NEI Nuclear Notes

Here are some quick hits to roll around the mouth and savor. You don’t even have to spit them out. --- Steve Williams responds to William Tucker’s approval of the scaling back of Yucca Mountain: If the enviros had any sense at all - and if they feared global warming (um, climate change) as much as they say - they would embrace nuclear power as the globe's, and humanity's, great savior. Nuclear power is readily available (it costs much more than it should simply because of the legal and environmental maneuvering undertaken to prevent permits for construction of nuclear power plants), is not an emitter of any dangerous pollution at all, and puts solar and wind power to shame because it is so efficient and constant. And this is from the Victorville Daily Press, in the heart of California’s high desert. Williams has a free market kind of vibe that passes a little too lightly on environmental issues, but we mostly like what he says. ---- Uh-oh. U.S. Navy r...

Here's some grand foresight from the author of Terrestrial Energy : ... Sometime in the next 18 months, Obama will finally bring his carbon emissions program to Congress. At that point, the Democratic Party will split in two. Senators and representatives from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, which get huge portions of their electricity from coal, will never consent to hiking their electrical bills in the midst of a near-Depression. Obama and Democratic liberals will be at wit's end. After twenty years of yammering about global warming, they will find themselves unable to do anything about it. Will they skulk off in defeat, blaming the Bush Administration? Perhaps. But I think there's a more likely scenario. Someone in the administration -- probably Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who knows in his heart that wind and solar can't cut it -- will suggest that that a carbon tax be coupled with the revival of nuclear power. Suddenly, the dam will break. NRC regulatory mazes tha...

William Tucker, author of Terrestrial Energy (his latest book "about nuclear energy, global warming and the threat to the environment"), shared his thoughts at the American Spectator about what it means to be renewable as well as what renewable mandates may do to the country . Here are a few nuggets: What is a renewable portfolio? Well, it's what we used to call an "unfunded mandate." The premise is that the government has perfect foresight on where our energy future is going and as good legislators it's their responsibility to hasten its arrival. Corporations and utilities, you see, are generally too greedy and stupid to perceive the future so they have to be prodded on their way. In their wisdom, the legislators will mandate that by 2000-whatever the state or nation shall derive XX percent of its electricity from "renewable sources." It's up to the utilities to do the job. California pioneered this strategy in the 1990s but 26 states have n...

My interview with journalist and author of Terrestrial Energy , William Tucker, is now up on NEI's YouTube Channel . Part one can be seen here . Part two, here . Favorite Q&A? Q. Have you ever convinced any friends to become supporters of nuclear energy? A. Ahhh! In fact of I have. I actually managed to convince my wife. [I] Thought that was a big accomplishment. Many thanks to Aaron Rosenberg from Hill & Knowlton for shooting the video and NEI 's Calvin Haden for the editing.

Next week I'll be interviewing journalist William Tucker and seek the assistance of Notes readers: any suggested questions I should ask the author of T errestrial Energy ? You can leave your questions for Mr. Tucker in the comments or email them here . Thanks for your help.

In the Op-Ed pages of The Wall Street Journal today, William Tucker provides as normalizing an explanation about nuclear energy production as I've seen in the general interest press. If we are now going to choose nuclear power as a way to resolve both our concerns about global warming and our looming energy shortfalls, we are first going to have to engage in a national debate about whether or not we accept the technology. To begin this discussion, I suggest redefining what we call nuclear power as "terrestrial energy." Every fuel used in human history -- firewood, coal, oil, wind and water -- has been derived from the sun. But terrestrial energy is different. Terrestrial energy is the heat at the earth's core that raises its temperature to 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than the surface of the sun. Remarkably, this heat derives largely from a single source -- the radioactive breakdown of uranium and thorium. The energy released in the breakdown of these two elemen...