Now that more comprehensive climate change policies such as cap-and-trade are on indefinite hold, the U.S. Congress is considering a national Renewable Energy Standard (RES) in an effort to do something on energy issues. The RES would require that 15 percent of all U.S. electrical generation be provided by "renewable" sources by 2020. Currently, the definition of "renewable energy" does not include nuclear. Similar policies are already in place in many states, such as California.

Export Control Reform

Clearly, our attempts to generate greater understanding of energy challenges exclude no member of the public. Young and old, Democrat and Republican, male and female-all must be the aim of public information about U.S. energy policy in general and nuclear energy in particular. Years of industry surveys, however, have quantified the large gender divide on acceptance of nuclear energy. For example, a survey last year by Ipsos Public Affairs showed that 54 percent of men support a stronger role for nuclear energy in the next few decades, while women's support was only 32 percent.

Notes & Updates from the ANS Professional Divisions

The Election Campaign

This is the weekly "best of" nuclear energy blogs. We hope you enjoy it.

Financing may dry up if nations don't act soon

My generation has been labeled Generation X, or maybe Y, I'm not sure. I don't even know what those labels mean. I think of us as individuals coming of age in the Information Age. We have been exposed to more information than any generation before and have been made all too aware of the problems facing our planet from a very early age.

Gail Marcus's new book, Nuclear Firsts: Milestones on the Road to Nuclear Power Development, is now available by visiting the online ANS Store.

Nuclear loan guarantees and the "credit subsidy cost"

The 21th Carnival of Nuclear Energy blogs is up at Next Big Future.  It is a roundup of featured content from the nation's pro-nuclear blogs.

If there's one lesson to be learned from recent elections, it's simply this:  every vote counts. Critical elections on the local, state, and even national levels can be won or lost over a very few votes.  The 2010 elections are already underway, and it's important that nuclear professionals do all that you can to participate and make your voice heard.

Years ago, a newspaper columnist intrigued me with a statement that science cannot tell us anything about real people. To the columnist, science could talk only about "average people," which exist only in the imagination of the speaker. The scientifically average American, for example, has one testicle and one breast, 2.3 kids, and 0.6 dogs. Most of us don't know anyone like that.

Look for the Department of Energy to keep on heavily promoting university-driven nuclear energy research and development projects for as long as Warren "Pete" Miller is assistant secretary for Nuclear Energy. Miller, an ANS member, has taken "a personal interest in the success" of the DOE's new Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) initiative, according to Mary McCune, NEUP's lead program manager.

ANS sponsors or cosponsors the following upcoming meetings:

Announcing the Energy Education Project

The 20th Carnival of Nuclear Energy blogs is up at Idaho Samizdat  It is a roundup of featured content from the nation's pro-nuclear blogs.

It is sometimes a little hard for me to believe, but I have been involved in nuclear engineering education for more than 16 years. For many of those years, I was a student, climbing my way up to achieve a doctorate in nuclear engineering. Now I am an educator, which in many ways is just a different kind of student.

The September/October issue of Radwaste Solutions will soon be available electronically to ANS members. This issue includes the following three feature articles on environmental remediation: