As we come to the end of another year, it is not a nuclear issue that I want to discuss but rather the broader issue of our need for reliable electricity. Last month I started with a quote from the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2013 highlighting how important energy has Read more…
As I started to read this year’s World Energy Outlook (WEO 2013) from the International Energy Agency (IEA), it was the very first line in the executive summary that caught my interest. The report starts out with “Many of the long–held tenets of the energy sector are being rewritten.” It Read more…
After many years of effort, this month it finally happened. The UK government and EDF Energy, the French-owned UK integrated energy company, agreed to a strike price making the first new nuclear build in the UK in a generation, at Hinkley Point C, a reality. It was a long hard Read more…
Over the summer we talked about Pandora’s Promise, where 5 prominent environmentalists had changed their mind from being against to being supportive of nuclear power. They visited Chernobyl and Fukushima, explored the realities of the technology, sought the scientific truth and came away supportive. That being said, looking at the Read more…
I have written much about the strength of our beliefs and how they influence important decisions. A case in point is the decision to close nuclear stations early in Germany. As we in the rest of the western world try and understand the German approach to eliminating nuclear power on Read more…
Finally this week, we are feeling the heat of summer. I am off next week to teach for the WNU in Korea and China. I always enjoy these summer courses and find the interest of those attending to be inspiring. That being said I thought I would be a bit Read more…
As I was thinking about what to write this month, I was invited by my dry cleaner to attend a protest in a nearby park against genetically modified food. This somewhat infuriated me as I know without doubt that GMO has helped millions around the world and had never killed Read more…
Last month we talked about Fukushima two years on and focused our discussion on making sure we remember the real people whose lives continue to be severely impacted by this accident. This month, as we also remember Chernobyl on its 27th anniversary, I wanted to talk about the legacy of Read more…
With the second anniversary of the Fukushima accident having just passed, it was with little fanfare outside of Japan. There were the requisite articles in the press about Japan and its quest to reform its energy infrastructure. There was talk about the devastating consequences of the tsunami and the Fukushima Read more…
It was with great interest that most of us listened to President Obama put climate change back on the US agenda in his state of the union address this month. “After years of talking about it, we are finally poised to control our own energy future. We produce more oil Read more…
2012 was a challenging year. The industry continued to see the impact of the Fukushima accident. While the Japanese were working towards a policy of complete nuclear phase out by the 2040s; and other markets were looking at reducing reliance on nuclear power; and significantly France, the most nuclear country Read more…
Hard to believe we have already come to the end of another year. It was a year with both highs and lows for the nuclear industry. I will talk about this more in the new year. But for today, I wanted to close out 2012 by writing about something that Read more…
I have just done my first pass of the Word Energy Outlook 2012 issued by the IEA this November. Many of you will have seen some of the headlines – one of the most intriguing is that the US is expected to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2017 Read more…
I want to commend the Saskatchewan government for honouring Dr Sylvia Fedoruk by renaming the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation located at the University of Saskatchewan the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation. Dr. Fedoruk died on September 26 at the age of 85. When I thought about writing Read more…
I participated in the WNA Annual Symposium in London earlier this month. During the event I had ample opportunity to discuss my last post on developing a better understanding of the beliefs behind the public’s view of nuclear power and what we as an industry need to do going forward. Read more…
Was just in Oxford where I gave a lecture to the WNU Summer institute – a great group of young people who are committed to working in the nuclear industry and doing what they think is best for their and our collective futures. Oxford is a great place to quietly Read more…
I started writing this while sitting on the very long plane ride on my way to China. The Rio+20 conference had just started, the largest ever UN conference and yet it was receiving relatively little press. I remember the first Rio conference 20 years ago when there was so much Read more…
It seems as if a day doesn’t go by when we don’t hear about the low price of gas in North America and its impact on potential growth in the nuclear industry. In the past month, the price of gas actually dropped below $2 /million BTU; a price that was Read more…
On March 11 it was the first anniversary of the great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan and, of course, the accident that resulted at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. And as can be imagined, there were many many articles in the press to commemorate this event. As Read more…
If 2011 was all about the events at Fukushima, 2012 is shaping up to be a big year in moving forward with the nuclear renaissance. For the Chinese, this is the year of the dragon. This is, in fact, the major symbol of good fortune in Chinese Astrology. Of the Read more…