Episode 22 of RadioNuclear is now available. In this episode, we discuss the recent miniseries "Chernobyl", which recently concluded on HBO. We debunk some of the more egregious articles written in the wake of the show (see links to these articles below). We also discuss good ways to engage with individuals who are captivated with the show, and not necessarily familiar with nuclear technology.

Several news items have come in this week which have one common theme - nuclear energy operation on the water.

During March's Women's History Month, I honor Leona Woods by telling #herstory.

Founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers in 1951, Engineers Week (EWeek), is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing interest in engineering and technology careers. This year, consider bringing an engineer into your plans.

Two bipartisan pieces of legislation modernizing America's nuclear future have recently become law. It's still a long way from pushing nuclear builds the way we need to address a host of environmental issues, but it is a good start.

ANS member Dr. Christopher Morrison was a recent guest on The Space Show. Dr. Morrison covered space radiation, lifetime radiation limitations, legal limits, rodent GCR and radiation experimentation, terrestrial radiation simulations, space nuclear power & propulsion, super-cooling conductivity.

A political seismic shift occurred this week - and I am not talking about the mid-term election.  The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a report Thursday acknowledging nuclear power's important role in reducing carbon emissions.

This week is National Nuclear Science Week - an exciting week of learning, teaching and interacting on all things nuclear-related.  (You can read about the history of National Nuclear Science Week, or NNSW, by following this link.)

On Episode 12 of RadioNuclear, we discuss how fear-mongering stories about nuclear power plants in the path of a hurricane are irrelevant, the Oyster Creek Shutdown, and lastly, how nuclear power should be used geopolitically.

Clinton Power Station, courtesy Exelon Nuclear

Yesterday, June 2, 2016, may have marked a watershed moment in the present day history of nuclear power plants in the United States, when two nuclear plants were selected by their owner for shutdown far in advance of their license expiration dates for economic reasons. The fast-moving pace of plants being shut down under similar economic circumstances (unbalanced energy markets that favor other forms of energy to the detriment of nuclear) signals a broken system that must be changed, now.

Taishan EPR under construction; courtesy CGN

•Written on location at the ANS Winter Meeting by Will Davis

With cap-and-trade and carbon tax proposals going nowhere in congress, the Obama administration is tackling the global warming issue through the administrative branch, using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations. In the transport sector, the administration promulgated vehicle fuel efficiency (mileage) standards. In the power sector, the EPA has proposed regulations requiring that all new power plants emit no more CO₂ than a typical natural gas plant-thus, any new coal plants would have to employ CO₂ sequestration. And now, the EPA is proposing to address CO₂ emissions from existing power plants by establishing CO₂ emissions reduction requirements for the power sector.

In the 1960s, visions for nuclear power were hopeful and plentiful; nuclear plants of all sorts imaginable* were under consideration and under construction in areas both urban and remote, while future plans portrayed an enormous nuclear plant build-out with a complete fuel cycle that included fuel recycling and breeder reactors.

The 187th Carnival of Nuclear Energy is here - the weekly compilation of the best of the internet's pro-nuclear authors and bloggers.  This time-honored feature appears on a rotating variety of the top English-language pro-nuclear blogs every weekend, and is a great way for readers of any persuasion or approach to find out what the people who write about nuclear energy all the time think are the most important or most resonant issues for that week.  With that, here are this week's entries!

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

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.

We don't really know how much trouble we are in with global warming, but if it continues, experts tell us to expect flooding in coastal areas, intense storms, droughts, regional food and water shortages, mass migrations, and social upheaval. There is probably a tipping point, the point at which anthropogenic global warming becomes irreversible, so there is an urgency to developing safe, clean, cheap energy. Scientists and engineers are in a race to find a solution.

James Hansen, former head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, earlier this year co-authored a study that conservatively estimated that nuclear power has saved 1.8 million lives since 1971 that otherwise would have been lost due to fossil fuel pollution and associated causes. For more information, see this post at Scientific American blogs-and this previous ANS nuclear matinée.

In 1970, Robert O. Anderson gave David Brower $200,000 as seed money to form the virulent antinuclear group that calls itself Friends of the Earth. I learned that important piece of information while reading a book by F. William Engdahl titled A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. Here is the passage that opened my eyes: