69th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers at Atomic Power Review

The 69th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers is up at Atomic Power Review (APR). Once again, Will Davis starts with a graphic from nuclear energy history: "guess what this is." I have to admit..I pretty much knew this one. Except that I didn't. I didn't understand why it was special. Oh well, read the Carnival yourself to find out

The Blog posts in the Carnival are terrific. Brain Wang, at Next Big Future, reviews a Japanese report on post-Fukushima nuclear economics. Even assuming a clean-up cost of over a hundred billion dollars, the cost of nuclear electricity in Japan is completely competitive with other sources of power. Meanwhile, something completely different: Gail Marcus at Nuke Power Talk describes one of the oldest uses for uranium: orange and yellow ceramic glazes. It's fun to read her post, and brought back my days studying geochemistry in grad school. The people in my lab studied minerals and geochemistry, and often published in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society. Ceramics and rocks are pretty much the same thing, not even two sides of the same coin.

In other blog posts, Rod Adams of Atomic Insights points out that instead of calling wind and solar energy intermittent (which sounds like a windshield wiper) they might be better called uncontrollable or unreliable. Dan Yurman of Idaho Samizdat describes China's post-Fukushima nuclear program, which is slower than its pre-Fukushima program, but still a very impressive set of builds. Margaret Harding of 4 Factor Consulting talks about the demographics of the workforce in nuclear energy (too many oldsters, not enough 40-year-olds), and Stephen Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues discusses how the Darlington Reactor has become a political campaign issue. ANS Nuclear Cafe featured Rod Adams again, this time describing the new Center for Advanced Engineering Research in Virginia. The center is part of a community that welcomes science and nuclear energy. Gosh, that sounds nice. No, it sounds wonderful. Actually, it sounds like a dream come true. Of course, I live in Vermont...

The Carnival also includes my post on cancelled festivals and broken windows, and Will Davis post at APR on the story of the Elk River Power Reactor. The Elk River post is part of a new series: APR Atomic Journal, including technical and historical pieces about nuclear energy.

Come to the Carnival! Fun! Upbeat blog posts! Solid technical nourishment! Everyone is welcome!

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