Margaret Harding, Kelly Taylor, John Wheeler from This Week in Nuclear, Dan Yurman from Idaho Samizdat and I talked for about an hour about our cautious optimism. The optimism is hard to overcome; the caution comes from the understanding that there is a lot of hard work left to do.

Between us, we have more than 100 years of professional experience with the technology; none of us believe that it is easy or “cheap”. We do believe that it is far better than all other competitors and that it is less expensive – if done correctly – than any other alternative when all costs are considered.

We also talked about the potential of smaller nuclear power plants to overcome some of the well known limitations of the “extra-large” plants that some utility companies and established nuclear plant vendors believe are the only way to make the technology “economical”. That view is a fallacy, perhaps engendered by the fact that large companies have to do large things in order to move the needle. They like instilling the belief that only large organizations can move forward with nuclear energy – even if they move with the agility of dinosaurs.

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.

On January 31, 2010, I gathered a large group of active bloggers and nuclear industry professionals to find out what they thought of the statement and its impact on the deployment of new nuclear power plants. My guests were:

• Kelly Taylor, a 24 year nuclear industry professional and frequent Atomic Show guest.
• Meredith Angwin, a physical chemist and small businessperson who has recently started publishing a blog titled Yes, Vermont Yankee.
• Charles Barton, who blogs at Nuclear Green and Energy from Thorium.
• David Bradish, a statistician and blogger at NEI Nuclear Notes.
• Dan Yurman, who blogs at Idaho Samidat, writes for Fuel Cycle Week and is the blogger with the highest readership at The Energy Collective.
• Robert Margolis, a 24 year nuclear engineer who has supported reactors on 3 continents and is currently working in Florida.

In addition to the State of the Union statement, we discussed the increase in the loan guarantee program, and the formation of the blue ribbon commission about used nuclear fuel policy.

We also spent quite a bit of time talking about Vermont Yankee and the incredibly tiny quantity of tritium that has people demanding a full investigation and possibly a plant shutdown because someone found 0.000000029 curies/liter of tritium, an amount that would have a mass of just 0.0000000000029 grams distributed in 1000 grams of water.

This is the largest panel yet invited to an Atomic Show, but I think that the guests did a fine job of taking turns and sharing information. It was a lot of fun to produce.

Your comments are always welcome.

“But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.”

They took the time out of their schedule to provide some details on the current state of the design of the Hyperion Power Module. We were able to delve into some significant detail on the fuel, the coolant system, the reactivity control system, the coolant temperatures, and the steam conditions. We talked a bit about the target markets, the licensing strategy, and the potential for a more instrumented prototype that will enable the company to demonstrate its safety and operating concepts.

This episode has a high geek factor warning, but I think that most of you will learn a lot and enjoy the experience. Your feedback is always welcome.

Topics discussed during our chat include the development of South Korea as a formidable competitor in the world power industry, the almost criminal decision to follow through on an old agreement to shut down the Ignalina nuclear plant in Lithuania, the use of a nuclear powered ship to provide clean water as part of its contribution to the Haiti earthquake relief effort, and some of the political maneuvering that is going on in relation to the President’s budget for fiscal year 2011.

In addition, we talked for a bit about the letter to Dr. John Holdren, the President’s Science Advisor. This letter, signed by a distinguished group of accomplished leaders, engineers and scientists describes the importance of nuclear energy as a tool for solving many of the world’s most pressing problems.

I made contact with Rick Turk, the engineering project manager for the effort to obtain a US Nuclear Regulatory Commission design certification for the Combustion Engineering System 80+, which is an ancestor of the current APR-1400. On December 29, 2009, Rick Turk, Dan Yurman and I chatted about the evolution of the APR-1400 and the way that South Korea has worked to develop its capacity as a nuclear power plant supplier capable of winning a competitively bid $20-40 billion project.

During the interview, Dr. Feltus mentioned a few web sites. Here are some of the links that will help you find what she was discussing.

News Release Dated November 17, 2009 – Advanced nuclear fuel sets global performance record

Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy

She also mentioned a “radar plot” of fuel attributes that is being used to brief and describe how the characteristics of the fuel compare to previous experience. The below graphic is what she was talking about.

I also thought that the below slide from her presentation would help you visualize some of the test systems and assembly devices that she described.

Lisa Stiles, Margaret Harding, John Wheeler and Dan Yurman together have nearly 100 years of experience in various aspects of nuclear technology and the nuclear power industry. Add in my 28+ years and you get a pretty experienced group sharing their impressions about one of the more positive and exciting ANS meetings for quite some time.

Watching the Nuclear Renaissance over the past half dozen years or so may have been about as exciting as watching grass grow. However, like growing grass, the natural progression of people recognizing that nuclear fission has serious advantages is happening steadily enough so that if you do not pay attention you will find that the process can overwhelm any attempts to mow it down.

During our conversation we talked about the technology opportunity that brings the group together. They have a vision for a world with abundant, emission free energy supplied by thorium reactors that fully fission a material that is not even in high commercial demand, leaving only relatively short lived fission products behind as a byproduct.

If you want to learn more about the meeting or about the Thorium Energy Alliance, please visit http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com

I caught up with him this morning while he was waiting to be able to check into his hotel in Rome.

As described in the lab’s press release and during our conversation, Sandia’s definition of “right sized” reactors fall into the thermal power output range of 100 to 300 MW, which would produce an electrical power output of about 30-150 MW depending on system thermal efficiency. The cores would be long lived breeders that create a sustaining quantity of new fuel as they operate.

The coolant would be sodium, the primary coolant configuration would be a pool, and the secondary heat engine would be a supercritical CO2 closed Brayton cycle gas turbine.

Tom believes that these systems can be made simple enough to operate in remote areas; they would have no need for refueling equipment, and no need to have any access to the fissile core materials. By making these systems appropriate for export markets, Tom realized that they will also be appropriate for a number of domestic customers, particularly those who have filled out weak spots in their grid configuration through the addition of moderate sized gas turbines.

Comments are welcome.

If you like having access to thoughtful shows like The Atomic Show, and wonder how it is possible to sustain such a service, please visit http://tpn.thepodcastnetwork.com and learn about the network’s patrons. You might even decide to become one yourself.

Additional reading about Sandia’s right sized reactors

• re505.com – Sandia To Work On “Right Sized” Reactors
• Next Big Future – Sandia Designing Factory Mass Producible Right Sized Reactor
• Ceramic Tech Today – Sandia Announces New Small Fission Reactor Design
• Nuclear Green – The Right Size Reactor and the Human Future

The conversation ranged from thorium, to uranium supplies, to chemistry versus engineering, to the history of Oak Ridge, to the unreality of energy solutions that require continuous cash transfers from the public to the developer.

For more information on the Thorium Energy Alliance Conference, visit http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com

We also had a bit of a discussion about my assertion that <a href=”http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2009/08/nuclear-energy-provides-on-demand-power.html”>nuclear energy is on demand power</a> that can be designed to supply people the power they need wherever they need it. There are several examples of how this has already been proven, we mention how reactors have been operated under the polar ice cap, on the Antarctica continent, under the ice sheet in Greenland, and even in earth orbit.

We discussed a recent Moody’s special report on companies considering new nuclear power plants – not very positive, TVA nuclear plans, small reactors, the DOE semi-decision on a loan guarantee for The American Centrifuge Project proposed by USEC, and Russian energy deals in Turkey.

The topics we discussed included the following:

• History of PBMR as a stand alone company
• Change in technical direction
• Customer focused design efforts
• Licensing challenges for unfamiliar nuclear technology
• Potential for process heat supply market
• Interest from petrochemical industry
• Interest from American company talking about unit volumes in the thousands
• PBMR as a national technical asset for South Africa

Hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. PBMR has a unique role in the nuclear industry and might be pointing the way to new sources of revenues and new customers that have never before considered using atomic fission as their heat source.

A couple of weeks ago, Michael had the opportunity to testify in front of a group of Senators on the topic of building new nuclear power plants in the US. He talks about that experience, what he has learned in the industry, the value of his experience as a Marine, and the value that he sees that nuclear energy can contribute to the world’s prosperity while at the same time leaving the world better for his children than it was when he arrived.

I really enjoyed talking with Michael and I hope you enjoy listening to the conversation. Warning – listening to this podcast can be hazardous to your current career satisfaction if you are NOT in the nuclear industry. (Grin)

Other topics discussed during our conversation include:
TMI regulation changes as good for nuclear industry
Engineers as businessmen
Alternative financing for emerging nuclear businesses
Making industry vibrant and respected
Early confusion over anti-nuclear movement, young and inexperienced in recognizing what was going on.
Straightforward guy, did not appreciate the tactics of the other side, engineers tend to be direct and do not try to work an angle
Anti-nuclear attitudes seem to be almost a religion, practitioners will not be convinced otherwise.
It is almost analogous to a conversion from one religion to another to get them to change their mind.
Ownership and passion versus religious fervor.
Story about his attendance at Sierra Club meeting one year after 9-11 – tactics of fear.

People at the table included:
John Wheeler – This Week In Nuclear
Kirk Sorensen – Energy from Thorium
Nick Touran – What is Nuclear?
Rod Adams – The Atomic Show and Atomic Insights
Jess Gehin – Oak Ridge National Laboratory – Nuclear Science and Technology Division

Note: Upon further reflection and discussion, we have decided to produce a new conversation based show at a different meal. This time we are going to try to ensure that Dan Yurman (Idaho Samizdat) will be there. We are targeting tomorrow evening for a better performance.

In Atomic America, Todd Tucker, a Notre Dame history major who spent five years in the US nuclear navy, explores that story in great detail and puts names and descriptions to the three operators on duty that night. He also explains clearly why that event was a one of a kind within the nuclear power programs of the military services and within the US nuclear power industry.

I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Warning – this podcast is the longest Atomic Show yet at about 105 minutes.

He asked a lot of good, probing questions with an open attitude. Topics include Adams Atomic Engines, Inc., small nuclear power plants, the nuclear renaissance, French nuclear power experiences, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, nuclear waste, hazards of other energy sources, my thoughts on large scale renewable energy systems, and the importance of understanding commercial energy competition.

During the interview I mentioned a local natural gas explosion that injured 8 firefighters and one employee of the Washington Gas Company. Here is a link to more information about that accident – which had more serious effects on the public health than the far more widely publicized Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident.

Explosion a good reminder there are no ‘routine’ calls

It is well known that much of the opposition to nuclear power in the US, Europe, and Australia comes from people who are normally considered to be on the political left. David Walters, a self confessed socialist and long time labor activist has a different point of view. He believes, like I do, that abundant, clean, reliable, atomic energy is a boon for the working class.

Power plants provide good, stable jobs, often at union wage scales. They enable a vibrant local economy and good public infrastructure based on the plant’s addition to the property tax base and the salaries of the workers that get spent in local establishments. They allow generational employment with opportunities for young people to keep living and working in the towns where they grow up if they want to.

Comments always welcome. Please visit The TPN Pledge Drive if you would like to support the network that allows this show to remain independent and not beholden to corporate views.

Here are some links to articles or podcasts discussed during the show.

Democracy Now! Thursday April 9, 2009 With High Unemployment, Carolinas Reel from Economic Crisis. This segment is the entire interview with Chris Kromm of the Institute for Southern Studies.

Atomic Insights – Hard to Believe Story About TMI.

We Support Lee – Al Gore, Sr., Alvin Weinberg, Climate, and Al Gore, Jr.

It is important to understand – the president’s call is for a world free from nuclear weapons, not a nuclear-free world. There is an important difference.

This episode of The Atomic Show is my first attempt at an enhanced podcast using chapter markers and trying to add a slide presentation. The constraints of the file format truncates the edges of the slides, but I think you will get the gist of what they are trying to show. Here is a link to the presentation in PDF format (warning – it is a 12.4 MB file), just in case you are interested in seeing the full size slides.

As always, feedback and constructive criticism is welcome. Of course, if you have something nasty to say, feel free to add that as well – I can always used the delete button if necessary.

Promised link to Australia Broadcast Corporation (ABC) Catalyst program about China’s HTR-10

NUCLEAR CHINA (22/02/2007)

However, it was a learning experience where every single person involved walked away – no one died or was even injured as a result of the event. There was a bankruptcy and a lot of financial distress in the industry as a number of plants under construction had to undergo numerous design changes and as a number of operating plants had to prove themselves all over again.

In this episode, I discuss some of my thoughts about what TMI meant to the industry and I get into another virtual debate with a man who insists that there were deaths, though he cannot point to any bodies or name any names. In the fantasy world of Harvey Wasserman, repetition, denial and insistence on ignoring countless studies and considered legal opinions is enough to overcome reality.

You get to decide for yourself, but I hope that this show will point out some of the important items to think about.

Here are the promised links:

NRC Fact Sheet on Three Mile Island

PBS: Frontline The Judge’s Decision

American Council on Science and Health Report – Nuclear Energy and Health, And the Benefits of Low-Dose Radiation Hormesis

A Review of the Source Term and Dose Estimation for the Three Mile Island Accident

I will add some more notes to this post later today, but now it is time to get ready for my day job.

The forcing function for holding the debate on that date was the fact that the Senate has included an additional authorization for $50 billion in loan guarantees for clean energy as part of the stimulus package. Though all forms of low emission energy can qualify, the fear among the virulent anti-nukes like Harvey Wasserman and the O’Connor family sponsored Texans for a Sound Energy Policy Alliance is that the vast majority of the loan guarantee authority will be captured by the nuclear power industry.

That is a reasonable evaluation of the current situation. After all, utility companies interested in building new nuclear power plants already have $122 Billion in shovel ready projects waiting in line for loan guarantees. The project applications were turned in several months ago and are being ranked and evaluated by the Department of Energy.

During the debate, Wasserman focused on telling lies about nuclear power plant insurance, about the risk of living and working near a plant, and about the expense associated with recycling used nuclear fuel. He also attempted to attract some strange bedfellows from conservative groups like Cato by focusing on what he called the market failure of nuclear power.

Moore admitted that he had been totally wrong in his youth by not recognizing the difference between nuclear weapons and beneficial uses of nuclear technology. He talked about the benefits of clean, reliable nuclear power that can reduce the need to burn coal, about the myth that we do not know what to do with the waste, and also wondered why Wasserman, a man with no history of love for the free market, is so certain that government should not be involved in electricity supply enterprises.

Of course, you can view the full debate uninterrupted at the Democracy Now! web site: Should the Economic Stimulus Bill Include Billions in Loan Guarantees? but I think this interrupted version adds some entertainment and informational value. I hope you agree and come to the site to share your thoughts.

In addition, please do make the effort to contact your senator and congressman to let them know how you feel about loan guarantees. (If you do not like them, that’s okay. I would be interested in hearing why or why not.)

One more thing – Harvey Wasserman is still an idiot.

This week I spent a several hours listening to the first hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of the current congressional session. Former Vice President Al Gore, the founder of an organization called Alliance for Climate Protection was the only witness during the 2 hour and 50 minute hearing. Watching that hearing, no one would ever know that the former VP is also a partner in Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers a Silicon Valley venture capital firm with significant financial interests in the very topic of conversation – non-nuclear alternatives to fossil fuel energy power production.

This is a matter of collegial privilege offered to a very few.

After watching the hearing and producing a rather extensive blog post about the hearing for Atomic Insights, I happened to choose to listen to NPR Environment Podcast for January 29, 2009. There was an amusing juxtaposition of stories; the first one talked about Gore’s visit to Capitol Hill, the second one was an interview with Ray Lane, also a partner in KPCB, about the need for federal assistance to the alternative energy industry in the fact of the global economic crisis.

None of the NPR correspondents made the connection between Gore and Lane.

It was also amusing to hear Gore explaining to Senator Corker and Senator Isakson, two strong nuclear advocates and former independent businessmen, why he talks down the potential for nuclear power as a tool in the fight to save human civilization against the twin threats of climate change and fossil fuel addiction.

I know that this might sound like I am picking on the former VP, but if I am, it is not because I am on a different political team. I happen to agree with some of the things that he says and stands for.

I just think that he should be more open about his financial interests in ensuring that climate change is recognized as a crisis big enough to force the taxpayers to subsidize the very companies into which he is putting his “private risk capital”. At the same time, I think he needs to do a better job of explaining why the crisis is not big enough to allow the expansion of a proven technology that supplies massive quantities of emission free power already.

His claim is that fission either costs too much or presents too big of a risk of “proliferation” means that he puts those factors higher on the priority list than saving human society from choking on deadly fossil fuel waste.

My interpretation is that fission simply presents too big of a risk to the success of his investments in alternative forms of energy production. None of the projects that KPCB is financing in alternative energy could compete without both a direct boost from the government and unreasonable handcuffs on competitive energy source from that same government.

Update posted Feb 2, 2009 at 0641: Ausra is one of the companies that KPCB has funded. During the hearing, John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee specifically mentioned that company, its Las Vegas, NV location and its expansion plans, stating that it was “the future”. I just ran across an article about the company in the San Jose Mercury News dated January 29, 2009, the day after the hearing took place. Here is a quote:

Today, the Palo Alto company says it has responded to the financial crisis by downsizing its goals and now plans to make smaller energy-generation plants and to sell its technology and equipment to utilities and other companies. Ausra’s chief executive said he now doubts the viability of the large-scale solar-thermal segment.

“What a lot of people thought when they went out and signed 500- or 900-megawatt power-purchase agreements was that it was easy to go from a 1-megawatt demo plant to a 900-megawatt project,” said Robert Fishman, Ausra’s chairman, president and CEO. “That’s simply not reality. The finance market will not support it.”

You can also read more about the hearing over at Atomic Insights.

On Sunday January 25, 2009, I invited three of the most active pro-nuclear bloggers for a chat about the state of the nuclear industry, clean atomic energy versus “clean” coal, renewable portfolio standards, effects of the current economic crisis.

Charles Barton blogs at Nuclear Green and Energy from Thorium
John Wheeler produces This Week In Nuclear Podcast
Kirk Sorensen blogs at Energy from Thorium

In addition to the planned topics, we also spent some time talking about the effects of the laws of supply and demand, the difference in economic computations between competitive electricity suppliers and monopoly utility companies, and the reasons why restarting Zion might make sense (or not.)

Hope you enjoy the show.

On January 20, 2009 Rod Adams spoke with Alexandra Prokopenko to get a local view of the effects on Eastern Europe of the Ukraine/Russia natural gas supply dispute. Alexandra is a citizen of Belarus who currently lives and works in Sweden. Her husband is living in Kiev, Ukraine and she speaks to him each day. Alexandra is a journalism instructor, writes an energy focused blog and learned to speak Swedish during her multi-year evacuation from the Chernobyl area as a 4 year old.

In other words, she has a very interesting perspective that I find fascinating.

During this discussion, we talked about Russian gas price ambitions, explanations for the EU’s policy on nuclear power plants owned by former members of the “Eastern Bloc”, energy supply security, the thirst for independence and even a bit about the European reaction to the inauguration of a new US president – since our discussion took place just hours after President Obama took office.

I will apologize in advance if some of the conversation sounds a bit disjointed. I once again forgot my nuke training and neglected to use a checklist when setting up to record our discussion. I forgot to tell WireTap to record both the system audio and the incoming mike, so I had a great recording of what Alexandra said to me, but dead silence on what I said to her to cause her responses.

Oh well – sometimes it is hard to get good help.

I have a great deal of respect for Dr. Chu and for his ordered way of thinking, but I do have some concerns that he is too focused on a scientific approach to problem solving rather than an engineering one.

Let me explain. Though many people mentally link science and engineering, there is a fundamental difference in philosophy between the practitioners of the two important fields. Scientists like to study and find answers to questions that no one has yet solved. Engineers like to design and make things using the knowledge they can find in textbooks, graphs and reference material along with the practical knowledge that they can gain from actually engaging in their craft.

They know that they do not have a perfect knowledge of the universe, but they also know that their knowledge is good enough to create many amazing things. If they find a hard roadblock during the creation process, they are reasonably confident that they will find a way around the obstacle. Both science and engineering are important disciplines, but there is a time and a place for each to have primary influence. When it comes to addressing the world’s energy, climate and water supply challenges, there is no doubt that it is mainly an engineering problem, not a science project.

Unfortunately, Dr. Chu’s approach to the problem seems more influenced by his scientific bent than informed by a strong understanding of what is possible TODAY. His comments during the hearing lead me to believe that he does not yet have a good grasp of the approach needed to empower the people who ALREADY know how to reduce pollution, make energy available and affordable, and who know how to use that energy to reduce supply challenges for other important commodities like water and food.

As you listen to the Senators’ questions, Dr. Chu’s response and my interspersed commentary, you will realize just why I have more concerns about the department’s priorities and initial actions than does the Nuclear Energy Institute. There are a number of things we could be doing now, that do not necessarily involve a great deal of expenditure by the American taxpayers to simply encourage and enable proceeding with due haste to building and operating a new generation of devices that use fission instead of chemical combustion to provide an almost unlimited amount of emission free, reliable, energy.

Fission is not just an option, it is an imperative that has the potential to dramatically improve the lives of everyone on the planet – except those who have been unable to read the handwriting on the wall and continue to depend on selling fossil fuels at elevated prices to enable them to remain powerful and secure.

I know this is a minority view that would not be popular in the Senate committee with all of its competing interests – that is why I am a writer, a podcaster and an analyst, not a politician.

During the show, we talked a bit about an article that I wrote for Atomic Insights more than a decade ago titled Light Water Breeder Reactor: Adapting a Proven System and I promised that I would insert a link to that article in the show notes.

I find myself having a bit of a challenge summarizing a conversation that lasted for nearly an hour and a half and covered a lot of ground. Please listen to the show and let me know what you think.

Additional Reading

David Walters on Daily Kos – Toward a Thorium Economy

As a progressive thinker who cares deeply about human suffering and looks for ways to raise the living standards of the underdog, I frequently feel the need to wave my hands to try to tell the established “Progressives” that they need to reevaluate their biases about the future of nuclear power. Democracy Now! is one of the more thought provoking shows available on a number of topics, but the producers, guests and host have a blind spot when it comes to nuclear energy applications.

Last week, Amy Goodman asked Andrew Revkin who writes the Dot Earth blog for the New York Times, for his opinion about President-elect Obama’s choice of Steven Chu as his nominee for the Secretary of Energy. Andrew had some favorable comments, but was not able or willing to discuss Dr. Chu’s long time stance favoring the continued use and development of nuclear energy.

Amy also talked with Bill McKibben, who has been writing about environmental and progressive topics for more than 25 years. McKibben praised James Hansen as the greatest climate scientist in the US. Bill either is unaware or simply prefers to ignore the fact that James Hansen has recently written an open letter to President-elect Obama describing a plan for responding to the hazard of climate change through technical measures that include a large portion of nuclear power, especially 4th generation nuclear power plants that enable fuel recycle.

I added my thoughts and knowledge about the pro-nuclear positions of both scientists, just in case there are any Progressives that listen to both Democracy Now! and The Atomic Show. My hope is to open dialog and conversation that can overcome established bias. People like Goodman, Revkin and McKibben pride themselves on their critical thinking skills; it is time to challenge them in an area that might make them uncomfortable. They would be excellent spokesmen if, after full discussion and expanded thinking they recognized that they had been misled or misinformed over the years.

Clinton Bastin is an atomic pioneer who worked on used fuel recycling for most of his 42 year career. He recently published We Need to Reprocess Spent Nuclear Fuel, and We Can Do It Safely, At Reasonable Cost (924 kB PDF). After I read that detailed opinion piece, with its critique of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) and its comparisons between projects that have worked consistently with those that have not, I got in touch and began an email dialog.

After several exchanges, I had to get Clinton on the show to share some of his vast knowledge. It is a true privilege to be able to talk with a pioneer in an industry that has been as important to the world as atomic fission; especially in an specialized area that has gained considerable political attention.

As a teaser, I want to share an recent op-ed that Clinton wrote and submitted to the New York Times. It was not published there, but these days being overlooked by the major media does not mean that the voice or the opinion is silenced.

As a long-time reader of The New York Times, chemical engineer and nuclear scientist for the Department of Energy and its predecessors for 42 years, and President of a DOE Headquarters Employees’ Union from 1983 through 1996, I am dismayed that The Times never explains to its readers that the DOE:

● has spent about one trillion dollars and failed to address the energy challenges that were the reason for its creation;

● lost the ability to produce nuclear materials needed for medicine, space exploration, defense, industry, and research;

● suppressed information that should have been used to correct false allegations of dangers of radioactive waste stored at DOE sites in order to obtain many billions of dollars for so-called “cleanup” of the wastes which has been simply to remove it from where it is safely stored to other locations which resulted in much more danger and radiation exposure to humans than if nothing had been done;

● helped maintain a 34-year moratorium on new nuclear power plants, our safest, least polluting and potentially most abundant energy source;

● failed to provide full and accurate information to Americans about energy and nuclear technology;

● ignores the laws of thermodynamics, which is the science concerned with the relationship and conversion of heat to mechanical (usable) energy or work, in its development of usable energy with low-temperature energy sources such as geothermal, solar, tidal and wind;

● continues to fund expensive experiments for development of controlled nuclear fusion on Earth, for which there is no scientific basis;

● exaggerates threats of nuclear weapons proliferation from fully safeguarded nuclear power programs in other nations;

● interacts with its national laboratories in a manner virtually identical to that of the former Soviet Union Ministry of Atomic Energy with its Institutes; and

● has (with the help of The Times) dismissed all of the competent, experienced corporations that managed safe and successful nuclear programs for the Manhattan Project and Atomic Energy Commission.

During the Administration of President Bill Clinton, my major effort as union president was to work as partner with Energy Secretary :Hazel O’Leary, Deputy Secretary Bill White and other DOE leaders for major downsizing of the DOE in a manner that would minimize adverse impact on employees.

The downsizing, planned and projected to extend well into this century, was reversed by the Administration of President George W. Bush.

Clinton Bastin
Avondale Estates, GA

During our interview, Clinton stated that during the 20 years that he worked at the Department of Energy (formed in 1978 from the rubble of the Energy Research and Development Agency), the organization did not accomplish anything of real value.

More and more people who are sincerely concerned about the impact that human activity is making on the planet are recognizing that nuclear fission has a role to play in our future energy supplies. Some even believe that it has reached a state of art where it can save the planet.

Steve Kirsch, an entrepreneur, philanthropist and respected member of the business and social community in Silicon Valley was sure that the US could get by without nuclear fission power. In August 2008, he learned about the Integral Fast Reactor and has immersed himself in learning more.

Last week, he published an op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News titled How a 24-year-old technology can save the planet. Now, it is certainly possible for experts in the field to take issue with some of the technical details in Steve’s commentary, but just remember, he only started really studying the field a few months ago.

In my opinion, he has progressed rather well. That MIT education (Bachelor’s and Master’s in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) has come in handy. With friends like Steve Kirsch, fission advocates can make some real progress.

Joe Shuster has founded or co-founded 8 companies in his 50 year career in engineering, consulting and manufacturing. His retirement project is to share what he has learned during a focused research effort to figure out how to solve the world’s energy, climate and water challenges.

His book, Beyond Fossil Fools: Roadmap to Energy Independence by 2040, is a clear eyed analytical approach to computing the scale of the problem, the possible approaches for solving the problem and his computation of the best way to minimize all of the challenges associated with continuing to enable an abundant lifestyle for human beings.

He has pledged that any proceeds from the book will be invested into energy research, he is spending 3-5 days per week talking with groups, schools, and conferences, and he is writing additional op-ed pieces in order to share his conclusion that the world needs to develop and expand the use of nuclear fission energy NOW. He believes that wind and solar have a role to play, but that they are destined to be bit players in the unfolding drama.

I recently received a review copy of John Rubino’s Clean Energy: Picking Winners in the Green-Tech Boom. I almost did not read the book after reading the first few pages where John disqualifies nuclear power as a green investment, but I decided it would be worthwhile to dig a little deeper.

Though I do not agree with everything in the book and I found a lot of nuggets that stimulated thought. I also found myself wishing that I had been able to read the book back in December of 2007 when I was smugly confident that I had picked a winning strategy since I did not have a dime invested in either real estate or financial stocks. If I had read John’s chapter about how the weakness in those sectors could spread through the economy, my portfolio would be in much better shape now than it is.

During our conversation, John had much more positive things to say about nuclear power than I expected.

I recommend that you add Greenstockinvesting.com to your investment reading list.

Please consider a donation to The Podcast Network as part of your seasonal giving plans. The technical infrastructure and support provided by the network are making an important contribution to the world of independent thought and commentary. You can find out more about how to donate by visiting the TPN Pledge Drive page.

Ted Rockwell is a nuclear industry pioneer. He served as Admiral Rickover’s Technical Director during the formative years of the Navy Nuclear Power Program. He wrote the book on reactor shielding design and has continued to write and speak ever since.

The cover of the November 2008 issue of Nuclear News, the monthly publication from the American Nuclear Society, featured Ted’s opinion piece titled “Nuclear energy: Not a Faustian bargain, but a near-perfect providential gift”. In that article, Ted tells nuclear professionals that they are not so special after all – their industry is much safer than almost any other industry. The materials that they handle do not pose unique hazards, they are simply materials that can cause harm if not properly handled.

If that information leaks out, it could put a number of researchers at risk of losing their grants; after all, even the generous US government might begin to wonder why they are spending so much to “solve” a problem that may not exist in the first place.

Kelly Taylor and Robert Margolis, two long time nuclear professionals join in the conversation. I think you will find a lot of food for thought here.

More about Ted:

Ted Rockwell was honored twice during the fall of 2008 for his contributions to technology and to literature. On September 4, 2008, in London, the World Nuclear Association (WNA) gave him a Pioneer’s Award for “Distinguished Contribution to the Peaceful Worldwide Use of Nuclear Energy.” Former Ambassador John Ritch, Director General of the WNA, praised Rockwell’s “immensely valuable role in building the foundations and future of nuclear power.”

On October 20, Rockwell’s book, “The Virtual Librarian: A Tale of Alternative Realities,” was chosen as an award-winning finalist in the Visionary Fiction category of the National Best Books 2008 Awards, sponsored by USA Book News. Publishers competing for this award ran the gamut from mainstreamers like Simon & Schuster, Tarcher/Penguin, HarperCollins, Hyperion, St. Martin’s, McGraw-Hill and John Wiley, to hundreds of independents.

Dan Yurman and I had a great time on November 21 talking about a number of different nuclear news items including a large new power plant deal in India for Russian reactors, Dan’s first hand report of a GNEP meeting held in Idaho Falls, Kentucky’s energy plan that includes nuclear power and coal to liquids, RWE’s interest in new nuclear plants for the Baltic states and Eastern Europe, and Vermont Yankee controversies.

Here are some links that you might find useful if you want to do more research on the topics covered:

• Lithuania nuclear shutdown information
• Gerhard Schroeder’s Sellout
• Gerhard Schroeder wikipedia page
• Gerhard Schroeder’s Answers.com biography
• Old King Coal’s Comeback in Scotland
• RWE nuclear expansion projects
• Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear’s energy plans
• LiquidCoal
• International Herald Tribune – NRG rejects Exelon takeover bid
• Vermont Yankee Protest clears Public Service Board offices
• Feasibility study for new nuclear power plant in New Brunswick

Please consider carefully the TPN pledge drive and give generously to help support continued availability of independent media.

Since March of 2006, a loosely connected team of people has been working with available time to provide you with the best shows we know how to produce about a topic that is very important to us. As the host of the show, I have received a lot of encouragement, attaboys, and other psychic income that helps to make the effort worth while.

I have also had some minor successes in finding paid advertisers to defray any of the actual costs that I incur to travel to meetings, purchase equipment etc. In short, I am pleased with the returns that I currently get from The Atomic Show and hope to keep producing it for a long time to come.

HOWEVER, there has been a rather unsung hero in this story. Cameron Reilly, the founder and sole owner of The Podcast Network, has put his heart and sole into providing an excellent and reliable platform for The Atomic Show and all of the rest of the great shows on The Podcast Network. His ride in the past four years has not been an easy one – he has focused on establishing a truly independent media company that can speak and write on any topic of interest to the host. That kind of media company is vital in today’s world of ever consolidating companies and increasingly homogenized shows.

It is a challenge – sponsorships are more difficult to obtain for narrowly focused niche shows that have people with intense interest in the topic. Most consumer companies want to reach broad audiences and many focused companies do not do much advertising.

I would appreciate it very much if you would read the following and impulsively consider a donation to the network that helps to keep The Atomic Show and other niche market shows alive. If you want to continue listening to shows that cover topics that are not currently “popular”, please give generously.

Thank you for all of your emails, comments, questions, and contributions. For those of you who continue to help where you can (Kelly, Robert, Shane, John, Ted, Joe, Dan, Charles, Kirk, Reese) a special thanks and holiday wishes.

Rod Adams
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast

_____________________________________________________________________________

Dear TPN listeners, viewers and friends,

You know that we spend a LOT of time producing our shows for you.

And as we aren’t making money out of advertising, we’d like to ask for your support to help us keep TPN running. We have real costs in IT support, hardware, bandwidth, etc., as well as our time and effort. For the last four years, we’ve covered these costs ourselves. Outside a small amount of advertising that we have run, the majority of TPN’s costs have been covered by myself and the TPN hosts have donated their time.

Now, we know that paying for online content is probably new to some of you. You are used to getting it for free.

However, we do ask you to think about the idea of the people funding their own media. We all know that if corporate advertising is the main source of funding for the media, it influences the kinds of media that is produced and the messages they carry. We don’t want that kind of media to be the only kind out there. We want an independent media, run by the people and for the people.

If you want to support our efforts to bring you intelligent and entertaining content, please consider one of our donation plans listed here at the TPN Pledge Drive page.

Your support is appreciated!

Cameron Reilly
Founder, The Podcast Network

Kelly Taylor and I got together for a Sunday evening chat to discuss President-elect Obama’s nuclear energy policies and their implications for the nuclear industry’s growth and development. We also talked about the joint venture to manufacture large nuclear power plant components between Areva and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, and about the long term implications of Warren Buffett’s purchase of Constellation Energy.

Hope you enjoy the show. Comments are always welcome, though getting more and more rare. Go ahead, step up and make a liar out of me. :-)

William Tucker has been writing about energy issues for decades. He first started following the nuclear energy controversy in the mid 1970s when he reviewed Amory Lovins’s book about Soft Energy.

He has now written his own book to explain why he believes that Lovins, Al Gore and other mainstream environmentalists are dead wrong to dismiss or minimize the potential of nuclear energy to meet their desire for a cleaner, less carbon intensive world.

We chatted about his book, responses he has received during his efforts to promote the book, and about America’s energy future. Hope you enjoy the conversation.

You can find Terrestrial Energy on Amazon.com.

Dan Yurman, who produces the excellent blog titled Idaho Samizdat visited the Atomic Show for a discussion about the exciting world of nuclear power developments. We talked for well over an hour and covered projects in locations ranging from Florida to Idaho, Vermont to India, Utah to Brazil, and Finland to Texas. Dan is a great source of detailed information that is difficult to find if you are not fully engaged in the industry.

Stick it through to the very end and you will find out just what Samizdat means.

Dan is going to be participating in a web seminar with some heavy hitters – Jim Rogers of Duke Energy and Aston Poole from Morgan Stanley – in a couple of weeks. If you can possibly fit it into your schedule, I highly recommend listening in.

If you want to learn more about nuclear energy careers, a great place to start is to visit Entergy at nuclearenergycareers.com

Here is the mission of Energize America as found on the organization’s web site:

EnergizeAmerica is a comprehensive and compelling 20-point plan developed by informed citizen activists to wean the U.S. from its fossil fuel addiction and provide the U.S. with Energy Security by 2020, and Energy Freedom by 2040.

Energize America seeks to Make the Right Choice the Easy Choice as we move toward an Energy Smart culture.

One of the components of the proposed energy plan left me wondering a bit about the real goals and missions – here is what the plan says about nuclear power:

Nuclear
Nuclear power is experiencing a political resurgence of sorts, and several new plants are in various
stages of planning. However, the nuclear industry enjoys huge subsidies that shield the industry from nuclear disaster liability. The nuclear industry and our government have also failed for decades to solve the nuclear waste problem. These issues must be addressed before nuclear power is more widely used.

I think you will find the discussion lively, challenging and worth the effort it takes to listen. Kelly did a bang up job of asking probing questions.

I would be interested in your responses.

John Kotek, Executive Director, American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness and I chatted for a while about the Council’s recently released state by state study of the potential job creation in the coming Nuclear Renaissance.

If you are interested in learning more about job opportunities at Entergy, one of the leading nuclear power operators in the United States, visit nuclearenergycareers.com. There you can learn about a company that not only operates a well respected fleet of nuclear plants, but also offers a traditional pension plan, great health benefits, competitive starting and continuing salaries and a supportive working environment. In addition, they are leaning forward and looking at technologies like high temperature gas reactors, one of my favorite nuclear power concepts.

On September 29, 2008 the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) hosted the 4th International Topical Meeting on High Temperature Reactor Technology. Following the plenary session, there was a press conference attended by a grand total of three members of the press plus some additional interested meeting attendees.

Though the press was lightly represented, there were three high level leaders in the high temperature gas reactor field ready and willing to answer questions. Regis Matzie is a Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Westinghouse Electric Company and also served as the co-chairman of the HTR 2008 conference. Linden Blue is the vice chairman of General Atomics, and John Grossenbacher is the Director of the Idaho National Laboratory, the leading federal integrator for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) project.

I had the opportunity to ask some probing questions and to listen to others in the press ask additional questions about markets, licensing challenges and building plans. Please let me know what you think about the format and the content of this episode of The Atomic Show since it is a bit different from most of the rest.

If you want to find out more about jobs in the nuclear field, you can start by visiting nuclearenergycareers.com. That visit might also help keep The Atomic Show coming to you on our current nearly regular basis.

You can find more information about Idaho National Laboratory’s projects at http://www.inl.gov

INL also has a YouTube site at http://www.youtube.com/user/IdahoNationalLab. Here is one of the videos that you can find there:

More information about NGNP is available at http://www.nextgenerationnuclearplant.com/

Charlie Porter had a nice little horse farm in northwest Missouri. He now really wants to sell that farm and move away because his neighbors are driving him crazy. Those neighbors are 6 or 7 large wind turbines located about half a mile from his home. They provide an unpredictable background noise, sometimes screech to a halt, and produce annoying shadows, especially in the early morning or late evening.

Roger Hale is a retired Army mechanic living in North Carolina on a small farm near the Virginia border off of I-85. He had a remarkable career, and, as he says, he could tell stories for weeks about his time with the First Arctic Task Force in Greenland. Since none of us have weeks of time available, we limited our conversation to talking about the power supplies at the various base camps.

When Roger first arrived in Greenland, the camps all got their power from diesel generators supplied with fuel constantly being haul in and stored in “extremely large storage tanks.” (Roger’s words.) In October 1958, the US Army Corps of Engineers wrote up specifications for a pre-fabricated, transportable nuclear power plant and requested bids from two pre-screened companies – ALCO (formerly known as American Locomotive Company) and Martin. The companies submitted bids in December and the Army awarded the contract to ALCO in January 1959.

By July 28, 1960, the pre-fabricated and tested plant arrived in Thule, Greenland. On November 12, 1960 the PM-2A was providing power and heat to Camp Century, a small base in one of the most remote places inhabited by human beings. (Source for dates The Army’s Nuclear Power Program: The Evolution of a Support Agency by Lawrence H. Suid, Greenwood Press 1990.)

Listen to Charlie and Roger and think about the implications of their stories in a world dependent on fossil fuel energy sources that spew dangerous waste gases and come from increasingly more difficult to access reservoirs. The album art for this episode is a photo of the Ice Chapel that Roger described so vividly.

For more information on nuclear energy careers with Entergy, visit nuclearenergycareers.com

Press release with information about Entergy’s recent application for a combined construction and operating license.

Related Links

Camp TUTO and Camp Century 1955-1958

Camp TUTO and Camp Century 1964, 65, 66

Here is another video that details some of the mechanical and business risks associated with wind energy developments. This is not a spectacular failure, but one where a manufacturing or engineering problem has resulted in a lengthy shutdown and a failure to produce electricity.

I recently posted a blog on Atomic Insights about nuclear fuel recycling that broke a record for the number of comments received. Normally, the people that hang out at Atomic Insights are a select few who have accepted the notion that nuclear fission has useful capabilities, but there were plenty of naysayers involved in that conversation.

Apparently, discussing the possibility of nuclear fuel recycling operations stirs up the opposition. Of course, their preferred term is “reprocessing” and they continue to point to characteristics of processes that were developed in the 1950s to explain their opposition. From a purely technological point of view, that is like saying you do not favor the use of computers because the Motorola 6809 is not very reliable. (For the non-geeks in the crowd, the Motorola 6809 was the brains behind the TRS-80, one of the very first personal computers in the mass market.)

During this episode of The Atomic Show, NNadir and I talk about the incredible energy store that is already mined and above ground in the form of used nuclear fuel and the tailings from uranium enrichment operations. We also talk about the other valuable materials – outside of fissile and fertile isotopes – that are found in used nuclear fuel.

Materials like the noble metals of ruthenium, rhodium, and palladium are extremely rare in the natural world, but they could be extracted in ton quantities from the residues of nuclear fission. Isotopes like strontium and cesium have proven uses in nuclear batteries and as irradiation sources. Gold, silver and platinum are famously valuable and are also produced in the amazing alchemy called fission.

Have a listen.

If you want to learn more about careers in nuclear energy, please visit nuclearenergycareers.com.

One of our show sponsors is by Entergy Nuclear. (They take no responsibility for any of the comments by the show host or the guests.)

Imagine how cool it would be to work for a traditional utility company far sighted enough to invest advertising dollars in the Atomic Show Podcast!

Hans and Mary Lou Gougar are two of my favorite nuclear specialists. They are both currently living and working in South Africa as part of the large international team developing the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). Hans is doing safety and pebble flow analysis while Mary Lou is working on methods of treating and recycling graphite.

They have visited with me on The Atomic Show before ( The Atomic Show #094 – Hans and Mary Lou Gougar (with Charlie and Betty) – a nuclear family living in South Africa) and have returned to provide an update on their respective research projects and on the challenges and rewards of living and working abroad.

We talked about recycling graphite from legacy reactors like Magnox, THTR, French gas-graphite systems, and various Russian programs. We talked about modeling the flow of pebbles through a core, about dust accumulation and carbon-14 production. It was a great conversation full of enough details for even the most geeky of the geeks. (I just wish that Shane could have participated!)

During the show, I promised to share contact information for Hans for anyone interested in learning more about working on PBMR. You can reach him via email at Hans.Gougar(at symbol)pbmr.co.za.

For those of you who are interested in domestic opportunities in the nuclear industry, you can find out more information at nuclearenergycareers.com

The following gets a bit off topic for The Atomic Show, but I wanted to write it down somewhere.

During episode 105, I promised to share a link from Nader.org to a 1983 article that promotes Breed Corporation’s air bag system.

New Airbag Developed, at Lower Cost, for Crash Protection – Dated Friday, November 18, 1983

Here is how this story got mixed up in a discussion about the PBMR.

Hans and I were talking a bit about the tension between the scientists and engineers working on PBMR and the business people that want to get the product “out the door” so it can begin generating electricity. Until that happens, there is no return on the large investment of time and money from Eskom and the South African taxpayers.

Hans mentioned that the engineers typically wanted to ensure that they satisfied the regulators and then moved on, while the scientists often got distracted by “interesting” work leading to lots of new paths of study.

The conversation turned to a comparison to automobile air bags, which brought me to a mention of Breed Technologies. I had some personal familiarity with the company from my time as the General Manager of a small manufacturing enterprise on the west coast of Florida. Breed was one of the largest manufacturing companies in the area. I met several people over the years doing business there who were intimately familiar with the story of how Breed Technologies grew rapidly from a small transplant company from “up north”.

Allen Breed was a fine engineer who had put his expertise in designing weapons fuses and explosives to use in a unique concept for an automobile air bag system. He knocked on doors for years without much success. My contacts indicated that the key factor in the company’s success was getting government regulations put into place that encouraged and later required manufacturers to install the equipment.

What I did not know when I mentioned Breed during the conversation with the Gougars was just how relevant that story is to the story of nuclear power. I learned that during some fascinating Googling during the show editing and notes preparation. (I know – I have trouble focusing on a single topic at times. Personality flaw.)

The link between nuclear power and air bags is the fact that a participant in Allen Breed’s successful effort to promote his “safety improvement” invention was a Ralph Nader organization.

For my cynical mind, the air bag story is a very interesting chain-of-events case study. It shows how an engineering company with an idea that they cannot sell in the normal way enlisted the help of activists to make it mandatory equipment. Breed Technologies owed a good deal of its business success to Nader’s skills in agitating for federal regulations.

In other words, there is money to be made from pressure group activism and not all of the money goes to the lawyers. I cannot help but assume that safety invention promoters know the importance of this marketing technique and invest time and money in trying to ensure its success.

Here are some additional links:

• BREED Technologies, Inc. Loses Founder, Allen K. Breed
• History of Key Safety Systems, Inc (the current name of the company that was originally Breed Technologies)

Just in case you do not follow the links and read the articles, here is a brief summary:

Breed Technologies was a spin off from the Breed Corporation that was promoted in the Nader article focusing on air bag systems. It sold products to both Ford and Chrysler and eventually to all new cars. The company raised more than $60 million in a 1992 IPO. By 1997, when Allen Breed retired as Chairman and CEO, the company had annual sales in excess of half a billion dollars. The company was taken private by Carlyle Management Group – a company owned by people firmly entrenched in the power elite of the US – in 2003. It is now part of a billion dollar company focused on automobile safety equipment.

Who says that the efforts of activists and regulators benefit just leftist trial lawyers?

Hyperion Power Generation was formed in 2007 to commercialize a nuclear reactor technology first developed by Otis G. (Pete) Peterson of Los Alamos National Laboratory and patented under US Patent number 2004/0062340 A1.

One of the design criteria driving Peterson was a requirement that the system should be able to fit on a standard over-the-road flat bed truck, a criteria that drove the reactor core design, the shielding design and the system power output.

The Hyperion Power Module is described by company literature as being about the size of a deep hot tub and will produce approximately 70 MW of thermal power. As you will learn if you listen to the interview, the company expects that the cost per unit heat once the systems are in production will be approximately $3 per million BTU – anywhere in the world. Assuming a 90% capacity factor, that leads to an annualized cost of $5.6 million US dollars.

For comparison, the current price of natural gas delivered via pipeline in the US is approximately $8 per million BTU while the cost of fuel oil delivered to remote areas via trucks can be as high as $40 per million BTU assuming that no one is shooting at the trucks. If they are, the cost can really skyrocket.

John and I had a chat that I think you will find very interesting.

If you are interested in pursuing opportunities for employment in the nuclear industry, a good place to start is nuclearenergycareers.com. There, you will learn more about Entergy, one of the more visionary nuclear power plant owner/operators in the US.

Additional information

• Hyperion Announces First Customer For Small Nuclear Reactor
• NuScale Power and Hyperion Power Generation – Nuclear Power Systems That Are Not “Extra Large”
• Hyperion Power Generation announces receipt of its first Letter of Intent (to purchase)

Kelly Taylor, Joe Montague and I meet to chat about PBMR, nuclear events and nuclear industry history. Hope you enjoy the show.

If you want to find out more about careers in the nuclear industry, please visit nuclearenergycareers.com.

Kelly Taylor, Robert Margolis and I got together on August 17, 2008 to discuss the events of the week in nuclear energy. Kelly and Robert had been involved in an interesting discussion with people from itsgettinghotinhere.org regarding the expansion of Dominion Power’s North Anna facility.

I reported on my recent trip to Calvert County where Unistar Nuclear is planning Calvert Cliffs Unit III, and we talked about some of the benefits that result to local communities when a “costly” nuclear plant gets constructed in their backyard.

When a utility or generating company pays billions of dollars to build a new nuclear plant the money goes somewhere; much of it goes into the paychecks of the people constructing and later operating the plant. When the plant begins producing power, that displaces power generated by burning fossil fuels. Not only are fossil fuels dirtier than fission, but the money spent to buy them generally goes someplace far from where the fuel gets burned and the emissions get released.

Since fossil fuel companies have pared down their work forces, a lot of the money ends up concentrating in the hands of a small number of wealthy individuals.

As usual, our conversation veered into several tangentially related topics. Hope you enjoy the show. Remember, if you want to learn more about opportunities offered by Energy, a sponsor of The Atomic Show, please visit them at nuclearenergycareers.com.

Show 101 is a bit longer than normal, but I think you will want to listen carefully to every word. I invited some innovative thinkers and observers of the nuclear scene to discuss small nuclear power plants and their potential impact on the energy market.

Kirk Sorensen blogs at Energy from Thorium and is nearly finished with his MS in Nuclear Engineering.

Charles Barton blogs at Energy from Thorium and Nuclear Green.

Dan Yurman blogs at Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes and also writes for Fuel Cycle Week.

Our conversation ranged over a number of topics including the NuScale Power 45 MWe reactor, Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, licensing issues, waste handling constructs, Dale Klein’s recent speech including his comments on small reactors, and radiation health effects.

Here are some links to articles or papers discussed:

Dan Keuter, Entergy Nuclear – The NGNP in Perspective
UPPU – Fifty Years of Plutonium Exposure to the Manhattan Project Plutonium Workers: An Update – Abstract.

If you want to find out more about nuclear energy career opportunities at Entergy Nuclear, visit nuclearenergycareers.com. The Atomic Show thanks Entergy Nuclear for its support of the show and for its forward leaning participation in new media endeavors.

This episode sponsored by Entergy Nuclear.

Imagine – a traditional utility company far sighted enough to invest advertising dollars in the Atomic Show Podcast!

One of the more exciting developments in the nuclear industry is the growing recognition that one size does not fit all, especially if that size is – to use the words of Al Gore – “extra large”. In many markets, 1200-1600 MWe units simply are not a good match for the power needs or the grid capacity.

NuScale Power is a new, venture funded company that has developed a product designed to address that issue. Paul Lorenzini is a former PacificCorp president who came out of retirement to help lead the company and provide the business expertise. Jose Reyes is the company’s Chief Technical Officer who has been working on the product development for about 8 years. I reached them in their office at 6:00 pm on a Friday evening – after a very busy week.

The company’s 45 MWe natural circulation nuclear heat source grew out of a Department of Energy funded project originally known as the Multi-Application Small Light Water Reactor (MASLWR) at Oregon State University in partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory and Nexant Inc. That project, funded under the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative, lasted from 2000-2003. The DOE issued a final report and moved on.

Even though the federal funding stopped at that point, the university recognized that they had something worth pursuing. The system will produce only about 1/30th as much power as a large light water reactor. Its advantage is that it produces power with a greatly simplified system that has no valves, pumps or external piping systems. It operates at temperatures and pressures that are familiar in the industry, uses fuel that can be manufactured on the same lines as conventional reactor fuel, and uses conventional pressure vessel technology that is small enough to be produced in a number of qualified factories.

One key feature of this small reactor is that it will be completely assembled in a factory and shipped to the site ready for installation.

Have a listen. For more information about small reactors, please visit some or all of the following articles:

• NuScale Power and Hyperion Power Generation – Nuclear Power Systems That Are Not “Extra Large”
• More small reactor discussions
• Small reactors have NRC’s attention
• Small reactors seek market share

If you are interested in finding out more about career opportunities at Entergy Nuclear visit nuclearenergycareers.com

Rob McNealy of StartupStoryRadio.com and I had an interesting chat on Tuesday about Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. (AAE). We discussed the 15-year effort to build an independent, atomic energy focused company that can be self sustaining. (Aside – any any navy nuke will know, achieving a self-sustaining condition is a very important milestone.)

We – right now mostly “I”, but I have had a lot of help over the years – are now focusing on efforts to share energy information and market the potential that nuclear fission has to change the world’s energy market dynamics. Some may wonder how you make money by sharing, but there is incredible value in knowledge and information.

AAE has been a ‘C’ corporation since 1993, but we have been searching for a business model that works under the current legal and regulatory constraints that make it exceedingly costly – with substantial regulatory and financial risk to success – to set a course for building our simplified atomic generators.

After many meetings and discussions with investors, team members, and potential investors, we think we have a fuzzy plan that will work while retaining one of our most important assets – independence. As you continue listening to the Atomic Show and reading the Atomic Insights Blog, you will begin hearing from our sponsors. Please understand that any supporters are welcome, but they will choose to support because of what we are already doing and saying.

As I have told people many times, and hope that I have demonstrated to you over the years, my soul would be too expensive for anyone to purchase. If our message happens to attract an audience and that audience happens to be attractive enough so that commercial enterprises pay to talk to that audience, that’s good.

It will not change the message development process, which involves a serious effort to figure out the right path, not the path that will make the most money over a short period of time. My messages may not be popular, but I am okay with that.

That is a long way of saying that you will hear interesting sponsor messages on the Atomic Show, but you should not expect us to change our tune.

I was recently offered the opportunity to read a review copy of Profit from the Peak by Brian Hicks and Chris Nelder. The book, despite its attention grabbing title, is really a thoughtful work that digs deeply into the challenges that the world faces in the near future in providing the plentiful energy that has made the modern economy possible.

The authors and I agree on many of the symptoms of trouble and even on the diagnosis that the people on the earth are running headlong off of a cliff if they do not take action to change direction. When it comes to the prescription for the cure, however, we have a rather substantial difference in perspective.

Chris Nelder agreed to come on the show and discuss his book, his analysis of the energy situation and his prescription.

Chris is a former software engineer and technical writer who developed a deep interest in energy topics. I am a former nuclear submarine engineer officer who also has developed a deep and wide interest in energy topics.

I think you will enjoy the discussion.

I hope you all forgive me, but it sure would be nice if someone made contact and told me that they were looking forward to the next episode of The Atomic Show. That’s right – I am blatantly asking for some fan mail. Hope you are having a great 4th of July holiday if you are in the US and simply a great weekend if somewhere else.

John Wheeler, Kelly Taylor and I talked about workforce development and John’s impressions from the American Nuclear Society Annual meeting, recently held in Anaheim, California. With regard to workforce development we chatted about the opportunities that the Nuclear Renaissance will bring for people that like math and science, hands on applications, working in teams, and seeing the physical products of their labors.

We also talked about the importance of the role of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the quality of the work that it does, and the cost of regulation.

As often happens on The Atomic Show, we also discussed a number of aspects of smaller reactors and how they would fit in a developing nuclear industry. We talked about how smaller plants do not have to wait in the same lines for massive forgings as large plants do, how they might be able to take advantage of assembly line techniques and how they can meet market demands in areas where 1000 MWe and larger plants simply cannot fit.

A side topic was the visionary decision by people like Donald Hintz, who recognized the value of nuclear plants that others did not want. The market consolidation that resulted has produced some strong, nuclear focused companies and helped significantly improve the reliability and productivity of the plants.

We also talked about the decision to shut down Zion Nuclear Power Plant and the possibility that it might be restored to operation. This particular topic ended with a call out for people with an interest and knowledge about the plant to contact me at rod_adams(at symbol)atomicinsights.com. I am really curious about whether or not the plants could be restored to operation at a significantly lower per megawatt cost than building a new facility. If anyone knows something or wants to get involved in the discussion, please contact me.

(MP3 – 3.5 MB – 00:03:46 M)

[audio:http://atomic.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_atomic_Better_Way.mp3]

Listen to Better Way (Atomic Song) here!

If there is anyone out there who is inspired to use this song as the backing track for a short video, I am open to suggestions and might even supply someone with the right set of storyboards with a enough cash to cover the costs of production with a bit to spare.

Bonne Posma is a serial entrepreneur whose latest company is called Liquid Coal, Inc.. He has developed a concept for using the heat from high temperature reactors as a way to improve the cleanliness of well known chemical processes for converting coal – which is mostly carbon and hydrogen – into a liquid hydrocarbon. The process requires adding hydrogen to coal since it is deficient in that element compared to the hydrocarbons that exist as liquids.

The idea has been around a long time, but the traditional process burns some of the input coal to provide heat. Not only does that reduce the amount of liquid fuel produced per unit of coal mined, but it also releases vast quantities of pollutants. Bonne recognizes the value of liquid hydrocarbon as an almost irreplaceable building block of modern society and he strongly believes that processes that make it cleanly have incredible value for today and for the future.

I agree with his assessment. What do you think?

I met Nichole Ellis last fall when she was the leader of a well run conference for young nuclear professionals. As a 30-something engineer who started her nuclear career in the early 1990s, she is something of a rarity – when she entered the field there were not too many people in the US choosing to major in nuclear engineering and planning to make a career in the field.

We spoke about the kinds of people she has worked with over the years, how she became a qualified nuclear criticality safety engineer, how she has made career choices to allow her to balance work and family responsibilities, and how her particular branch of the nuclear profession works to mentor and train its up and coming members.

One of the reasons that I am so excited by the prospects for new growth in the industry is that there are people like Nichole who are ready, willing and able to take on the responsibilities that the technology demands.

I got up bright and early this morning (0400) to prepare to record a conversation with two fascinating people. Hans and Mary Lou Gougar are friends who I have known since I gave a presentation about Adams Engines to their American Nuclear Society student chapter at Penn State University in 1994. They were a bit more – shall we say, mature – than some of the other students since they had already been working for several years as teachers before deciding to go back to school to earn their doctorates.

Hans’s permanent job is as a PhD engineer working on pebble bed reactor design and other advanced reactor projects at the Idaho National Laboratory. Mary Lou is a professor at Idaho State University, specializing in nuclear waste chemistry. Several months ago, Hans accepted a consultant position with PBMR Pty Ltd for a two-year stint in South Africa. As he explains it, there are only two places in the world that are actually developing pebble bed reactors, China and South Africa. As a specialist in that area, he felt a strong desire to put his knowledge to practical use.

Mary Lou is also working for PBMR Pty Ltd in a rather fascinating area of carbon isotope separation. You’ll have to listen to her explain.

In addition to enough technical talk to make even Shane smile, we spent some time talking about what it is like to live and work in South Africa. If you listen to the whole show, you will get a chance to hear Charlie (11) and Betty (9) talk about their experiences and share a couple of the new words that they have learned.

Enjoy the show! Feedback is always welcome.

During my 27 years of association with atomic technology, I have engaged in a number of conversations with people on the topic of “why don’t people like us?” There is little doubt that choosing to be a nuke is NOT the way to gain immense popularity; there are few technologies that have inspired so much visceral dislike despite having some very useful properties.

Within the nuclear field and number of theories have been offered, some not well thought through. Here are some of the more common completions to sentences in water cooler conversations that start with “People do not like nuclear power because”:

• the media has misinformed them.
• the bomb scares them.
• Ralph Nader and the environmentalists have scared them.
• they do not want to take the time to learn the necessary math and science to allow them to understand.

I think all of the above are weak answers that need to be overcome, but it will take some concerted effort. One of the ways that I have been working on the list is to engage in conversations with influencers in the media, with a lot of focus on “the new media” of podcasts, blogs and other on-line publications.

For more than 2 years, I have had a running, intermittent conversation going with Adam Curry, the host of one of the most popular podcasts on the web. In the past week, the conversation has expanded with responses by a number of other listeners who have comments and questions about the technology. One of Adam’s thoughts is that nuclear power or atomic fission needs a new “brand”.

Since Adam has a big show to run that covers a lot of topics, there simply is not enough time available on his show for me to properly respond to all of the commentary, so I figured I would put together an old fashioned “answer show”. That way, any audience members that we share who want to focus a little more on the specifics of the fission discussion can get my thoughts and perhaps even get motivated to submit some of their own comments to Adam.

As a dedicated nuke who believes deep down that the world needs more fission and needs it now, I cannot allow a comment like “the media does not like us” without working to change the equation.

Link to previous episodes of The Daily Source Code. Warning – Adam’s show is aimed at adults and his demographic base tends to be educated males between the ages of 24 and 50. If you get embarrassed by “four letter words” or casual discussions with adult themes, you might not want to listen.

Chuck DeVore is a California State Assemblyman representing the 70th Assembly District. Among a number of other issues, he has recognized that the state desperately needs more energy and believes that it is past time to overturn the state’s de facto ban on new nuclear power plants.

He is an eloquent speaker with a good grasp of the technical details of why nuclear power plants should be built in California to serve the current and growing needs of the state’s large population base.

You can find out more about Chuck by visiting his personal web site at ChuckDeVore.com

To learn more about his efforts regarding power and energy, visit his web site titled PowerForCalifornia.com

This show truly demonstrates the individual power and freedom provided to the world by the Internet. While we talked via Skype video conferencing (without additional charges above our internet connection fees) Alexandra was in Kiev, Ukraine celebrating the Orthodox Easter holiday while I was in Annapolis, Maryland on drizzly Sunday afternoon. Disregarding the two hard drops of our Skype connection, it sounds like we are in the same room or at least in the same town talking over a very clean phone line.

I recently “met” Alexandra online through the introduction of a mutual friend. She is a young woman who was a four year old in Belarus at the time that the operators of the Chernobyl power plant decided to perform an undocumented test procedure and ignored all warning signs to the point where they blew up the reactor.

Alexandra, like many of her contemporaries, has an enlarged thyroid and a few other medical problems that she attributes to the effects of the materials released during the subsequent fire, but instead of becoming a bitter victim, she chose to become an inquisitive journalist and fact seeker.

We talked about a number of different topics including the accident, energy supplies in Eastern Europe, the Ignalina reactor in Lithuania, Sweden’s current plans regarding its nuclear future, Russia’s recently announced plan to build a large power station in Kaliningrad for the electricity export market, and the business practices that she observed as a translator working for Gazprom.

Alexandra is a fascinating person, an experienced print, radio and television journalist, a linguist (she speaks excellent English, Russian, Swedish, Belarusian, and can get by in Polish, German, French and Japanese), and a world citizen with a questioning attitude.

Please listen carefully to this interview and share it with your friends. I am sure you will not be disappointed and may even be energized – like I am – to find out that there are people like Alexandra in the business of informing the world about what they know and what they can find out.

Mark Seall is a Brit living in Switzerland who has developed a strong interest in environmentalism and in the European activities aimed at reducing the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. Last year he started a blog titled TalkClimateChange.com and he also is a contributing blogger at Green Options.

He recently determined that he wanted to participate in the nuclear power debate that has been growing in the UK and in Europe, but upon consideration decided that he did not yet know enough to make a well reasoned comment. Instead, he set up a debate forum on Green Options that he titled Nuclear Energy “Live” Debate and invited me to play the role of the pro-nuclear “expert”. I enjoyed the experience and decided that it would be useful to invite Mark onto The Atomic Show so that he could talk about his efforts, what he learned about nuclear energy from the debate and how he now feels about its potential for good in the future.

We talked about a range of topics including risk perception, Chernobyl (who can avoid that topic in any pro or con discussion about nuclear energy), technology improvements in nuclear power, personnel training programs, and energy system marketing efforts.

Hope you enjoy the conversation.

Okay – I cannot help myself. It is time to brag just a little. Yesterday, Mark made an announcement on his blog that he was Coming Off The Nuclear Fence and stating that “However, when faced with pressing realities and faced with a choice between relieving poverty, aggravating climate change, or accepting a manageable risk it looks like nuclear is our option – for now.”

I like to think that my atomic evangelism effort has had something to do with this decision.

A couple of weeks ago, Andrew Feinberg of Capitol Valley interviewed one of the new heros of the pro-nuclear world, Dr. Patrick Moore. You can hear the interview and read Andrew’s thoughts at Everything Old is New Again: From “No Nukes” to “Nukes Now” with Dr. Patrick Moore.

Here is a sample quote from that blog entry:

Here at CV we spend most of our time looking at new technologies, the future, and how a rush to judgment or a poor public relations decision can doom a promising technology, service, or company to failure. We see how sensationalism, poor reporting and massive “click to complain” campaigns can generate outrage where there should be none, and amplify the shrill cries of a few to the point where they dominate the public discourse.Now, instead of looking forward, we look back to the 1960’s, when the relatively new technology of nuclear power brought a promise of unlimited, clean energy. Those days also were the height of the cold war, when the fear of atomic weapons clouded the nation’s judgment of atomic power.

I made a comment on that blog entry that resulted in Andrew thinking that I might be a “crackpot”, so I decided to invite him onto the Atomic Show so that he could see for himself that I really am kind of kooky.

We had a great chat that I think you will enjoy. It is fun to share thoughts about history with someone just about half your age. Our personal experience lenses are quite different; the mixed points of view result in a good conversation.

There is an assumption that underlies most of the world’s radiation protection standards called the Linear, No Threshold dose assumption. This hypothesis – which has never made it to the scientific stage of being even a theory – claims that the negative human health effects from radiation exposure can be plotted on a straight line that extends from the high dose/death regime down to a minute hazard from the very lowest possible dose.

This assumption has been used to compute something called “collective dose” where exceedingly minor doses to very large populations result in a statistical prediction that the dose will cause several deaths. If the population that is assumed to be affected is large enough, the predicted deaths can even turn into rather scary numbers in the thousands.

There is no science that backs the linear no threshold dose assumption, but it remains the basis for regulations and is used to cause excessive fear of radiation, which happens to be a natural part of our earthly environment. An old friend of mine – Jim Muckerheide – has devoted a major, sustained effort to collect and provide ready access to thousands of peer reviewed studies, journal articles and even reports from the advisory committees that supposedly influence the regulatory decision bodies. You can find them at http://www.radscihealth.org/rsh/.

Here is a blurb about the organization that Jim founded, Radiation, Science and Health, an international non-profit organization.

RSH was organized by independent individuals knowledgeable in radiation health effects science, and related radiation protection, and medical applications, public policies. They know the scientific literature, misrepresented data, and wasted public funds, that do not protect public health.

• RSH seeks to change public policy in the public interest.
• It advocates for appropriate research and policy changes.

When you visit the site, remember that it is a voluntary effort produced by scientists and engineers; they are not graphic artists or web designers. (I hope I do not offend any of the members of RSH, but their site is darned ugly. However, look past that and read some of the valuable information that they have collected and made readily available. If the RSH web site was a high school student, it might be described as having an excellent personality.)

Jim was not able to join us for this show, but I did find some extremely knowledgeable guests. Ted Rockwell is the author of one of the seminal books on radiation shielding. He was Admiral Rickover’s technical director for about a decade and was a key member of the team that built the Nautilus and the Shippingport power station. Robert Margolis is a reactor engineer with 21 years of experience in the nuclear industry; he is regularly affected by the extreme conservatism imposed by the LNT based regulations. Michael Stuart started his career as a health physics specialist who was charged with finding ways to continually lower doses. He is now a technical instructor for Dominion Resources and is an exceptional communicator.

During the show we talk about the costs imposed by the LNT assumption, the logical fallacies that it imposes, the hazards that can result from excessive fears and controls of low levels of radiation and the people who view the excessive costs as important sources of revenue. We also mention the interests of nuclear power competitors in keeping the LNT obstacles in place as a way to improve their position in the very lucrative market for commercial heat and power.

I think you will enjoy this episode.

Ben Kenney is studying for his PhD in chemical engineering, with a focus on solid oxide fuel cells. He expects to be finished by early summer 2008. As part of his education on energy matters, he started up theWatt Podcast several years ago and has built it into one of the most respected and frequently referenced energy discussions on the web.

Ben and I had a great time chatting about CANDU reactor technology, the future of Ontario’s electrical power supply, New Brunswick’s interest in increasing its share of the electrical power market in the Northeast US, and the future of suburbia in the face of ever increasing gasoline prices.

I promised Ben that I would invite him back, but I highly recommend that you subscribe directly to theWatt Podcast. You will enjoy his style and his guests.

Howard Shaffer is a retired nuclear engineer who received his initial nuclear training and experience as a member of the Nuclear Navy. He attended nuclear power school at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, served on the USS Seawolf at sea and in the shipyard during a conversion to SUBSAFE, and he spent a long an active career in the nuclear industry.

He was involved in the startup of several plants in the US and in Taiwan and often voluntarily represented his company and nuclear technology in general in discussions involving anti-nuclear activists. One of the successes of his efforts was during the licensing and start-up of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant – the site of a lengthy anti-nuclear effort led by the Clamshell Alliance.

Many of the people on the other side of that effort are still actively pursuing their anti-nuclear goals – as Howard said during our conversation, some of them give every appearance that they will go to their graves before they give up their almost religious aversion to all things nuclear.

We had a good chat, hope you agree.

On February 29, 2008, I visited the American Nuclear Society Student Conference 2008 Career Fair and talked to a number of organizations that had booths set up to find out what kind of opportunities were available. I tried to get a reasonable selection of contractor, government agency, national laboratory and operating utilities to provide a flavor.

As I reviewed the clips, I realized that I did not talk to any of the reactor plant vendors. Oh well, I will learn from that oversight and try to do better the next time.

There are a total of eight different interviews that are spread out over two episodes. This second section includes talks with the following potential employers:

• Duke Energy
• Ameren
• US Navy Nuclear Power Program
• Dominion

If you hear a particular segment that interests you and you want to make contact with the speaker, send me an email (rod_adams(at symbol)atomicinsights.com) and I will try to help you make the direct connect. That way, you can tell them that you heard about the opportunity on The Atomic Show.

On February 29, 2008, I visited the American Nuclear Society Student Conference 2008 Career Fair and talked to a number of organizations that had booths set up to find out what kind of opportunities were available. I tried to get a reasonable selection of contractor, government agency, national laboratory and operating utilities to provide a flavor.

As I reviewed the clips, I realized that I did not talk to any of the reactor plant vendors. Oh well, I will learn from that oversight and try to do better the next time.

There are a total of eight different interviews that are going to be spread out over two episodes. This first section includes talks with the following potential employers:

• US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
• Black and Veatch
• Southern California Edison
• Argonne National Laboratory

If you hear a particular segment that interests you and you want to make contact with the speaker, send me an email (rod_adams(at symbol)atomicinsights.com) and I will try to help you make the direct connect. That way, you can tell them that you heard about the opportunity on The Atomic Show.

Please forgive the background noises. Just think of having a conversation in a coffee shop.

For this show, John Wheeler (This Week In Nuclear), Kelly Taylor, Michael Stuart and I talked about coal versus nuclear generation, CO2 capture challenges, Michael’s birthday present of a zero gravity experience, space nuclear power (a natural progression from the zero gravity discussion), storage systems that might enable renewable energy to flourish, hydrogen production, battery technology, and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Here are some links to sources for some of the discussion.

The Space Show interview with Dr. James Dewar, author of To The End of the Solar System: The Story of the Nuclear Rocket

Senator Harry Reid’s testimony about Yucca Mountain and nuclear power

John Wheeler, Lisa Stiles and I talked about our passion for nuclear technologies. We also talked about job opportunities in the nuclear business, the need for large infrastructure investments in electricity generation and delivery, the competition between nuclear and LNG projects, and the fact that we need large new sources of energy in order to maintain our current prosperity.

We also touched on the fact that maintaining our own prosperity is simply not enough when there are so many people who have no access at all to the quantities of energy consumed by the average American.

You are going to enjoy this show! Jill Buck is an energetic community leader with a vision for a cleaner world and she has been working for a number of years to make that vision a reality. As the founder of the Go Green Initiative she is having a measurable effect on the lives of thousands of school children in more than 30 states and 10 countries outside the US. By some measures, it is the world’s largest environmental education organization. Here is what her organization believes:

• People care about protecting children’s health and safety through environmental stewardship.
• People will do the right thing when given trustworthy information, expert training and simple tools.
• People appreciate a program like the Go Green Initiative, which provides a framework for success, many options and the freedom to choose the options that work best for them.
• People want a panoramic, three-dimensional approach to environmental education, which will equip young people with the skills necessary to manage the environmental impact inherent in all activities.

I found Jill’s organization because her blog had an entry that caught the attention of my Google alert on “new nuclear power plants”. Here is the entry that caught my attention:

Electricity: While I saw many remaining coal-fired electricity plants, I saw numerous nuclear power plants as I peered out the tour bus window. Coal is abundant and inexpensive in China, but contributes to poor air quality. More nuclear power plants will create a clean energy source that will fuel China’s growing economy without depleting natural resources, or creating air pollution. According to Chinese sources, in Nov. 2007, the State Council approved the National Medium- and Long-term Nuclear Development Plan (2005-2020) submitted by National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The plan sets clear goals for nuclear power development as follows: by 2020, the installed capacity of nuclear power will reach 40 million kilowatts and the capacity under construction in 2020 will reach 18 million kilowatts. The percentage of electricity generated by nuclear power will increase from less than 2% today to 4% in 2020, with the annual amount of electricity reaching 260-280 billion kilowatts.

I decided right then that I needed to try to get Jill on as a guest of The Atomic Show.

During our chat we spent a lot of time talking about her trip to China and about the overall benefits that a renewed focus on nuclear power development could bring to the US and to the world. I think you are going to like this show.

You might even end up doing what I did after learning more about Go Green Initiative – visit the organization’s donation page and provide a few dollars to support its mission.

Virtual round table discussion with four guests whose total nuclear experience is more than 100 years.
John Wheeler – host of This Week in Nuclear Podcast
Kirk Sorensen – publisher of Energy from Thorium
Kelly Taylor – work at home mom and 20+ year veteran of the nuclear power industry
Robert Margolis – reactor engineer and 20+ year veteran of the nuclear power industry

During the discussion, we covered a variety of topics including the move back to gas for new electric power plants, the pressure against coal, an economic analysis from an independent group on the cost of shutting down Indian Point Nuclear Station, and ways to improve the speed to market for new nuclear power plants.

Charles Ferguson, Fellow for Science and Technology – Council on Foreign Relations paid a visit to The Atomic Show. We engaged in a wide ranging discussion. We started with some of Charles’s impressions of the views of Indian colleagues following his recent visit to the world’s largest democracy. Other topics included Japan’s Monju reactor, highly enriched uranium, using special nuclear material for small reactors, long term protection of distributed reactors, commerce in HEU and plutonium, South African views on HEU, Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Plowshares and probably a lot more.

Hope you enjoy.

Here are some links that you might find useful after listening to the show:

Plowshare Project video from Atomic Energy Commission

Executive Summary: Plowshare Program

First of all, I apologize for the sound quality. I goofed something up with the settings this week and could not make enough adjustments in post production to fix the strange background noises and echoing voices. I’ll try to do better next time.

On Sunday, 13 January, I got together with four atomic friends. John Wheeler of This Week In Nuclear, Kelly Taylor and Michael Stuart who both are occasional contributors to NEI Nuclear Notes Blog and Robert Margolis, a current reactor engineer at FPL’s St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant.

Robert started off the show with some interesting commentary about his experience as the shift engineer who was on duty at the Ft. St. Vrain nuclear power plant on the day when it shut down for good. He also talked a little about FPL’s recent outage where the company added new life to its plant by replacing steam generators, the reactor vessel head, one main coolant pump, and made a major modification to the containment sump.

We also talked a bit about the various fuels available for producing electricity, the cost of various forms of space heat and how they have changed in recent years, and about the prospects for new nuclear power plants in the US and UK.

John brought up the recent Union of Concerned Scientists report that indicated a rather surprising ranking of new nuclear power plant designs, and we chatted a bit about the conservatism of the electric utility industry.

In other words, it was a pretty good first attempt at a round table format that you might hear on this show on occasion. You might hear it on This Week In Nuclear instead – John and I have not yet figured that one out.

Please make comments here or send me an email if you have particular suggestions for topics – as you will hear, this is a very experienced and knowledgeable group of people. I think all of us have north of 20 years of experience, training and education associated with nuclear power, but we are also amusing (at least among ourselves) human beings with some passion for our craft.

On January 8, 2007 I chatted with Armond Cohen, the Executive Director of the Clean Air Task Force (CATF). Here is an excerpt from their About Us page:

Founded in 1996, the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring clean air and healthy environments through scientific research, public education, and legal advocacy. Our unique and singular focus on atmospheric issues has allowed us to go deep on the issues, and be persistent and effective.

Made up of 20 senior scientists, lawyers, MBAs, economists, and public outreach professionals, CATF is headquartered in Boston but located throughout the United States. Our work is augmented by collaboration with nationally recognized technical and economic consulting organizations such as The Northbridge Group, Environmental and Energy Analysis, Inc., Abt Associates, and MSB Energy Associates.

Armond and I discussed coal gasification, carbon capture and sequestration, and the CATF position on nuclear power. We also talked a bit about how his organization is governed and what issues they choose to tackle with particular regard to CATF’s currently “neutral” position on atomic energy.

To save you a little trouble, here are some links to the organizations that employ the members of the CATF board.

• Mechanology – Eric Ingersoll, the CEO and Chairman is a member of the CATF Board of Directors.
• General Compression LLC – Mr. Ingersoll also serves as Chairman of General Compression, LLC
• Natsource – Bill Tyndall, Managing Director of Natsource Asset Management LLC is a member of the CATF Board of Directors
• The Northbridge Group – Bruce A. Phillips is Director, The Northbridge Group and a member of the CATF Board of Directors.
• Environmental Defense – Elizabeth Thompson, Legislative Director, Environmental Defense is a member of the CATF Board of Directors
• Southern Environmental Law Center – Jeffrey M. Gleason Board Chair of CATF, is Deputy Director of the Southern Environmental Law Center and Director of Regional Programs

As Armond made clear during our discussion, his organization’s positions are guided by the board of directors. I will leave it to you to connect the dots and conclude why CATF might be so forceful about implementing and enforcing regulations that accept continued use of large quantities of coal as long as the plants implement the latest and greatest in emissions controls.

Robert Bryce, the Managing Editor of Energy Tribune is an energy journalist who likes to do math. I like this guy A LOT.

A November 2007 article titled Guru or Fakir? Amory Lovins is America’s favorite green energy advocate. Does his rhetoric match reality? really caught my eye. In about 400 words, Robert discusses a number of different predictions that Mr. Lovins has made during his 30+ years as an energy writer and prescriber of energy solutions and traces how each of those predictions or prescriptions has turned out.

We also discussed ethanol and its history as an important farm program and provider of profits for ADM – while not making much impact on America’s thirst for fossil fuel.

As we talked, I tried to gradually slip in my theory that there is a reason that Lovins and biofuels are often supported by well heeled environmental groups – each of them are actually quite beneficial to the interests of established fossil fuel suppliers.

Though he has supported a number of oil alternatives during his career, including coal, natural gas, wind, solar, biomass and, most famously, conservation, Lovins has consistently opposed nuclear power. By doing so, he has fought against the only technology that has ever taken significant markets away from coal, oil and natural gas.

Biofuel consumption also does not hurt the fossil fuel suppliers – it is an energy intensive business itself and generally only produces a modest amount of excess energy compared to the amount needed to produce it.

I think you will enjoy the interview. If you do, you might also want to read some or all of the books that Robert has written about energy:

• Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America’s Superstate (Hardcover)
• Pipe Dreams: Greed Ego and the Death of Enron

On New Year’s Eve morning, John Wheeler, Kelly Taylor and I got together for a chat about the nuclear industry’s prospects for 2008. We agreed that the year would be an interesting one for nuclear power, with additional license applications, more attention from discussions during the US Presidential campaign, and increasing opportunities for employment for people who want to work in a safe, clean, challenging, high tech environment.

We all agreed that the industry is one where errors are not overlooked, where talented young people can find rewarding work, and where people who have left the industry during its challenging times of the late 1980s and 1990s may find new opportunities.

We made a few predictions, talked about the potential applications for smaller plants, and generally agreed that now is a great time to be a nuke.

John also posted a version of the conversation as Episode 54 – Happy Nuke Year!!.

Anyone who listens to both and can point out the difference wins a $20 iTunes gift certificate!

Hope you all have a happy healthy and prosperous Nuke Year!

On December 18, 1957, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station started supplying electricity to the Duquesne Light Company grid. By 7:00 am, it was producing 12,000 kilowatts of electrical power, enough to power about 12,000 homes. That development of that power station established an entire industry and led to the construction of more than 300 Pressurized Water Reactors that together produce about as much energy each day for global consumers as all of the oil exported by Saudi Arabia.

On December 18, 2007, I had the opportunity to have an hour long chat with Dr. Theodore (Ted) Rockwell, one of the key players on the team that designed and built the pioneering reactor. He provides us with a lot of insight into the exciting work and dedicated people who produced a reliable plant just 4.5 years after being initially assigned to the task.

Hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

Brian Paxton and I talked for about 50 minutes about a wide range of topics related to Africa and energy developments. Brian knows a lot about both topics and shares some valuable insights into markets, developments and attitudes.

We talked about hydropower, alternatives sources of light and heat, oil and gas, and the potential for moderately sized nuclear plants. At the very end of the interview we briefly talked about the strengthening of ties between Algeria and Russia and the implications that development has for European power markets.

Hope you enjoy the show. Sorry for the long silence.

With any luck, there will be a show on the feed within a week and within a month or two, we should have some really exciting news to share. There might even be some new regular voices on the show; it is time for some new blood. I still miss Shane and have been searching my contact lists for an altergeek to help make show preparations disappear as a necessary chore.

Please keep in touch and let me know what topics are interesting you as we move forward into the second Atomic Age.

Oh yeah, almost forgot – if you get a chance, please head over to iTunes and write a review for the show. This request has been on my to do list for months and I need to try making some progress. You can find the show on iTunes by going to the podcast section and doing a search with author = Rod Adams or title = Atomic.

Once you see an iTunes page with the Atomic logo on it click on the logo to go to the page about the show and then click on the link under Customer Reviews. Right now, the opportunity exists to be the first one to write a review for the show – please do not let that opportunity continue for too long. It will bruise my fragile ego.

The Young Professional’s Congress is a joint effort between North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN) and the American Nuclear Society’s Young Member Group.

The meetings are taking place in Washington at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. One thing you can say about ANS Meetings is that they are never held in low cost areas or in cheap hotels. I will be commuting each day from Annapolis. I am not poor, just cheap.

I hope that any Atomic Show listeners that might be there will try to find me and say hello. I will be the guy with the iPod nano recording sessions and looking for interesting comments from people on the meeting topic “Making the Renaissance Real”.

This is part II of a rather long interview with Gwyneth Cravens a former anti-nuclear activist who has switched sides to write a book that is strongly in favor of increased nuclear power developments. Her book is based on her personal research and actual visits to nuclear facilities while guided by Rip Anderson a scientist who has worked on a number of nuclear projects during his lengthy career.

You should be able to find Power to Save the World at your local bookstore. It is scheduled for a national release on 30 October. If your local store is not stocking it, ask them why not.

Of course, you can also order it from Amazon at Power to Save the World.

If you want to find out more about Gwyneth and her journey, visit her site at Gwyneth Cravens: The Truth About Nuclear Energy and Our Changing Climate.

Gwyneth Cravens is an accomplished journalist and novelist who also fought vigorously against the Shoreham nuclear power plant project on her native Long Island. Years after being involved in that successful effort to halt the use of a plant that took more than a decade to build and cost more than $6 billion dollars, she began a lengthy conversation with Rip Anderson.

Rip is a scientist with a wide range of interests including oceanography, chemistry and probabilistic risk assessment. He has worked on a number of nuclear projects during his career and he patiently answered Gwyneth’s probing questions as she became less and less sure of the basis for her opposition.

The end result of the long conversation spread over several months was an invitation on a journey of discovery – Rip volunteered to guide Gwyneth on a series of personal visits to various stages in the uranium business. She visited mines, processing facilities, storage sites, and a power plant. She also visited the competition; her book includes a description of a coal fired power plant that would fit well in Dante’s Inferno.

Please have a listen to part I of this interview and then immediately ask your podcatching client to go look for the second part. I think you will enjoy this chat – Gwyneth and Rip are fascinating people with a real story to tell.

You should be able to find Power to Save the World at your local bookstore. It is scheduled for a national release on 30 October. If your local store is not stocking it, ask them why not.

Of course, you can also order it from Amazon at Power to Save the World.

If you want to find out more about Gwyneth and her journey, visit her site at Gwyneth Cravens: The Truth About Nuclear Energy and Our Changing Climate.

Dr. Jeremy Whitlock is a second generation nuclear profession who lives with his family in Deep River, a town he describes as an Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) company town. Others have talked about Deep River as the Canadian equivalent of Los Alamos.

Jeremy was one of the first nukes to recognize that the web was a powerful communications tool, especially for people whose voice is often not heard. As a nuclear professional living in a town full of PhD’s who like to sprinkle their conversation with terms like neutron and resonance absorption region, he did not feel that the general public was well informed about the technology that he has spent his life studying.

Topics in the conversation include Energy Alberta, DUPIC, Remembrance Day, ANS Winter Meeting (Washington DC November 10-15), used fuel plans in Canada, recycling, economics, atomic energy entrepreneurs, and several others.

I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Nick Bruse of The Cleantech Show, hosted by The Podcast Network, invited me to his show to discuss nuclear power as a potential clean technology. As Nick said, it is one of the identified wedges that can provide enough power to make a difference when it comes to the global emissions of greenhouse gases.

The original show is available from Nick’s blog at The Cleantech Show #024: Nuclear Alternatives, Interview with Rod Adams, Adams Atomic Engines Inc.

I hope that you enjoy the show and that it encourages you to subscribe to The Cleantech Show. Nick does a great job each week of bringing information about clean technology developments, entrepreneurial efforts in clean tech, and some of the other societal issues associated with human development.

(MP3 – 19.1 MB – 55:16 M)

[audio:http://atomic.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_atomic_20070929_070.mp3]

Listen to Atomic Show #070 Here!

In the fall of 1954, the US Atomic Energy Commission learned that the Soviet Union was planning to participate for the first time in the annual International Atomic Energy Agency conference on nuclear energy. Up until that time, both the US and the Soviet Union sent scientists and engineers to the conference, but neither actually participated or presented papers.

The AEC did not want the Soviets to gain propaganda points. The leaders of the Commission determined that they needed to show that they were working on civilian applications of nuclear energy. That was especially true in light of the Atoms For Peace speech that President Eisenhower gave in December of 1953.

The only problem was that the AEC’s first reactor designed for electrical power production – the Shippingport reactor – would not be ready in time to present it as a completed action at the conference. The AEC turned to a small team at the National Reactor Testing Station who had just begun operating a small, boiling water reactor that could produce steam at a high enough pressure to turn a turbine and produce enough power to supply a nearby town.

Ray Haroldsen was part of the team that cobbled together enough new and left over components to turn an experimental reactor into a power station and to use a nearby feeder line to actually send the power produced to a real, live American town named Arco. As is the case with most good stories, there were some bumps in the road that needed some creative solutions.

The following links might be useful to you if there are some technical discussions that are not completely clear.

Xenon: A Fission Product Poison (pdf from CANDU fundamentals)

How Stuff Works: How Power Grids Work

Last week, Ray Haroldsen shared some of his memories as a member of the technical team at the National Reactor Testing Station near Idaho Falls, Idaho. We chatted for nearly an hour, but decided that there was plenty more to tell. I thought it would be a great idea to continue the conversation. Based on the comments that I have received on this blog, on Atomic Insights, and via email, it appears that many of you agree.

During Atomic Show #069, Ray talks about some specifics of the design and operation of EBR-1 and about the AEC leadership’s decision to keep the news about the core melt that occurred in November 1955 out of the public domain. Even at the time, Ray and his team were not comfortable with the decision – they thought that it would be better to open and to investigate the cause of the problem to gain understanding that would be valuable in the future.

One thing that people need to understand about the core melt – though it actually caused more damage to the core than was first assumed – more than 60% of the core material was fuzed into a single “clinker” of enriched uranium, zirconium and stainless steel – the only effect of the accident outside the core was to slightly increase the activity levels that could be measured in the inert gas in the reactor tank. No one was exposed to excess radiation as a result of the melt and the core container was not damaged at all. In fact, the same container was later used when EBR-1 was reassembled and continued to operate until 1963.

Hope you enjoy listening again to a first hand account from an atomic pioneer.

To learn more about EBR-1 and see some pictures and sketches, check out an online version of the official history of the NRTS: Proving the Principle Chapter 6 (7.9 MB PDF)

A good friend of mine contacted me recently and told me that I needed to interview Ray Haroldsen for the Atomic Show. He told me that Ray had a lot of interesting stories to tell about his experiences with many of the early test reactors developed at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho.

Ray is a good storyteller with a real depth of experience and a fantastic memory of long ago events. I guess that certain important days remain so clearly in memory that the stories can be told even after 55 years. Though these events happened even before I was born, they are still important parts of atomic history and influenced the development of major technical breakthroughs.

For this episode of the Atomic Show, Ray and I talked about his experiences with the Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 (EBR I) and his experiences with the BORAX (Boiling Reactor Experiment) series. I think you will find his stories worth a good listen and maybe even a repeat.

As we have discussed on a number of occasions, the renaissance in atomic energy has begun. For show 67, I had a chat with Bob Bromm, an old friend of mine who will be starting a new assignment on Monday, September 17, 2007.

His employer – Fluor – has recently won a contract to supply the architect-engineering services for a two reactor addition to the South Texas project. (Contractors in flux for South Texas Project) Bob has been reassigned from the Hanford site to Greenville, South Carolina to be part of the design team.

Bob has a long history with the nuclear industry and has some great stories to share. As a 56 year old professional, who cut his teeth as part of the design team for one of the most recently constructed nuclear power plants (Palo Verde), he is a shining example of what is both right and wrong with the industry.

He really knows his stuff and has vast experience, but at age 56 he is one of the youngest people in the industry to have actually designed a plant that was built and operated. As I told him during my sign-off, I sure hope that his company has planned to match up younger engineers with all of the experienced ones so that they can grow their capacity as the renaissance continues.

Once I get out from under the pile of email, snail mail and household chores that build up during a vacation I will be putting out new shows – hopefully on a more regular, weekly basis. Stay tuned!

We will have a lot of information to catch up on when I return. Talk to you next month.

He invited me on to his show for an interview the other day – you can find the resulting discussion at The Cranky Middle Manager #105 Nuclear Leadership- Rod Adams. (Truth be told, I have been begging Wayne for months to get me on the show and he finally relented. Perhaps he was just tired of my persistence.)

Please go over and have a listen. I think you might find it useful.

(MP3 – 16.3 MB – 47:05 M)

[audio:http://atomic.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_atomic_20070731_066.mp3]

Listen to Atomic Show #066 Here!

Among nuclear advocates, it is commonly believed that “the media” is one of the reasons for the end of the first Atomic Age. If I have heard it once, I have heard it 1,000 times – “the media does not like us.”

In that view of the world, the fact that the media sensationalizes minor events and provides confusing, scary stories is one of the main reasons that people banded together to oppose new nuclear power plants.

I have a different opinion, but even so, I agree that the mainstream media has not done a good job of explaining nuclear power technology. That is not surprising; most journalists have never taken physics, math, or engineering courses. They are pretty quick studies, however, and have done a pretty fair job of repeating what they have been told.

Unfortunately, they have been talked to far more often by people that oppose nuclear power than by people who understand its intricacies and can explain them in a way that makes sense to people with liberal arts educations.

One of the really exciting things about the Internet and the tools that have been build to make use of the internet is that it is now possible for technologists to have a better chance of explaining complex subjects to a wider audience. No longer are we limited to sound bites that are distributed by enormous companies who need to please their audiences (and advertisers.) Instead we now have the power to create and distribute our own message.

Of course, as Cameron points out, the availability of new tools does not automatically change the calculus. Pro nuclear activists need to learn to use the tools effectively to communicate in a manner that reaches people and makes their message something that is worth sharing.

We also spent quite a bit of time on the topic of “following the money” to determine who is really behind the anti nuclear activist organizations.

Hope you enjoy the show.

[audio:http://atomic.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_atomic_20070724_065.mp3]
Listen to Atomic Show #065 Here!

A couple of weeks ago, a listener suggested that I invite Stewart Peterson the blogger who writes the excellent Nuclear Is Our Future. Stewart provides his insights on the nuclear industry from the perspective of a person who was still in preschool at the time that the Integral Fast Reactor was shut down by the Clinton Administration.

We talked about that project and its lost opportunities, the way that the nuclear industry developed, some of the ways that Stewart proposes to share the nuclear story with young people and his desires to be a pro-nuclear activists that helps to establish the policies that will enable the industry to succeed.

I hope you enjoy the show. Feel free to comment, challenge and ask questions.

(MP3 – 9.2 MB – 26:35 M)

[audio:http://atomic.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_atomic_20070719_064.mp3]

Listen to Atomic Show #064 Here!

This is my first show as a solo podcaster. On the show I talk about the recent earthquake in Japan, the GAO’s sting operation targeting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Kazakhstan’s investment in Westinghouse, an interesting blog post titled Rethinking Nuclear, and my desire to create some new atomic evangelists.

I hope you enjoy the show and provide plenty of commentary. This show needs to be a team effort; your participation makes it better.

Here are some useful links:

DIRTY BOMB VULNERABILITIES
STAFF REPORT
PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE

Energy Outlook (Search for Rethinking Nuclear)

(MP3 – 21 MB – 1:00:46 M)

[audio:http://atomic.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_atomic_20070626_063.mp3]

Listen to Atomic Show #063 Here!

As the host of The Atomic Show, I have occasionally shared some information about the Adams Engine(TM), my own design for an atomic power source that can be scaled to compete against large diesel engines and combustion gas turbines. Several listeners and recent guests have expressed an interest in learning more about the design, so I thought it might be more interesting and fun to have one of them interview me than to have me read from some of our sales and marketing literature.

NNadir, who recent appeared as a guest on The Atomic Show, kindly volunteered to ask me some unscripted questions about the engine, the history behind the project, and some of the design choices that we have made already and may make in the future. We talked about why the Adams Engine(TM) uses nitrogen as the coolant, the reactor conversion ration, our thoughts about future uses for used fuel materials, and some of the markets where we believe that the Adams Engine(TM) will be particularly competitive.

I hope you do not mind hearing about my “baby”. It has had a long gestation period and there is still a ways to go before it is time to apply for family leave after the birth. However, I think you will find some thoughts and ideas here that you may not have heard anywhere else, unless you happen to have engaged me in casual conversation during the past 17 years or so. If you have, you have probably had the experience of having me try to work in some of these thoughts – I am a little obsessed with the idea.

One small technical correction: I said that the turbine outlet temperature is about 600 C – I went back and checked the system process flow diagram – it is more like 360 C.

(MP3 – 10 MB – 28:54 M)

[audio:http://atomic.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_atomic_20070623_062.mp3]

Listen to Atomic Show #062 Here!

I have been intrigued by the populist message and the Internet savvy of the John Edwards campaign. I like the ideas of implementing programs for peace, for improving access to college education, for reducing poverty at home and abroad, and for restoring the understanding of the importance of working people (as opposed to executives). I decided to go listen to Senator Edwards in person.

On June 19, 2007, Senator Edwards held a “Small Change for a Big Change” campaign fundraiser at a Washington, DC bar called MCCXXIII located at 1223 Connecticut Ave, just south of Dupont Circle. (In case your Roman numeral skills are rusty, the name of the bar is simply the street address – 1223.) The entry donation – which kind of felt like a cover charge – was only $15. There was a good crowd of several hundred people, mostly young professional types that might frequent that location anyway.

One thing that I did not really think much about until I was leaving the event was the fact that I do not recall seeing any blacks – which seems odd to me for an event in Washington held by a Democratic candidate for President.

I had brought my recording gear – an 8G iPod nano with a Griffin iPod microphone. I find that set-up to be pretty good at picking up amplified voices in a crowd, and it is really easy to stick in a shirt pocket.

The recording turned out pretty well, though I did miss the first couple of seconds and the first applause gathering promise – to stop the war in Iraq. The show includes a brief introduction and some post speech commentary.

The energy vision that Edwards provided indicates to me that neither he, nor his staff, can do math very well. None of them seem to have much understanding of the way that energy is produced right now. He promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 and to do that by supporting wind, solar and biofuels. He promised to invest at least a billion dollars in technology for carbon capture and sequestration and to discourage the construction of any new coal fired power plants while that research was being conducted. He said, “oh, by the way, we do not need any new nuclear plants either.”

However, the most disturbing part of the speech for me was the following passage. I thought it was important enough to transcribe word for word so that it could be available through search or for those people that do not listen to the Atomic Show. I would be very interested in hearing what you think about the implications of this vision. I am especially interested in the views from places like the Middle East, Europe, Japan and most especially Africa (all mentioned in the below passage.) This passage came after he talked about the energy sources that would supply America.

“What do we do with the rest of the world? We know that in the Middle East there are bad governments, bad leaders that have absolutely no incentive for economic development to educate their kids. Why, because they are on a drug called oil and they are mainlining that drug. Until we force them off that drug they will not change.

Suppose that America leads on this effort, that we clean up our own house. Europeans follow, Japanese follow. All of a sudden the price of oil plummets. Then they have no choice. They are going to have to educate their children. They are going to have to engage in economic and political reform. And all of a sudden the Middle East is completely changed, completely transformed. And even, take another step with me. Not only have we strengthened America, not only have we dealt with the crisis about whether the planet is going to exist, not only have we transformed the Middle East, but here’s another one.

For those of us who worry about issues like global poverty, which I care deeply about. Suppose that when America – which it can do – produces its own biofuels. You know we have the land base, we have the farms, we can do it here in America, but the Europeans don’t, the Japanese don’t, so hopefully they will buy some of their biofuels here in America, but, in addition to that, they are going to be looking for cheap land. They are going to be looking for a place that they can go to grow their own crops, produce their own biofuels. Where are they going? They’re going to Africa. And as a result,