(guest post by Charles Barton) The history of the nuclear reactor usually begins with the first successful operation of Enrico Fermi’s Stagg Field reactor on December 2, 1942. In fact, scientists working at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, England built the first successful reactor in 1940. British scientists mixed 112 liters of heavy water with […]
Guest blogger Iain McClatchie here. Kirk asked me to cross-post my next energy related posting from Ambivalent Engineer. I found some numbers for the oil cost of burning coal. As you know, coal moves primarily by train, and those trains are pulled by diesel-powered locomotives, and marginal diesel is of course imported. Coal is generally […]
In 1957 Alvin Weinberg presented a paper whose ostensive lead author, Raymond Clare Briant had been dead for three years. This is a procedure is science to memorialize a scientist who had made a significant contribution to a research project but who had died before the contribution could be recorded in a scientific paper. In […]
Homi Jehangir Bhabha, an Indian physicist, who had, during a pre-World War II stay in Europe, made important discoveries about cosmic rays. Upon his returned to India at the start of the war, he began to campaign for Indian research institutions deveoted to physics and nuclear energy. He quickly established himself as a scientist politician […]
Readers of this blog know how to use LFTR technology to avoid making long-lived nuclear waste in the first place, but what about the waste we’ve already got? I posted this on NEI Nuclear Notes some time ago but thought I ought to post it here as well: But before you read it, this article […]
Eugene Wigner (left), Enrico Fermi (right)Some of the best scientist of the 20th century hung around around the “Metallurgical Laboratory” of the University of Chicago. The “Metallurgical Lab” was a cover for the nuclear research establishment which Author H. Compton set up at the University of Chicago during World War II. The Metallurgical Lab was […]
From Issues in Science and TechnologySummer 2003 New Life for Nuclear Powerby ALVIN M. WEINBERG Most of what I wrote in “Engineering in an Age of Anxiety” and “Energy Policy in an Age of Uncertainty” I still believe: Inherently safe nuclear energy technologies will continue to evolve; total U.S. energy output will rise more slowly […]
Another set of outstanding posts from Charles Barton at “Nuclear Green“. His personal insight into the history of Oak Ridge National Lab, and his friendship with Alvin Weinberg and his family, allows him to share some remarkable insights with the rest of us about what REALLY happened to the Molten-Salt Reactor Program in the crucial […]
One of the scientists in the UK who helped convince Tony Blair that global warming was an issue of real concern has gotten in trouble for proposing something that might actually make a difference in the war on climate change: Nuclear power. And he got in big trouble for it. His book prescribes a barrage […]
Sorry for the long pause in blogging, folks—the new year should see a major resurgence in posts. But here’s the latest thing on which I want to comment: Washington Post: Nuclear Dinosaur Usually when reading articles like this it’s informative to skip to the end and read the affliation of the author. In this case, […]