NEI Nuclear Notes

At the behest of one of our friends from AREVA, we took a quick inventory of the links in our blogroll and got to business cleaning things up. Over the years, we've been pretty liberal about who we included in that list, especially when it came to extended periods of inactivity. There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which was the fact that a number of blogs listed here played an important part in online conversation about the industry during the early days of NEI Nuclear Notes. If an when any of our friends online take a break, we generally like to let them know that we haven't forgotten about them, and if and when they ever decide to come back, we'd be happy to see them return to the conversation. Still, in checking over the links, things had clearly gotten a bit overgrown. In general, if a blog hadn't been updated in six months or more, we pruned it from the list. That of course begs the next question: are there any new blogs that we ought to be...

At the end of April, former Department of Energy official Robert Alvarez sounded the alarm about the safety of the spent fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi Unit #4 (click here for his piece from the Huffington Post). Here at NEI, we've long been familiar with Alvarez's position on the disposition of  used nuclear fuel , and it's safe to say that not only do we disagree with his assessment, we also believe that it is needlessly alarmist. We're not the only ones who have said that, something that's become abundantly clear in recent weeks as independent bloggers have decided to take on Alvarez on their own initiative. The first to step to the plate was Dan Yurman of Idaho Samizdat : One of his (Alvarez's) favorite rhetorical strategies is to total up the mass of material at a nuclear site and then make the assumption that all of it will blow up through some mysterious and unspecified mechanism spewing its contents far and wide. This is a great stuff for a B- movie ...

Meet Not a sheep !

Meet Sean Grabbe : How long do we have to wait for nuclear power? Its the cleanest non-poluting energy source we have. ... In the future I will list a few books about the propaganda against using nuclear power. It amazed me as to how safe and pollution free nuclear power is. Something else to think about--our navy runs all of its carriers on nuclear power. Last I heard they get about 20yrs before having to get new fuel rods. Sean just began his blog this month. Be sure to stop by and welcome him to the nuclear club!

Meet Angela Saini from the UK. Hat tip to Jim Muckerheide!

Physical Insights and Atomic Insights already beat me to the punch but we'll still do the introduction. Meet Finrod over at Channelling the Strong Force . His About this blog piece is very thought-provoking, make sure to check it out: We exist in a sea of electromagnetic force, and are for the most part utterly subject to its dictates. One other force makes itself blatantly known in the course of our mundane activities, namely gravitation, but electromagnetism packs far more power in its punch. It takes a mass the magnitude of Earth to make us weigh ten Newtons to the kilogram, but with a simple rearrangement in the structure of a vanishingly, ridiculously tiny portion of Earth’s mass, we can override the gravitational force of this entire planet, and stand on two feet (by burning sugar in our cells) … or fly to the other side of it in a 747 (by burning avgas in a jet engine). ... The images of the early nuclear age have a certain amount of baggage which we need to move beyond t...

Meet ES2007S .

Meet SRI at Good Read .

Check out Worlds Apart .

Check out Negative99 .

NEI Nuclear Notes has fallen a bit behind in recognizing new bloggers for nuclear energy. Nevertheless, Rod Adams is still keeping it up and in fact helping to convert the ones on the fence . Rod last month participated in a live debate at GreenOptions hosted by Mark Seall - "the man behind TalkClimateChange.com ." Mark was skeptical "to whether or not nuclear power should be a major tool in the fight against air pollution and climate change." Three days ago, Mark came off the fence and Kirk Sorensen was there to welcome him: Welcome to this side of the fence! Not only is the grass greener, but it gets even greener than that when you learn about the potential of thorium to power some really impressive reactors! Welcome from NEI Nuclear Notes as well!

The video below on blogging is something you may enjoy apart from our usual nuclear energy discussions. A museum dedicated to the news, the Newseum , is set to open April 11 in Washington DC. The video discusses the section in the Newseum created specifically about blogging and how bloggers (you) have played an important role in the media. Enjoy!

Check out Philip Thomas at Action for Pontefract .

I'm sure by now most of our regular readers will have noticed that my byline has been a little scarce around here lately. That isn't an accident, as I'll be winding down my stewardship at NEI Nuclear Notes as well as my tenure at the Nuclear Energy Institute by the end of the week. From here on in, day-to-day responsibility for the blog will shift my colleague, Jarret Adams , who made his blog debut last week. Jarret is a valued member of the editorial team here at NEI, known well for his work on a variety of projects. He's written Congressional testimony, speeches and is the editor of Nuclear Policy Outlook . Best of all, there isn't anyone on the editorial staff who knows more about Yucca Mountain and used nuclear fuel than Jarret. In turn, David Bradish , who has worked hard to leverage his detailed statistical knowledge to debunk anti-nuclear claims on a regular basis, isn't going anywhere. If anything, I think you'll be seeing David more often on ...

I know Monday's are usually the busiest day of the week here at NEI Nuclear Notes, but a combination of meetings and other duties have kept me away from the keyboard. And now, I'm actually going to be doing a presentation on blogging for the folks at EPRI . Look for some updates later tonight. Please check back then.