Atomic Canyon is a six month old company that is developing AI tools to improve the efficiency of routine tasks associated with developing, licensing, building, owning and operating nuclear plants. Their first product, called Neutron, uses AI to modernize searching the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 52 million page collection of publicly available documents that are currently accessible through the somewhat cumbersome Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). Trey Lauderdale, Atomic Canyon’s founder, spent the first 15 years of his career in the digital medicine field. At an ..read more

Emmet Penney is an unlikely, but effective pronuclear advocate. He earned his degrees in fine arts and great books and worked for several years as a professional poet – along with working in a bookstore as a way to keep paying the bills. He gradually transitioned from poetry into writing thoughtful essays on a variety of topics. One of those pieces caught the attention of Michael Shellenberger and began the process of converting Emmet into a passionate, erudite pronuclear advocate who reads voraciously about all topics that interest him. That attribute has given him a remarkable depth of under ..read more

Doug Sandridge, Oil and Gas Executive for Nuclear Doug Sandridge is a lifelong oil and gas guy whose father was a geological engineer. While he was growing up, Doug lived a significant portion of his life overseas as his father’s job took the family to several different locations. When it was time to go to college, Doug returned to the United State to attend the University of Oklahoma. He took a brief detour into architecture, but by his second year he shifted his focus to engineering and petroleum-related topics. During the past 40 years, he has pursued a career as a land man, which requires ..read more

The Feb 6, 2024 Energy Gang podcast was titled “A pause in US gas export approvals: a big win for the climate? US hits the brakes on gas exports!” It was described as a gassy episode with a focus on international natural gas trading, the impact of the Biden Administration’s pause on issuing new permits that would enable future growth of what is already the world’s largest gasification infrastructure and the production and use of hydrogen as a partial natural gas replacement. The value of the conversation, however, was limited because the Gang members made a choice – perhaps conscious, perhaps ..read more

I wish I knew why some nuclear advocates feel that it’s worth their time to spread as much negative information as they can find about the potential utility and value of advanced nuclear power technologies. IMO, modern water cooled reactors qualify as advanced in the same way as a modern BMW engine qualifies as advanced even if it is still using the same Otto Cycle (4-stroke spark plug internal combustion) that was first patented in 1861. There are very innovative water-cooled reactor designs. Reactors that don’t use any coolant pumps or nuclear power plants that can be assembled almost as eas ..read more

Here is another instance of climate reporting that treats nuclear fission as if it barely exists. Before COP28, Cipher published an “Exclusive” that led off with “The United States is working behind the scenes to ensure nuclear power is not excluded from an expected global pledge to boost renewables at the upcoming climate summit in Dubai, Cipher has learned.” (Emphasis added) Anca Gruzu’s article, Exclusive: U.S. pushes to ensure nuclear “is not forgotten” in COP renewables pledge describes the diplomatic effort craft a broad COP agreement to mitigate climate change, including tripling renewa ..read more

The Energy Gang’s Dec 15 episode discussed the major outcomes from COP28. Ed Crooks (@Ed_Crooks), Dr. Melissa Lott @mclott, and Amy Harder (@AmyAHarder) completed the show without mentioning nuclear energy. That episode of the long-running, respected energy podcast was produced just four days after a focused episode reporting on #nuclear energy’s important role at COP28. As reported during that earlier show, nuclear’s role in Dubai was so large that some even called it the nuclear COP. Mark Nelson, Managing Director of Radiant Energy Group marvels at Expo City’s outdoor lighting As Mark Nelson ..read more

James Krellenstein is a physicist, consultant and nuclear energy historian. He is currently employed as a senior advisor to Global Health Strategies. He started up their decarbonization practice with an emphasis on nuclear energy along with renewables. He was the lead author on GEH’s report on ways to reduce global dependence on Russia for necessary supplies of enriched uranium. He had the unusual and fortunate experience of growing up with a father who was a nuclear engineer turned nuclear financial specialist and a grandfather who ran a custom manufacturing machinery production facility. Bot ..read more

I’ll start with a disclosure. I’m still long on NuScale in my personal portfolio and have no intention of changing that position in the near future. I believe that the company has a good product and excellent potential for growth. The image above with Jose Reyes and me is from a visit I paid to the NuScale test loop in October 2014. Yesterday (Nov 8, 2023), an expected shoe dropped. NuScale and UAMPS (Utah Association of Municipal Power Systems) announced that they had decided to abandon their Carbon Free Power Project. The press release stated, “Despite significant efforts by both parties to ..read more

Stefano Buono is a physicist and the successful founder of Advanced Accelerator Applications, a multibillion dollar company that pioneered the use of several therapeutic medical isotopes. After making several people very rich, including himself, he sold the medical isotope business and returned to his early 1990s field of study – nuclear fission reactors using molten lead as a coolant. About two years ago, Stefano Buono and some of his colleagues and associates founded newcleo, a company with Italian roots based in the UK. Last year, newcleo ran two successful rounds of start-up funding that n ..read more