This blog post is an update of the list posted in October 2010

I have revised the resources tab on top at my blog and have created a new list titled ” Books about Nukes”  The link will open a new window.  The list will be updated over time. The date of this edition of the list [...]

The Forgotten Problem

Given the widespread concern about the risk of radiation exposure from nuclear power plants–which those of us in the field know is very low–I have always been amused (if that is the right word) by the fact that routine emissions from coal plants expose the public to far greater [...]

When I stumbled across the site EthicalOil.org recently, I thought there was a small chance that it was a parody. And, it turns out that the site reads like a parody in some places even though I am certain that the owners are dead serious.

You see, the site is a defense of the Canadian oil [...]

News items you might have missed in 2011

Nuclear bloggers work differently than the mainstream media and are not shadows of the nuclear trade press.  We don’t have time to report everything so we try to focus on developments that look like they’ll have more than average influence on the industry.  At this blog I [...]

New Directions?

At the end of each year, I like to take stock of the past year and to try to guess what it may mean for the year ahead. This year is a complex year for doing that. While there have been many good signs this year–the start of construction [...]

Yesterday and today, we celebrate the 60th anniversary of one of the very biggest milestones in nuclear power history–the dates the EBR-I produced the first usable quantities of electricity ever generated from a nuclear fission reactor. I already noted this event in my blog on other December milestones in nuclear history, and many news [...]

On 1 September 2009, DLA Energy , which oversees procurement of biofuel for the Navy, awarded to San Francisco-based company Solazyme a contract worth $223,500 for delivering 1,500 gallons of algae derived jet fuel (Hydrotreated Renewable HRJ-5) for testing and certification by the US Navy. This makes $149 per gallon.

The DLA Energy, in early 2010 [...]

CNA issued a report in October 2011 (released in November 2011) entitled Ensuring America’s Freedom of Movement: A National Security Imperative to Reduce U.S. Oil Dependence which is signed by 13 retired three and four-star generals and admirals in it.

The report focuses on the national security implications associated with shifting the U.S. transportation sector [...]

International Monetary Fund released its most recent World Economic Outlook in September
2011. The economic growth forecasts in this outlook, like any other of its past
outlooks, are used by all prominent institutions as a crucial input for making
oil demand forecasts. For instance, in
early October, the IMF’s downward revision of GDP forecasts was interpreted by
traders as a [...]

This week has seen more than the usual number of news items about energy and the the animal kingdom, and I thought it would be fun to put them together.

The first and by far most unusual story comes from Japan, where wild monkeys are being outfitted with special collars containing radiation meters, [...]