ANS Nuclear Cafe

Previous articles in this series were published on November 8 and November 14; this is the third and final installment of the series, which concludes just prior to the 60th anniversary of President Eisenhower's famous "Atoms for Peace" speech.  That speech, whose official title was "Atomic Power for Peace," was delivered to the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 8, 1953 and its ramifications for the future of civil nuclear energy the world over were immense.

Since Entergy announced that it would close Vermont Yankee, I have been thinking about advice for nuclear plants going forward.  I mean, they haven't asked me for my advice, but what the heck.  I have lots of opinions, and 20-20 hindsight.

A United States appellate court recently handed down two long-awaited rulings with respect to Yucca Mountain. As most observers expected, both decisions were decidedly in nuclear's favor.

The 185th Carnival of Nuclear Energy has been posted at Atomic Power Review.  You can click here to see this latest installment of a long-running tradition among the top pro-nuclear bloggers and authors.

Conventional wisdom says that the general public was introduced to atomic energy by the explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. According to that version of history, the introduction instilled a strong dose of fear that remains to be overcome.

The 184th Carnival of Nuclear Energy has been posted at The Hiroshima Syndrome.  You can click here to access this latest edition of a long-running tradition among the world's top English-language pro-nuclear authors and bloggers.

News out of Fukushima-Daiichi this week is encouraging:  TEPCO successfully transferred the first batch of fuel rod assemblies from the reactor unit No. 4 spent fuel pool to a common fuel pool building offering longer-term stable storage conditions. Completing the process for the more than 1,000 fuel rod assemblies that remain at No. 4 is projected to take a year, and will be a first major step toward decommissioning of the site.

On October 23, The Oregonian newspaper ran an op-ed by Leslie March of the Sierra Club Nuclear-Free Campaign that questioned the independence of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Paul Lorenzini, co-founder of Oregon-based NuScale Power, submitted a rebuttal based on his many years of experience with regulators worldwide.

By Rita Patel and Suzy Baker  [originally published at Nuclear Undone]

It's time for the 183rd Carnival of Nuclear Energy - the weekly rotating feature that brings you the best pro-nuclear authors and bloggers, and their viewpoints on what matters in the fields of nuclear energy and nuclear technology.

NS Savannah

An odd sidelight of my years in the Navy as a Reactor Operator was the time that we were called upon to perform work on the preserved ships at Patriot's Point Naval Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.  This interlude allowed me to become intimately familiar with a ship that was totally out of place at that anchorage of the aged: the nuclear powered commercial ship N.S. Savannah.

Lenka Kollar

Readers of the ANS Nuclear Cafe blog will have seen, from time to time, the work of Lenka Kollar, educating and informing about a wide variety of nuclear issues.  Kollar, formerly of Argonne National Laboratory, has made the bold decision to make her own way as a nuclear advocate and consultant. We had a chance to catch up with Ms. Kollar during the 2013 American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C. and ask her a few questions about her just-launched and exciting new initiative Nuclear Undone.

Small Modular Reactors are below 300 MWe output and typically have all components located within the reactor vessel or attached directly to it, as with the South Korean SMART SMR design here

2nd American Nuclear Society SMR Conference

Moniz on Nuclear

The ANS President's Reception at the 2013 Winter Meeting on Sunday, November 10 was a chance for old friends to reunite and new friends to meet with their colleagues and ANS elected leaders.

NS Savannah

Next week, the American Nuclear Society (ANS) will be hosting a Technical Tour of the only nuclear powered commercial vessel ever built in the United States: the NS Savannah.  Will Davis and Paul Bowersox will report from the tour in word and photos. 

This graphic compares the energy density of nuclear to that of wind power.

Join the conversation today and especially during the premiere, on twitter at #pandoraspromise

The American Nuclear Society's Operations and Power Division will host the 2^nd ANS Small Modular Reactor Conference during the ANS Winter Meeting on November 12-14, 2013, in Washington, DC.  The Opening Plenary for the Conference will begin on Tuesday, November 12, at 8:00 a.m. at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

From October 30 through November 1, 2013, a group of about 150 people with questioning attitudes about small, modular reactors (SMRs) met in Idaho Falls, Idaho.  They were treated to a number of presentations that described the technical progress that has been made so far and also provided a realistic, sobering look at the long, challenging development path that must be traversed to allow the technology to begin contributing to the world's energy security.