E-mail Updates
Enter your e-mail address to receive occasional updates and previews from The New Atlantis.
Nuclear Energy
Articles
Yucca Mountain: A Post-Mortem
Fall 2012 • Adam J. White on how President Obama killed the planned nuclear-waste repository
The Untapped Potential of the NPT
Why We Must Reinterpret the Non-Proliferation Treaty
Fall 2010 • Henry Sokolski
Get Moving on Yucca
Summer 2009
Romancing the Atom
Uranium Prospecting, Once and Again
Summer 2009 • Robert R. Johnson
The Fusion Illusion
Summer 2009 • Max Schulz on false starts, fraud, and the real promise of nuclear fusion
The Lost Prestige of Nuclear Physics
Summer 2009 • N. J. Slabbert on the American retreat from nuclear technology
‘A Critical Part of the Solution’
Al Gore and the Nuclear Debate
Spring 2007
Too Speculative?
Getting Serious About Nuclear Terrorism
Fall 2006 • Henry Sokolski
Is Nuclear Energy Coming Back?
Spring 2005
Blog Posts
Center for American Progress says NO to nuclear
July 9, 2008 •The left-leaning Center for American Progress has published an issue alert outlining ten reasons to oppose the construction of new nuclear power plants in the U.S. The list is a round-up of reasons typically given by those who oppose nuclear (high capital costs, where to store waste, access to foreign uranium stockpiles, safety concerns) and some rather interesting ones: U.S. firms won’t be building any new plants (“Because no new nuclear power plants have been built in the United States in over 30 years, foreign companies have more experience building such plants”). Should Americans not buy Priuses either, because Toyota makes them? Another reason to oppose nuclear subsidies: they “take money away from more effective alternative energy subsidies.”
Tracking the Nuclear Renaissance
June 18, 2008 •The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has received applications to build fifteen new reactors in eight states. Later this year, existing plants in seven other states plan to seek permits for a dozen more reactors. The first could be built and operating by 2016, according to an AP article.
Meanwhile, at a public meeting for NRC staff (June 19-20 at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland), Energy Department officials are presenting a “walk-through” of the agency's license application for the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Details here.
Wired goes nuclear
June 13, 2008 •The cover of Wired magazine’s June 2008 issue says it all:
The article inside even more directly takes on the environmental movement, starting with its title: “Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green.” The article outlines a list of ten “inconvenient truths” (a play on the title of Al Gore’s documentary and book, which has also been recently parodied by Iain Murray). The article argues that “winning the war on global warming” -- the paramount goal of today’s environmental movement -- “requires slaughtering some of environmentalism’s sacred cows.” That means greens cannot “afford to ignore...the carbon-free electricity supplied by nuclear energy.”
Although this is Wired’s most blunt statement in favor of the use of civilian nuclear energy, it’s worth noting that a few years ago the magazine also dedicated considerable space to a friendly profile of Patrick Moore, the Greenpeace co-founder who now advocates for nuclear power.
The ten “inconvenient truths” are here:
- Live in Cities
- A/C Is OK
- Organics Are Not The Answer
- Farm the Forests
- China Is the Solution
- Accept Genetic Engineering
- Carbon Trading Doesn’t Work
- Embrace Nuclear Power
- Used Cars — Not Hybrids
- Prepare for the Worst
