Happy New Year! Industry Beginnings and Some Blog Accomplishments

Dawn

Industry Beginnings

Let's start by referencing Brian Wang's post at Next Big Future: Ten new nuclear reactors were connected to the grid in 2015. Wang lists the new reactors (mostly, but not all, in China). Then he lists fifteen more reactors that should be connected to the grid in 2016 and another fifteen in 2017. Yes. That's a new nuclear plant approximately every month, from 2015 through 2017.

Another post about new nuclear, this one by Will Davis at Atomic Power Review: SEVMORPUT Completes Trials after overhaul: Signs for the Future. The Russians decided to overhaul a nuclear icebreaker rather than scrapping it.  Russia and China are building more nuclear ships, some of which are designed to provide power to neighboring land.  These ships are the traditional Small Modular Reactors. This type of reactor is having its own renaissance.

And there seem to be more and more blog posts like this one, about forward progress on new types of reactors and improved fabrication of all kinds.  This particular post, at the Areva blog,  describes cooperation between Areva and Washington State University students toward building a cart that can transfer uranium pellets between Areva buildings in Richland Washington. WSU Tri-Cities Senior Project Team Achieves Next Design Stage.

Blog Accomplishments

Six years of the Yes Vermont Yankee blog.  This year marks the sixth year of the Yes Vermont Yankee blog.  I started it in 2010 as a New Year's resolution. (I decided to blog because I was tired of writing lengthy emails to my friends.)  The blog was immediately welcomed by the blogging community, for which I am grateful.

Northwest Clean Energy Blog  I am proud to be an occasional blogger at the Northwest Clean Energy blog of Energy Northwest. It's a relatively new blog, but its Year In Review report by Wordpress showed some great  2015 accomplishments. These included 26,000 views, with viewers all over the world.   Here's the Northwest Clean Energy post on 2015 in Review.

Looking Forward

If we look at the Northeast (which I plan to do in the next few days), the nuclear view can get depressing. However, when we take a longer, broader view of nuclear, we can see significant new plants coming on-line in non-European areas, and many new initiatives in the Southeast and Northwest of this country.  Furthermore, pro-nuclear bloggers continue to grow in number, strength and influence.

I look forward to this year with some hope.  Especially when I look past the Northeast and into the bigger world. 

Blog Milestone: 200,000 Page Views

On Friday, August 31, Yes Vermont Yankee past a milestone of 200,000 page views.  The statistics from Google Blogger are shown above.

Just right

I think the blog is doing pretty well, considering that it covers mostly Vermont issues, and Vermont is a small state. I recently described Yes Vermont Yankee as a "niche blog." Some of my friends objected to that description.

Instead of describing it as "niche" or "general-interest" or whatever, I will quote my friend Gaila:

"It's not too big and it's not too small.  It's Just Right!"

Thank you to everyone who reads this blog!

Update: I want to thank the American Nuclear Society for sending  their congratulations through a lovely post at ANS Nuclear Cafe: Yes Vermont Yankee passes 200K pageview milestone.

Happy Birthday, Yes Vermont Yankee!

This blog is one year old as of January 1. I feel happy that the blog has affected the dialog in Vermont. There is now a place for pro-Vermont Yankee information, opinions, and support.

I'm not doing a blog-retrospective here because I wrote one at Looking Backward, Looking Forward. This was a guest post on the American Nuclear Society blog, Nuclear Cafe. The post was also featured on the Energy Collective.

Thank you to all my readers, and all the other supportive nuclear bloggers, and all Vermont Yankee supporters. This will be a crucial year for Vermont Yankee, and we will be very active in this year. Once again, we will make a difference.

A special huge thanks to the Ethan Allen Institute for helping me start the Energy Education Project this fall. The Energy Education Project sponsors local talks and talks by outside experts. Howard Shaffer and I are also appearing on TV and radio. We will continue to help the people of Vermont understand their real energy options.

The Energy Education Project is especially proud of bringing Gwyneth Cravens to Vermont later this month. She will speak at a Legislative Round Table in Montpelier and a presentation in Burlington. Here's the announcement about the Round Table. As usual, you can doubleclick the image to see a bigger version.

I encourage people to click the PayPal button on this blog to join the Energy Education Project. A year's membership is $30, but we accept any level of donation. Right now, we have raised the money for the Cravens visit, and are raising money for pro-Vermont Yankee flyers and FAQ publications. Your $30 will go a long way!

A Happy and Healthy New Year to all who read this blog!