79th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers at ANS Nuclear Cafe

The 79th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers is now posted at ANS Nuclear Cafe. Dan Yurman has put together a fascinating Carnival.

Let's start with Nuclear Green's contribution: a three- part interview with Sherrell Greene, a recently retired ORNL reactor researcher. Greene describes several types of new reactors, including several molten salt reactors, and point to the problems of "business as usual" in the nuclear industry. We need to develop new types of reactors!

In a similar vein, Brian Wang of Next Big Future describes new types of uranium/thorium fuel under development, and third generation reactors on order in China.

In several cheerful notes, both Gail Marcus and I enjoy a pro-nuclear cartoon from a Vermont newspaper. (Yes, you read that right. Pro-nuclear and Vermont newspaper appeared in the same sentence.) Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat explains how the next generation of nuclear engineers will have been raised on computer games---and that's a good thing.

The International Scene

Gail Marcus of Nuke Power Talk describes the positive effects of Russia's interest in joining the international Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). In 2006, Marcus headed an NEA delegation to Moscow to sign preliminary papers about cooperation, and that effort is bearing fruit. Good going, Marcus and NEA!

Meanwhile, Rod Adams of Atomic Insights reports the good news that reporters are now allowed to visit Fukushima Daiichi. This shows great progress in the clean-up. Rod also reports that USA Today managed to turn this into a bad-news time-to-worry story.

Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues wonders why the Occupy protesters in Ottawa are using gasoline powered diesel generators. Pretty dirty electricity. They could connect batteries to the clean Ottawa grid instead. Three quarters of the grid's power comes from non-emitting sources of nuclear and hydro.

At ANS Nuclear Cafe, Dan Yurman reviews the issues and consequences of the anti-nuclear protests in India. Let's see. The national government is pro-nuclear, some of the provincial governments are anti-nuclear, and nobody told the people in the area of one plant that the siren-test-evacuation drill was a test. So local citizens were terrified as they heard sirens and saw people streaming from the plant grounds. India is a complicated place, goodness knows, but the nuclear start-up could also be far better organized. Excellent post on an important subject.

News and views and updates from all over! Come to the Carnival!