Snow day

Your reporter has been tramping around chilly Washington, DC, beset by an unseasonable early snow storm on Saturday. At the American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting, aptly named this year, I'm collecting observations, rumors, and raw random data, throwing out the rumors and keeping the rest to post here. This will be a daily feature through Wednesday of this week.

Just a reminder that the September/October issue of Radwaste Solutions is available in hard copy and electronically for American Nuclear Society members (must enter ANS user name and password in Member Center). The issue is devoted to environmental remediation, and contains the following feature articles:

A collaborative effort between the American Nuclear Society and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission resulted in a successful 90-minute webinar on nuclear safety issues on October 4.

Without much going on recently that hasn't been covered by other blog posts, I'd like to explore a topic not specifically tied to nuclear power or to activities currently going on in Washington, D.C. It involves an idea I have about a possible alternative means of having the electricity market account for the public health and environmental costs of various energy sources, and encouraging the development and use of cleaner sources (including nuclear) without requiring legislation. Given the failure of Congress to take action on global warming, as well as environmental issues in general, non-legislative approaches to accomplishing environmental goals may be necessary.

The September issue of Nuclear News is available in hard copy and electronically for American Nuclear Society members (must enter ANS user name and password in Member Center). The issue contains a variety of features, including:

Next stop, federal court!

ANS President Eric Loewen sends letter to Chairman Jaczko and NRC commissioners to stress the importance and obligation to complete licensing application

The August issue of Nuclear News is available in hard copy and electronically for American Nuclear Society members (click here-log-in required).

Help comes from positive news for getting nuclear energy out of its defensive corner

On May 13, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future released its draft conclusions and recommendations. Despite its more general sounding title, the commission's work mostly concerned the nuclear waste issue. It was created by President Obama's administration primarily to investigate alternatives to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, after the administration moved to shut that program down. While the commission did release some recommendations on other issues such as advanced reactors and Fukishima, this post will focus on its recommendations concerning nuclear waste policy.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on March 22, 2011, for the lawsuit brought by three private citizens of Washington State challenging the president's authority to cancel the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

The court will decide Yucca Mountain's future, not the president

President Obama has declared "a bold but achievable goal of generating 80 percent of America's electricity from clean sources by 2035." How we are to get there is not spelled out, so there is room for speculation about just what the administration has in mind.

The Obama administration, and the Department of Energy, recently released their fiscal year 2012 budget request for nuclear related programs. The budget request is pretty favorable to nuclear, given the current pressure in Washington to cut spending.

The fuel cycle is a frequent topic in the nuclear blogsphere

This is the 40th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs. The carnival  features blog posts from the leading U.S. nuclear bloggers and is a roundup of featured content from them.

Happy Groundhog Day! This doesn't actually count as a holiday, but at the very least it is the one day each year that every American can devote to the contemplation of quantum physics. Can there be any bigger fun than that?

The January issue of Nuclear News has been published and mailed to American Nuclear Society members, and is available electronically to members. The issue contains a special section on education, training, and workforce issues. Features include:

This is the weekly Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers with contributions from the leading pro-nuclear blogs in North America.

Financing may dry up if nations don't act soon