May
22
An End to a Bad Nuclear Era In America in Sight
May 22, 2012 | 1 Comment
There was a brief sense of relief when news reports had it Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Gregory Jaczko is resigning, only to be cancelled rudely with a snide, cute and dishonorable exception – the resignation is conditioned on confirmation of his successor. In the last months of a presidential term, and a president that [...]
May
2
There’s A Lot of New Uranium Resources
May 2, 2012 | 2 Comments
The Athabasca basin of Canada hosts some of the world’s largest and highest-grade uranium mines of similar aged rocks. Last week Fission Energy Corp. and its 50% joint venture partner ESO Uranium reported a significant anomalous radioactivity was encountered in the final hole of the companies’ Patterson Lake South property exploration program. The Fission exploration [...]
Apr
3
Nuclear Waste Has New Best Friends
April 3, 2012 | 6 Comments
Make that consumers and power companies as well, because these MIT PhD candidates have engineered a way to eliminate waste uranium based fuel by making electricity. Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie who are nuclear engineering PhD students at MIT, started working their idea called “Transatomic Power” back in 2010, and formed a corporation with the [...]
Feb
1
New Answers to the Downside of Nuclear Energy
February 1, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Nuclear energy production as practiced since the cold war days leaves a lot of nasty, radioactive products behind. In the U.S. where regulatory leadership seeks to dismember the industry, discontinued efforts to recover and reuse worthwhile fuel, and has closed down the multi decade effort for a safe repository while no perceptible or credible effort [...]
Dec
14
Hope Glimmers For US Nuclear Power
December 14, 2011 | 3 Comments
New studies from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) conclude that small modular reactors may hold the key to the future of U.S. nuclear power generation. The reports assess the economic feasibility of classical, gigawatt-scale reactors and the possible new generation of modular reactors. The smaller modular reactors as considered would [...]
Dec
1
Competition for Plutonium
December 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment
It’s with a grave sense of relief that the news reported by the Guardian in the UK has a competitive atmosphere underway for disposing of plutonium in used reactor fuel. The UK government is in the midst of an opportunity. They have choices for the plutonium that doesn’t include building more nuclear weapons. One choice [...]
Nov
4
Thorium Fueled Nuclear Plant to be Built
November 4, 2011 | 5 Comments
The Guardian in the UK is reporting that India has started the process of building the world’s newest thorium fueled prototype nuclear power plant. As prototypes go, this is a big one with a proposed rating at 300MW or about 30% of a customary 1GW uranium fueled station. This commitment deserves congratulations. Finally thorium has [...]
Oct
5
The US Nuclear Power Problem Pinpointed
October 5, 2011 | 2 Comments
Finally, the US Department of Energy’s First Quadrennial Technology Review, released last week, identifies Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing as the technology’s primary obstacle. It would seem obvious to most anyone that better new designs and applying experience would offer a safer, cheaper and more efficient production of nuclear power. It just isn’t so in the [...]
Feedburner
Reddit
Stumbleupon
