PM-3A Design and Construction: Rapid Pace to Fulfill a Need
Between January 1 and March 1, 1962, the plant was assembled by a team of contractors and military technicians. On March 4, 1962, the plant reached initial criticality. The U. S. Navy began intensive...
View ArticleLetter from the Editor: PM-3A, Pioneer in Anarctic Research
Recently I took my family to the Tampa, Florida Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), which had a traveling exhibit on Antarctica. The display included a great deal of information about the dedicated...
View ArticleHow Clean is Clean? Blasting Out Frozen Soil
The final disposition of the soil was to spread it out on the ground and cover it with asphalt, turning the expensively gathered Anarctic soil into a parking lot that continues to serve the sailors at...
View ArticleA Question of Economics: The Answer Depends on the Assumptions
In 1970, President Nixon affirmed that the United States had long term objectives in the Antarctic regions and consolidated responsibility for management and funding of all Antarctic operations under...
View ArticleValuable Tool for Antarctic Research or Costly Waste?
Before the discovery of nuclear fission, the only power source capable of supplying reliable electrical energy in remote locations was a combustion engine. Because of its compact nature compared to a...
View ArticleThe Atomic Show #142 – American Right-Sized Reactors
Tom Sanders is an advocate of building right sized reactor power systems to meet human needs. He is a leader of a team working on that technology at Sandia National Laboratory. He is also the President...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Smaller nuclear reactors allow decentralized power – some critics not pleased
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. That is one of the sayings that I remember whenever I read works about energy by people like Amory Lovins or Ralph Nader and find myself agreeing with...
View ArticleWhere is Hyperion Power Generation headed now?
Hyperion Power Generation has been one of the more interesting and vocal companies in the small modular reactor (SMR) business during the past few years. I have attended a number of conferences and...
View ArticleUpdate from Hyperion Power Generation Chief Operating Officer
Yesterday morning I wrote a post titled Where is Hyperion Power Generation headed now? By the time I was ready for a lunch break, I had received an email from the Chief Operating Officer of Hyperion...
View ArticlePebble bed reactor safety demonstration test – ABC video from 2007
I spent about 15 years trying (unsuccessfully) to get a small modular reactor company off the ground. Our concept was based on an adaptation of the successful German pebble bed demonstration reactor...
View ArticleTerrific application for highly enriched uranium fuel – tiny NASA reactors
How many times have you heard politicians tell you that the only reason a nation with abundant oil and gas might want to enrich uranium is to build nuclear weapons. The United States has always been...
View ArticleB&W mPower™ Reactor Control Room Simulator Begins Operations
(CHARLOTTE, N.C. – December 4, 2012) – The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) (NYSE: BWC) is pleased to announce that the production-standard control room prototype for its B&W mPower™ small...
View ArticleMerchants of Doubt about nuclear energy
The vast majority of technical specialists in the field of energy production favor the use of nuclear energy and recognize that it is a safe source of power that produces no direct greenhouse gases....
View ArticleThe Weather Channel visits B&W mPower, Inc.
On February 14, 2013, my day job employer hosted a contingent from The Weather Channel who wanted to learn more about the B&W mPowerTM Reactor project. The video is quite informative and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
NGNP aims to expand nuclear fission out of its electricity producing niche (box)
The NGNP Alliance recently published a thought provoking blog titled Energy Vs. Electricity and Why We Care that clearly explains the basis for their interest in using high temperature gas cooled...
View ArticleNuScale announces achievement of unlimited coping time
At the Nuclear Energy Insider SMR Conference in Columbia, S.C., Dr. Jose Reyes, a co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer of NuScale Power, announced that his team had achieved an impressive design...
View ArticleB&W’s Jim Ferland describes company’s global business outlook
Jim Ferland, the CEO of The Babcock & Wilcox Company, was recently interviewed by Bill Loveless of Platts Energy Week about the company’s global business outlook. During the interview, Ferland...
View ArticleNuclear plant designed, manufactured, constructed & tested in less than 2 years
Under current rules and assumptions, anyone who claims that they can design and build a power-producing nuclear reactor in less than 10-15 years is considered to be naive or hopelessly unrealistic....
View ArticleMcMurdo Station – the New York of the Deep Freeze South
(Note: If you are impatient and do not want to watch cute photos of penguins, skip to 19:06 to learn more about the reasons why the PM-3A, a 1,500 kilowatt nuclear electricity generator and process...
View ArticleTurning small modular reactor concepts into reality in Idaho Falls
In the past half dozen years, the term “small modular reactor (SMR)” has entered the nuclear energy lexicon. Numerous projects have been initiated to develop various concepts, all aimed at producing...
View Article