It's that end-of-semester time of year, and that means it's time to showcase this year's Texas Atomic Film Festival!  Each year engineering students at UT-Austin communicate some rather difficult and technical nuclear concepts - and blow off some steam in a time of term papers and final exams - via the wondrous medium of the silver screen.

Shortly after 11 a.m. on Tuesday, May 7, 2013, the operators at Dominion Resources' Kewaunee nuclear power plant opened its output breaker, disconnecting the turbine generator from the grid for the last time after just under 40 years of operation. Shutdown of the reactor followed, and the plant entered what for some is an uncertain (even if pre-ordained) future-a long-term storage period, followed eventually after many years by the complete dismantling and removal of the plant.

Last week two leaders in business and politics spoke out about an issue that I care very much about: gender equality.

Dr. Peter Sandman is a communication specialist who has built a career teaching people in high-value, complex industries ways to do a better job of telling their story to customers, stakeholders, and the public. One of his key contributions to the field of risk communications that is especially important to nuclear professionals is a redefinition of the word "risk".

The 155th Carnival of Nuclear Energy is up right now at Next Big Future.  You can click here to access this latest edition of a long-running and very popular pro-nuclear feature.

A group of IBM researchers have created the world's smallest movie - starring 130 atoms (well, the oxygen atoms of carbon monoxide molecules).  An atomic-scale must-see!

A few days ago, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public meeting to discuss its yearly assessment of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The assessment results were excellent (all green).

The American Nuclear Society's Center for Nuclear Science and Technology Information and the ANS Outreach Department will sponsor a full-day teacher workshop on Saturday, June 15, in Atlanta, Georgia. The workshop-Detecting Radiation in Our Radioactive World-is for science educators, including elementary, biology, chemistry, earth science, physics, physical science, life science, environmental, and general science teachers. The workshop will be held the day before the beginning of the ANS Annual Meeting in Atlanta.

The May 2013 edition of the research journal Nuclear Science and Engineering is available both electronically and in hard copy for American Nuclear Society member subscribers and others.

The 154th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers is available now at Atomic Power Review.  Click here to access this latest edition.

With Unit 6 returning from a planned maintenance outage earlier this week, all 8 reactors at the world's largest nuclear electrical generating station are now online, generating emission-free electricity from the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario, Canada ("Full Power at the Bruce").

In my previous article on the history of nuclear pulse propulsion, I outlined three research programs in nuclear propulsion systems for space travel.  The first of these, Project Orion, was investigated in the 1950s and 1960s as a very serious and practical option for space travel.  Its only limiting factor was the signing of the International Test Ban Treaty in 1963 that barred the detonation of nuclear weapons in space.

Groups such as the ANS Young Members Group and the North American Young Generation in Nuclear, which empower a new generation of nuclear students and professionals, were recently joined by a small new sister organization, the WMS Next Generation Leadership Committee. The new organization was born during an informal meeting in February between organization leaders and young participants at the Waste Management Conference (presented by Waste Management Symposia [WMS] in Phoenix, Arizona).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just released a draft Protective Action Guideline (PAG) that sets standards and makes recommendations for the response to a large release of radioactive material into the environment (e.g., from a nuclear plant accident or a dirty bomb attack, etc.). The draft report is now out for public comments (which are due by July 15).

The ANS Nuclear Cafe is proud to host the 153rd edition of the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers today, April 22, as another Earth Day is celebrated focusing on our stewardship of the environment.

This week's announcement by Babcock & Wilcox that it had signed the long-awaited funding agreement with the Department of Energy has been taken by advocates of small modular reactors (SMRs) as just the latest good news on the inevitable path to construction of at least one prototype nuclear plant using SMR reactor technology in the United States. It is widely hoped that this is the harbinger of the rapid spread of the market for SMR plants.

What marriage can teach us about the nuclear waste problem

The 152nd Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers is available now at "The Hiroshima Syndrome."  You can click here to see this latest edition, which contains a varied array of topics and authors sure to provide something of interest for everyone.

NASA scientist Dr. Pushker Kharecha and Dr. James Hansen (the leading climate scientist in the US) recently authored a study which conservatively estimates nuclear power has saved 1.8 million lives, which otherwise would have been lost due to fossil fuel pollution and associated causes, since 1971.

The April issue of Nuclear News magazine is available in hard copy and electronically (click 'ANS Members' or 'Subscribers' in left column for full issue). This issue features a special section "Outage Management" with these feature articles: