41st Carnival of Nuclear Energy: Thanks, CoolHandNuke!

Cool Hand Nuke is hosting the 41st Blog Carnival of Nuclear Energy. Here are a few excerpts:

We'll begin this Carnival over at Fuel Cycle Week, where Dan Yurman asks if NNSA can deliver reliable fuel services from its $4.6 billion MOX plant?  Three utilities are interested, but production may fall short of demand.

The "when" is the schedule of reactor fuel outages for each customer. These schedules line up with the regularity, and inflexibility, of planets in their annual orbits around the sun.

Who will be accountable for reliable fuel services may turn out to be as important an issue for MOX fuel as the capability to use it in the first place.

Next Big Future

Next we stop by Next Big Future for a Three-pack of posts beginning with China and Japan's plans for thorium reactors. China is funded. Plus addressing the issue of reactor startup. China can make a fairly fast transition and startup using plutonium which is not a constraint for them.  

Then he takes up for a look at the NRC certification and licensing of reactor designs. It appears that the NRC takes 7-20+ years to certify a design and many designs never make it past pre-application. Historically there have been many other non PWR and LWR reactor designs that were in pre-application but none have made it to formal certification since 1974.   And he ends with Cameco's uranium forecast to 2015.

Nuclear Green

Now we move over to Nuclear Green where we have a two-pack of posts beginning with the recent Chinese announcement of an intent to begin development of a thorium Breeding Molten Salt Reactor, which has drawn attention to the treatment of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) by the American Mainstream Media.  In contrast the LFTR has received recognition in the British press and in American Social Media.  

_Go to CoolHandNuke for the rest of the Carnival

Nuclear energy is a catch-phrase which covers a wide range of technologies. Taken together, these technologies represent the best hope for the development of an advanced civilisations of humans which spans the solar system in a prosperous, clean, and responsible manner.

The energy starvation policies of the US Obama government, and the carbon hysteria policies of the EU, the UN's IPCC, the US EPA, faux environmental groups such as Greenpeace, and other regressive institutions represent one of the foremost obstacles to a better future for all species of the planet.