Saturday, July 9, 2011

60th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers

The 60th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers is up today at Atomic Power Review. This is the first time Will Davis has hosted the Carnival at his site, and he has done a splendid job! I was hooked on reading it. He starts the Carnival with an ambiguous picture: guess what this photo shows? You have to read to the end of the blog to find out what it is. (Well, you can cheat and scroll down to see the answer. I did.) And when you read the answer, you will learn some nuclear history


Series Posts

Two posts are each part of important series:
  1. In the fourth part of Charles Barton's multi-part post on Nuclear Subsidies, Barton explains that most supposed "subsidies" to nuclear are not subsidies at all. In these four well-researched posts, Barton discusses government relationships to nuclear energy, other energy projects, and military nuclear. In another post, Barton describes Google's floundering attempts to go "green" without considering small modular reactors.
  2. In the third of three posts on Lessons Learned from Fukushima, Margaret Harding describes the political lessons of Fukushima. Her earlier posts have described techniclal and corporate lessons.
Thought-Provoking Posts

Rod Adams of Atomic Insights wonders why nuclear advocates rarely mention the positive role of nuclear power in preventing climate change. Adams makes a convincing case for not hiding nuclear's climate-beneficial light under a barrel.

Rick Maltese of Deregulate the Atom writes a bold (and probably correct) prediction that Japan will speed up nuclear development in the future. While noble suicide was a tradition in Japan during the feudal era, the country won't choose to commit economic suicide by phasing out nuclear during the modern era.

Looking toward the future, Dan Yurman of Idaho Samizdat watches Jaczko attempt to delay and derail APR1000 regulatory approval. (Despite the fact that no APR builds have even been suggested for Nevada! Okay, that was my snarky comment, not Dan's post.)

Brian Wang of Next Big Future notes that if Germany phases out nuclear, they will be going to fossil. In another post, Wang, once again, keeps us up with the fusion future. Wang reports that t the United States has joined the Stellerator fusion project in Germany.

Announcements and Bartenders

The Carnival includes my paired Yes Vermont Yankee posts about the Vermont Attorney General (AG): "Vermont AG will announce", and "Vermont AG has announced" that he is not bringing criminal charges against Entergy. The AG sure got a lot of mileage out of a non-event! Myself, I'm planning to hold a press conference to announce that I will hold another press conference to announce whether or not I am bringing charges against the Vermont AG. (Just kidding, I think. Maybe.)

Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed Dan Yurman's post at ANS Nuclear Café, Some Good News for a Change. So few nuclear posts start with a conversation with a bartender! This bartender, see, tells a bunch of nuclear people that they are a gloomy crowd and should lighten up, and then Dan says....Okay. As Yurman points out: There's lots of good news in the world of nuclear. The United Kingdom is building nukes, Finland has asked for more bids for reactors, and more. I'll drink to that!

The 60th Carnival! Bartenders, Germany, climate change, APRs, fusion. Something for everyone! Pay it a visit.

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