ANS Nuclear Cafe

There is a good reason for American nuclear energy professionals to learn more about the dynamics of the natural gas market. We have been told numerous times that cheap natural gas is making our technology less and less viable in the competitive market place. Natural gas (also known as methane) is a terrific product, but it has been promoted as being capable of supplying a much larger portion of our overall energy demand. That promotional effort is putting us all at risk of a severe hangover when the low price bubble bursts.

The 176th Carnival of Nuclear Energy is now posted at The Hiroshima Syndrome.  You can click here to access this latest edition of a long-running tradition among the world's English language pro-nuclear bloggers and authors.

Yes, of course... in super slo-mo.  Today's Nuclear Matinee features videos of a recent test conducted to simulate an aircraft crash on a HI-STAR 180 spent nuclear fuel transport cask, a product of Holtec International that is completing rigorous certification for the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate.

Fukushima Daiichi Units 5 (left) and 6 (right) seen in October 2012 behind the newly completed breakwall.

Earlier this month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe conducted a visit to Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station to examine conditions at the site and to gauge TEPCO's response to numerous ongoing problems. When Abe spoke to reporters after the visit, he mentioned (for reasons still unknown) that he had suggested to TEPCO that it decommission Unit 5 and Unit 6 on the site, so that it could focus its efforts squarely on the work required to recover from the nuclear accidents at Units 1, 2, and 3. This was reported with some surprise in many quarters.

Last week Dan Kahan, Harvard professor and member of the highly important Cultural Cognition Project, released his latest research about how scientific evidence impacts opinions. It was published under dim headlines such as Scientists' depressing new discovery about the brain and elicited equally defeated sounding tweets and Facebook posts from science communicators all over the globe.

Two events sponsored by the Young Members Group (YMG) bookend the American Nuclear Society's Winter Meeting, and are traditional highlights for many ANS members. Now that details for participating have been announced, you may find that attending these opportunities are well worth extending your trip-but you'll have to be prepared!

The 175th Carnival of Nuclear Energy has been posted at Deregulate the Atom.  You can click here to access the latest edition of a long-running tradition among pro-nuclear bloggers and authors.

Years ago, filmmaker Robert Stone helped Michael Moore make his very first movie (Roger & Me). Here, Stone and Moore discuss the pro-nuclear energy documentary Pandora's Promise, directed by Stone and featured this summer at Moore's Traverse City Film Festival.

Most of you are well aware that Entergy recently announced it will permanently close its Vermont Yankee (VY) nuclear plant. The primary reasons given were continued low natural gas prices, the cost of post-Fukushima upgrades, and "flaws" in the local wholesale electricity market that suppress prices and harm the profitability of baseload facilities like VY. VY was close to breaking even this year, as well as the last few years, but was projected to become unprofitable in the future-over the next few years, anyway.

From July 7 -12, 16 students from around the country came to Washington DC to talk with politicians and policymakers about nuclear engineering education funding, energy policy, and other nuclear issues as part of the 2013 Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation (NESD). This year the delegation was comprised of students with especially diverse backgrounds, including nuclear engineering, chemical engineering, materials science, and nuclear safeguards policy. The chair of the delegation was Matthew Gidden, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying nuclear engineering and energy policy. He was assisted by two co-vice chairs: Mark Reed of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nicholas Thompson of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The September 2013 edition of the technical journal Nuclear Technology is available electronically and in hard copy for American Nuclear Society member subscribers and others.

The September 2013 edition of the technical journal Fusion Science and Technology is available electronically and in hard copy for American Nuclear Society member subscribers and others.

On September 12, 1933, slightly more than 80 years ago, Leo Szilard was the first person to imagine a reasonable mechanism for releasing the vast quantities of energy known to be stored in atomic nuclei. As it turned out, his concept worked the first time it was tried on December 2, 1942.

The 174th Carnival of Nuclear Energy has been posted at Next Big Future.  You can click here to access this latest version of a long running tradition among the top pro-nuclear bloggers and authors.

The ANS Nuclear Cafe Matinee today visits the Switch Energy Project and its impressive array of interviews with world-class energy experts.

Benoit Forget, associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was honored with the 2013 ANS Landis Young Member Engineering Achievement Award. The award recognizes outstanding achievement for effectively applying engineering knowledge to yield a new principle, concept, design, safety improvement, method of analysis, or product used in the nuclear energy enterprise.

On August 27, Entergy announced that it plans to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in the fall of 2014, when the plant's current fuel is depleted. Entergy plans to decommission the plant using the SAFSTOR option, which consists of defueling, mothballing the plant for a period, then dismantling it by the end of 60 years. Entergy said that it is closing the plant because it is no longer projected to make money, considering the estimated future natural gas prices. Electric power generated by gas is now over 50 percent of the ISO-New England grid.

Hoffman

In August, the American Nuclear Society conducted a simple 4-question poll on climate change policy. I commissioned this short poll to establish a baseline understanding of our members' views on the general issue and possible policy actions that ANS should consider. The results are in and it is clear that members are ready for ANS to participate in this important policy discussion.

The 173rd Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers is up right now in the Fukushima Commentary section of Leslie Corrice's site "The Hiroshima Syndrome."  You can click here to access this latest edition.

At the birthplace of nuclear energy, one man dares to answer all questions nuclear - Dr. Dave Grabaskas of Argonne National Laboratory.