Skip to main content

New From JHU Press: Atoms for Peace: A Future After 50 Years

By Eric McErlain
From the precis by Johns Hopkins University Press:
The twenty-five contributors to Atoms for Peace grapple in many ways with nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and the future of nuclear energy. They include officials and scientists from a wide range of agencies and institutions. Among them are officials or former officials from Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, Canada, Korea, and Japan, from the U.S. departments of state, energy, and defense, the U.S. Senate, the National Security Council, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, MIT, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the College of William and Mary, and the University of California.

Atoms for Peace also includes a set of fundamental speeches and documents relating to Atoms for Peace and its institutions.
Back in September 2005, our CEO, Skip Bowman, shared his own thoughts about "Atoms for Peace" in a speech he delivered at the World Nuclear Association Annual Symposium:
What if Mr. Eisenhower came back today and reviewed our progress?

There is a rule of thumb for advanced technologies that it takes about 30 years from proof-of-concept to full-scale commercial deployment. By that measure, I think we could tell Mr. Eisenhower that we’ve done rather well.

In the United States, within two years of his Atoms for Peace speech, we deployed our first nuclear-powered submarine. Within four years we reached full-power operation at our Shippingport reactor in Pennsylvania—really the first commercial-scale power reactor. Since then, we’ve built 434 power reactors around the world, which produce approximately 17 percent of the world’s electricity.

Not bad, Mr. Eisenhower.

But you know what he’d say? He’d say: “Nice start, but you’re not keeping pace with the challenge.”
Read the rest right now.

Technorati tags: , , , , , ,
,

Comments

Anonymous said…
Let's not forget the advances in medical science that have come from the use of radionuclides in diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Production of medical radionuclides in non-power reactors have saved millions of lives around the world, one of them being my mother, who was cured of cancer through the use of teletherapy sources. It gave her another 30 years of life, which, to me and my family, was a gift beyond price.
January 4, 2007 at 9:29 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...
1 comment
Read more

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

By
Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...
Post a Comment
Read more