While I was at the ANS Conference in Atlanta, I had the good fortune of attending a presentation by Dr. Jan Uhlir of the Nuclear Research Institute located in Rez in the Czech Republic. During his presentation, Dr. Uhlir described the research work going on at the NRI and talked in particular about their recent […]
Lately I’ve heard some descriptions about the potential of “thorium” that were very specific to the form of thorium that you would use in solid-fueled, water-cooled reactors–thorium oxide. Thorium oxide, or specifically thorium dioxide (ThO2) is the solid form of thorium that one would use in a light-water reactor or in a pebble-bed reactor, perhaps […]
A couple of months ago, I felt like a nuclear “Indiana Jones” when a trip out to Iuka, Mississippi took me face-to-face with the ruins of a nuclear reactor. Or maybe it was more like an episode of “LOST” where they find a four-toed statue. But there I was looking at a huge, unfinished cooling […]
Congressman Sestak Includes Key Provisions in National Defense Authorization Act Thorium Study for Energy Efficiency This provision directs the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to jointly carry out a study on the use of thorium-liquid fueled nuclear reactors for naval power, an important assessment of an energy […]
I love my little daughters very very much and am very proud of them for just being themselves. But they’ve learned how to do something over the last few months that, as an aspiring nuclear engineer, makes me just about bust my buttons with pride. They’ve learned (almost) the whole periodic table: When I was […]
There’s a burger joint near Georgia Tech called “The Varsity” and when I was a grad student there people (not students) often mentioned it as part of some Georgia Tech “tradition” I dimly understood. No students seemed to ever talk much about The Varsity other than to tell me that the food was greasy and […]
Sometimes I learn stuff that makes me feel like I’m on the right path with the LFTR concept. I had that feeling today as I listened to a talk by Dr. Steven Wright of Sandia National Labs about a supercritical-carbon-dioxide closed-Brayton-cycle gas turbine. That’s an awfully large number of adjectives to describe an engine that […]
As the away teams reported back to the Starship Enterprise, the reports were all the same. Everywhere on the planet were signs of an advanced civilization. Great abandoned cities were found all over the planet. In each the signs were the same: a loss of energy followed by a drastic population drop. The fossil fuel […]
Barry Brook at BraveNewClimate.com is beating the drums for the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). I am ambivalent for a number of reasons, and will at least point to some. The IFR is not the only potential fast neutron reactor, and one fast neutron concept, the Liquid Chloride Fast Reactor belongs to the Molten Salt Reactor […]
[I]t is incumbent on those in high positions to reach wise decisions, and it is reasonable and important that the public be correctly informed. It is incumbent on all of us to state the facts as forthrightly as possible. – Hyman Rickover testifying before Congress in 1953, QUESTION FROM SENATOR SHAHEEN Q3. Of the six […]