plutonium

nuclear energy at EBR-I

Don Miley, Tour Guide at Idaho National Laboratory, takes viewers on a trip to the Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I). EBR-I paved the path for nuclear energy.[read more]

Photo by Pete Souza/The White House.

When it comes to nuclear energy, Dr. Burton Richter is Mr. Credible. Winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize for discovering a new sub-atomic particle, Richter has advised presidents and policymakers for almost 40 years. We interviewed Richter recently to get his opinion on next generation nuclear reactors, and why so many of them are being developed abroad and not by the Department of Energy in the United States.[read more]

Plutonium via Shutterstock

One of the biggest threats to the continued wealth and power held by the global fossil fuel industry is a “plutonium economy” fueled by abundant resources of uranium that can be converted into fissile plutonium in a breeder reactor. (Yes, I know that a thorium economy is just as big of a threat to the dominant position of fossil fuels,...[read more]

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has proposed to the U.K. government to build an advanced nuclear reactor that would consume the country’s stockpile of surplus plutonium.The technology is called PRISM, which stands for Power Reactor Innovative Small Module. If accepted, it would be very different than the other proposals to process...[read more]

In the first part of this essay, I reviewed the almost inevitable rise of China and India to great power status. I pointed out that by 2050, current expectations are that by 2050, China and India will be ranked along with the United States as great powers of the first order. I noted that both China and India are committed to the...[read more]

Guest blog post by Jacques Besnainou, CEO, Areva, Inc I am writing this essay today as a frustrated and fed up reader of nuclear-related stories originated by anti-nuclear organizations. While most recent reporting on the Fukushima reactors has been fair, some quite admirable, the coverage of MOX (mixed oxide) nuclear fuel has been...[read more]

In a new paper, Mark Z. Jaconson rejects consideration of nuclear power technology as a post carbon energy source:we do not consider nuclear energy (conventional fission, breeder reactors, or fusion) as a long-term global energy source. First, the growth of nuclear energy has historically increased the ability of nations to obtain or...[read more]

Discussions of nuclear proliferation are tainted by some fundamental problems. Some academic "nuclear proliferation experts" appear to be unable to distinguish between nuclear weapons and nuclear devices. There are important differences. A nuclear weapon is deliverable by military means. That is it is possible to place a nuclear...[read more]

Outreach effort ramping up from impulse power to warp drive Note to public relations consultants to major nuclear reactor vendors, Areva, the world’s largest integrated firm across the entire nuclear fuel cycle, thinks the blogsphere is worth its time in terms of dialog.  The French nuclear giant has an initiative underway in which...[read more]

It has often been said that declining aristocracies spend all their time reliving the glories of the past. I can think of no better example than American environmentalism's obsession that abstaining from nuclear power in this country will prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world.Get into a debate with any anti-...[read more]

It makes no sense to throw away 95% of the energy value in spent fuel A leading scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory asserts the U.S. "must get back in the game" of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.  Terry Todd, Director of the Fuel Cycle Division, told a meeting of the Idaho Section of the American Nuclear Society on May...[read more]