman G. Rickover. Richardson is the current leader of Naval Reactors (NR), the organization that Rickover built. If directed, NR could begin a new assignment to show others how to manufacture complete nuclear fission power systems starting […]
Turning small modular reactor concepts into reality in Idaho Falls
In the past half dozen years, the term “small modular reactor (SMR)” has entered the nuclear energy lexicon. Numerous projects have been initiated to develop various concepts, all aimed at producing nuclear reactor based power plants that are small enough to be built in a factory setting to take advantage of concepts like series manufacturing […]
McMurdo Station – the New York of the Deep Freeze South
(Note: If you are impatient and do not want to watch cute photos of penguins, skip to 19:06 to learn more about the reasons why the PM-3A, a 1,500 kilowatt nuclear electricity generator and process heat supply system, was such a valuable contributor to sustained Antarctic research.) Nearly all of the images that are used […]
Smaller nuclear power plants can be beautiful, despite the opposition of the UCS
Dr. Edwin Lyman, Senior Scientist, Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists, has published a paper titled Small Isn’t Always Beautiful: Safety, Security, and Cost Concerns about Small Modular Reactors that poses many questions about the development of SMRs. I’ve seen Dr. Lyman taking notes and asking questions at a number of SMR related conferences; […]
Camp Century – Nuclear plant designed, manufactured, constructed & tested in less than 2 years
Under current rules and assumptions, anyone who claims that they can design and build a power-producing nuclear reactor in less than 10-15 years is considered to be naive or hopelessly unrealistic. However, there is no reason to believe that everyone with the technical capacity for completing the task will follow the same rules. Even in […]
Can nuclear energy save Detroit?
Update: (August 2, 2013) – American Atomics is now claiming that there is no site in Detroit that is large enough to house the infrastructure that they are planning to build. Here is a link to their post. http://safereactor.org/post/57104636966/no-room-in-detroit It is a pretty incredible claim for a company that currently has no facilities. Supposedly the […]
B&W’s Jim Ferland describes company’s global business outlook
Jim Ferland, the CEO of The Babcock & Wilcox Company, was recently interviewed by Bill Loveless of Platts Energy Week about the company’s global business outlook. During the interview, Ferland discussed the B&W mPowerTM reactor, one of the leading small modular reactor development projects; FutureGen 2.0, a carbon capture and storage demonstration project; the impact […]
NuScale announces achievement of unlimited coping time
At the Nuclear Energy Insider SMR Conference in Columbia, S.C., Dr. Jose Reyes, a co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer of NuScale Power, announced that his team had achieved an impressive design breakthrough. Two years after the Fukushima event, NuScale is introducing a safety system for our nuclear reactor that does not require DC batteries […]
The Weather Channel visits B&W mPower, Inc.
On February 14, 2013, my day job employer hosted a contingent from The Weather Channel who wanted to learn more about the B&W mPowerTM Reactor project. The video is quite informative and encouraging; even though there is a little poetic license taken with the story and the technical description. Though I work for B&W mPower, […]
Atomicrod visits Dot Net Rocks to chat with Carl and Richard
On January 18, I joined Carl and Richard, the hosts of Dot Net Rocks, for an hour long conversation about nuclear energy. We spanned a number of topics including current light water reactors, breeder reactors, accidents, safety records, SL-1, NR-1, Mars Rover, pebble beds, IFR, and traveling wave reactors. Please go visit and listen. http://dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=844
