The 7th Carnival of Nuclear Energy with more Blasts from the Past

First a word of thanks to Jason Ribeiro of Pro-Nuclear Democrat, who created the new Nuclear Green Banner. Jason recently set out to tell us how to improve our narrative of the nuclear power story in "Stories not Data. Can Nuclear Learn Something from the Invisible Gorilla?"

A true horror show, The Movie Gasland, and a PBS Interview with Gasland Director Josh Fox caught Jason's attention. Gasland focuses on the effects of hydraulic fracturing of shale rock formations as a natural gas production method. Fox has done an admirable job of exposing the natural gas clean energy myth.

Kirk Sorenson is one of the Senior Nuclear Bloggers on the internet and an authority on LFTR/MSR technology. Kirk is both an Aero-space and a Nuclear Engineer, and he usually lays out the facts, but he is hip enough to have been featured in a story on Wired Magazine. Kirk has offered us a couple of interesting posts on fission products and spent nuclear fuel this week. The first is titled, What’s in Spent Nuclear Fuel? (after 20 yrs), and features a discussion of various actinides and fission products produced by the nuclear process. in Picture of Neutron Poisons Kirk introduces a hall of mirrors in which neutron poison xenon-135 whose wide neutron cross section gave fits to the designers of first generation reactors is revealed for the first time to be the enormously bloated neutron grabber it really is.

Meredith Angwin alway has a big and lively tent at Vermont Yankee. This week he offers us her death defying tritium drinking act in Canadian Tritium Study and What Does It Mean for Vermont Yankee. In addition Meredith offers us a guest post by Guy Page, Renewables and Vermont. Guy is a decided kill joy at our carnival, because he is trying to expose the joke, that the renewable freaks are trying to play on the good people of Vermont.

Pro-Nuclear Bloggers have participated in two lively debates on the Energy Collective this week. The first deals with a freak show post, titled The Jevons Paradox: Time to Send it The Way of the Dodo? The topic relates to Amory Lovins argument that energy efficiency can serve as a substitute for nuclear power in the 21st century. Numerous critics have accused Lovins of ignoring a well known economics theory, Jevons' Paradox. The EC post claims that Jevons Paradox is out of date, but pro-nuclear bloggers including yours truly find big flaws in the argument. The most interesting thing about the debate is that it marks the comming out as a pro-nuclear blogger, of Jesse Jenkins, a well known energy and environment writer. Welcome on board Jesse.

The second EC debate was triggered by a post by Dan Yurman, How to open running room for small reactors. Dan discusses regulatory changes that will facilitate the development of small reactors. Michael Keller casts a skeptical eye on the small reactor concept, and irrpresible nuclear critic Stephen Gloor piles on.

Dan also offers us us an account of the ARC-100 small reactor project. The ARC-100 is actually a Generation IV sodium cooled fast reactor. The ARC-100 is based on decades old EBR-II reactor technology, which increases its likelihood of success.

"Uvdiv" over at Capacity Factor offers something of a follow up to Dan's post.

Over at NEI Nuclear Notes, Mark Flanagan highlights an important political race for nuclear energy in Nevada. Will Senator Harry Reid be able to hold on to his position, thereby making sure Yucca Mountain never happens? Or will Sharron Angle be able to defeat the long-time incumbent and disrupt the Senate leadership? Too early to tell but make sure to stop to see the discussion.”

Nuclear Fusion is either touted the next big thing in energy, or as living somewhere on an ever reseeding horizon that is 50 years in the future. One thing is certain, if nuclear fusion ever becomes a practical option, Brian Wang will be the first to tell us about it. Brian recently described for us a patent granted Tri-Alpha Energy for a field reversed configuration system.

Brian also discussed prospects for a near term increase in uranium production. Kazakhstan is likely to see an increase in uranium production, but a 40% increase in taxes on mine profits, is likely to block a proposed expantion of Australia's huge Olympic Dam Uranium mine. Finally Brian reports on a proposed 16 GW buildout of nuclear power in Vietnam by 2030.

So far in our carnival we have seen serious people doing serious work, but what about fun? Dr. Buzzo of Depleted Cranium offers a look at the handy work of the European Union Renewable Energy Clown College, in The Realities of Sahara Solar Power. The clown have proposed for laughs that Europe generate electricity in the Sahara Desert of North Africa, and transmit it to Europe via a an undersea cable. This is a very bad Idea, Dr Buzzo tells us.

Barry Brook has been offering us a multi-part series titled "Take Real Action on Climate Change." Part 1, which served as an introduction went up on June 21. Barry added Part 2, The FAQ today.

The Sovietologist is back from his death defying trip to Chernobyl, and in Chernobyl Exclusion Zone tells us,

the overall radiation hazard in the vast majority of the zone is nothing to get worked up about, in my view.

Yours truly has decided to offer a plan for Global Nuclear Deployment by 2050. So far I have drafted sections on nuclear safety, and the nuclear fuel supply, and an appendix on the Indian Nuclear system.

Finally journalist Steve Hedges has opened up a Dredge Report type Internet site and blog, devoted to nuclear energy. Steve's site is called Nuclear Townhall. Nuclear Townhall has also announced a debate of the Week, Should Atlas Shrug? The debate focuses on the question of whether or not The Vermont Yankee and Oyster Creek Nuclear Plants should be shut down.

Blasts from the Past

Blogger NNadir has shutdown his great Daily Kos blog act after several years. But that blog's archive still up on Daily Kos, and what a treat it is. Nuclear Green reviewed that archive this week, in order to familiarize its readers with NNadir's truly remarkable contributions.

Jim Holm is not exactly a blogger, but he has a great act at coal2nuclear.com, and is having a great deal of influence on thinking about the future siting of nuclear power plants. Jim's basic idea is to recycle old coal fired electrical generating plants and use as much of the left over equiptment and facilities. A lot of people, including (I have been told) Babcock & Wilcox seem to like the idea. LFTR and IFR advocates like the idea, and it is quite likely we are going to see small reactors popping up at old steam fired generating facilities in a decade or so.

Our final blast comes from professor Bernard L. Cohen, a famous university of Pittsberg Health Physicist, who investigated the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident. Dr. Cohen has placed the entire text of his book, The Nuclear Energy Option online, and it is a great resource to the community that supports nuclear energy and for exposing anti-nuclear freak shows.