66th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers at ANS Nuclear Cafe

The 66th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at ANS Nuclear Cafe.

Dan Yurman has put together a great Carnival, starting with a scorebox: "Southern, Vogtle and Westinghouse advance in standings." Next, Yurman has an excellent and readable discussion on John Rowe's controversial speech on the future prospects of natural gas and nuclear. Yurman's discussion includes input from blogs by Margaret Harding and Rod Adams.

On the subject of box scores, the Carnival has a lot of project updates. Almost all are good news! TVA is going ahead with the Bellefonte construction/ restoration. and Next Big Future updates us on fusion progress. At ANS Nuclear Cafe, Yurman explains how Saudi Arabia plans to support development in the Empty Quarter with 16 new reactors.

I describe Senator Bernie Sanders vote against small modular reactor research. Charles Barton, ever courageous, looks back to the late fifties in America and Britain to show how the "national prestige" of having nuclear weapons had nasty and long-lasting effects on civilian nuclear programs. Also looking backwards, but more cheerfully, John Bickel reviews pro-nuclear talking points about Seabrook plant from the late seventies. These points are still valid.

On the other hand (small pun), Cool Hand Nuke looks at current events and the future, not the past. His post includes the announcement of a new nuclear think-tank with Pete Domenici and an update on the progress of Bill Gates' Traveling Wave Reactor. Rod Adams stares directly into the future with the question: Will natural gas remain cheap for ten or twenty years? Rowe says it will. Well, let's see. The price has already increased 15% in Europe post-Fukushima. Natural gas supporters see this as a blip, not a trend. Maybe. If current nuclear plants are not replaced with new nuclear plants in the future, higher priced natural gas will certainly be a trend.

Dan Yurman points out that the USEC American Centrifuge project is stalled for lack of a loan guarantee. Gail Marcus, who lived and worked in the Japanese nuclear industry, has posted some pretty strong critiques of the regulatory system there. In this week's post, she defends herself from the accusation that she is anti-Japanese.

All in all, though, the Carnival is a great read. It includes quick and enticing updates on many subjects of interest. Visit the Carnival!!