John J. Loughlin II is a former three-term Republican State Representative and former Republican Whip serving in the Rhode Island House of Representatives before running for US Congress in 2010. He served in a leadership role on the Naval Affairs Committee, and was a member of House Labor, Health Education and Welfare Committee, and House […]
This is the talk that I gave over lunchtime at the Clean Growth Leadership Network conference, held in London on September 6, 2022: We’re all glad to be here and enjoying one another’s company as we talk about these important issues, but there’s no denying that we’re meeting under a shadow. All of us are […]
Spotify: YPE Podcast with Kurt Harris Back in July, Dr. Kurt Harris of Flibe Energy spoke on the Young Professionals in Energy Podcast, an organization that aims to facilitate the advancement of young professionals in the global energy industry. We’ve summarized the podcast here for a quick look at some of the things they discussed. […]
These are notable quotes from Glenn Seaborg’s 1993 autobiography “The Atomic Energy Commission Under Nixon“. Breeder Reactor Beginnings In the United States and several other countries, decisions were made quite early that a reactor employing fast neutrons, utilizing the uranium cycle, and cooled with liquid sodium, the so-called liquid metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR), was […]
These are notable quotes from Alvin Weinberg’s 1994 autobiography “The First Nuclear Era, the Life and Times of a Technological Fixer“. Thorium will create the Second Nuclear Era Until then I had never quite appreciated the full significance of the breeder. But now I became obsessed with the idea that humankind’s whole future depended on […]
Dr. Ritsuo Yoshioka of the International Thorium Molten-Salt Forum has relayed some sad news to us: “This is a very sad notice. Professor Kazuo Furukawa passed away on December 14th 2011. He had a cancer surgery in last summer, and he once came back. In last October, he gave several lectures at different seminars, and […]
Thursday, September 8th began with a media opportunity at the British Science Festival that was set up by the Weinberg Foundation. I participated on a panel of six speakers, including Baroness Worthington, discussing the results of a recent poll showing that public support for nuclear energy was still quite strong in the UK. Guardian: UK […]
Can a liability be turned into an asset? That was the essential character of the question that Baroness Bryony Worthington asked in the House of Lords on September 7th, 2011. I had the privilege of being in the House of Lords as she asked the question, and the response was very positive from both sides […]
In trying to answer the persistent question about LFTRs: “why wasn’t this done before?” I’ve obtained a report from 1962 made to President Kennedy where future development options for nuclear power were laid before him. Alvin Weinberg specifically references this report in his 1994 memoir (“First Nuclear Era”) and goes on to say that it […]
I was very fortunate to meet Dr. Kazuo Furukawa in person several weeks ago, and he shared with me a fascinating talk that had somehow escaped my attempts to discover everything Alvin Weinberg said or thought or wrote down about the molten-salt reactor. The talk was called “The proto-history of the molten salt system” and […]