This post represents the latest link in an unbroken chain of more than five years of the weekly summaries of the best of the pro-nuclear blogs.

With the completion of the Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015, the leveraging the nuclear energy to mitigate future growth of CO2 emissions comes even more prominently into the public eye. Want to know what’s going on? Read all about it here.

Previous editions of the Carnival have been posted at the blogs cited below and elsewhere.

See the “Blogs We Read” sidebar at the ANS Nuclear Café for a complete list. It is published by the American Nuclear Society. A great site for the industry perspective is the blog and the dynamic blog roll at NEI Nuclear Notes. It cites new blog posts on nuclear energy as they are published from around the nation.

For day-to-day breaking news and updates, check out the entries on Twitter list posted on this blog which contains more than 80 pro-nuclear sources. This is a Twitter list you can follow.

About these bloggers

The bloggers who write the posts cited here do so because they have come to see, based on experience, that nuclear energy is a cost-effective, carbon emission free, source of electrical power which can raise the standard of living for any population which benefits from access to it.

Your kind attention to these blog posts is appreciated. Please repost or cite in your favorite social media channels. There are live icons, with one click action, for doing so, at the end of this blog post

Carnival 300

Rod Adams – Atomic Insights

All-nuclear grids are not only feasible, but proven and operating today

It is already well-proven that it’s possible to operate village and small town sized 100% clean electrical grids using nuclear power plants designed for responsiveness, reliability, ease of operation and maintainability.

The navies of the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and China have been doing this with nuclear powered submarines and ships since as early as January 17, 1955 when the USS Nautilus first reported that it was underway on nuclear power.

Rod Adams – the Atomic Show #251

SA Royal Commission, Diablo Canyon, Trivial Tritium, DOE budget priorities

Roundtable discussion of news and events that affect nuclear science and technology. Guests included Les Corrice, Lisa Stiles, Andrew Benson and Ben Heard. Ben was able to offer an on-scene report from Adelaide about the tentative findings from the South Australia Royal Commission on the Nuclear Fuel Cycle. Those findings had just been released to the public 1 hour before the show began.

Gail Marcus – Nuke Power Talk

FCC v. NRC

Nuke Power Talk this week responds to comments made to a previous blog, postulating that other regulatory agencies made more timely licensing decisions than NRC does.

Au contraire, Gail Marcus says, noting some telecom initiatives have experiences long delays in licensing decisions under the FCC—and not even for safety-related reasons. Not that one excuses the other, but just a message that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.

Northwest Clean Energy Blog

From Navy to Nuclear–Ricky Mendoza’s Story

Energy Northwest is a designated Military Friendly employer. In this post, equipment operator Ricky Mendoza describes his career which moved from Nuclear Navy to Columbia Generating Station. He constantly gains more system knowledge and experience. He serves as an Equipment Operator at the plant, and there are many opportunities to advance. Mendoza “highly recommend(s) a career in commercial nuclear power to anyone with prior Navy nuclear experience.” (post by Ricky Mendoza)

Meredith Angwin – Yes Vermont Yankee (guest blog post by anonymous)

Support Science and Nuclear Energy by Visiting Congress in April

On April 12 and 13, science and engineering organizations will visit Capitol Hill and speak to members of congress as the budgets are set. Nuclear professionals can join these organizations in various ways. Nuclear professionals and supporters need to make a case for their interests: nobody will do it for us.

Meredith Angwin – Yes Vermont Yankee (Guest post by Martin Cohn)

Nuclear Spent Fuel Challenges

The Vermont Public Service Board is considering Entergy’s request for a new pad for more spent fuel canisters, as Vermont Yankee moves into decommissioning. Martin Cohn of Entergy describes the need for this pad at Vermont Yankee, and the economics of financing the pad (Entergy has taken out a line of credit for used fuel handling.) He also makes a strong case for the federal government to move on a permanent repository for used fuel.

Will Davis – ANS Nuclear Cafe

Nuclear Plant Costs – A Look Back and Ahead

Reports of escalating costs for some nuclear plants under construction around the world, while the costs for others have not, have led to a call for an examination of the historic trends of nuclear plant construction project costs.

This new interest has led to at least one significant new paper. This retrospective introduces the topic to those unfamiliar, and shows lessons learned that the industry now incorporates in building nuclear plants.

The Breakthrough Institute set out to collect and analyze a much broader data set from a greater diversity of nuclear nations, and the results have now been published in a ground-breaking paper, Historical Construction Costs of Global Nuclear Power Reactors, in the journal Energy Policy.

Authored by Breakthrough’s Jessica Lovering and Ted Nordhaus along with Arthur Yip from Carnegie Mellon University, this paper examines complete construction cost histories for the nuclear industry in seven countries and tells a very different story than the mainstream narrative.

US NRC Blog

Putting the Axe to the ‘Scram’ Myth

The NRC glossary defines a “scram” as “the sudden shutting down of a nuclear reactor usually by rapid insertion of control rods.” But where did the word come from? The answer is not what you expect.

The image (left) is of the SCRAM button from EBR-1 in Idaho.

Nuclear Street

Georgia Commission Approves New Vogtle Unit 3 And 4 Construction Costs

With work 60 percent complete across the Vogtle Units 3 and 4,Georgia Power said Thursday that the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) has verified and approved $148 million in costs submitted by the company through the 13th Vogtle Construction Monitoring (VCM) Report.

The report details progress and investments made by Georgia Power for the Vogtle nuclear expansion from January 1 through June 30, 2015. To date, the Georgia PSC has unanimously reviewed and approved $3.1 billion invested by the company through the rigorous and transparent VCM process, the company said in a statement.

Dan Yurman – Neutron Bytes

Wisconsin lifts decades old ban on new nuclear reactors

Legislation that will end Wisconsin’s decades long ban on building new nuclear power plants is headed for signature by Governor Scott Walker following a 23-9 vote this week.

Several Democrats joined Republicans in both the House and Senate in passing the new legislation this week.

The bill now goes to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker who is expected to sign it.

Brian Wang – Next Big Future

Uranium futures

Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom reported their uranium production increased 4.3 percent in 2015, to 23,800 tonnes uranium (52.5 million pounds). This was an increase of over 970 tonnes (2.1 million pounds) from the 22,829 tonnes that Kazakhstan produced in 2014.

Idling Japan’s reactors for a few years caused Japanese utilities to accumulate about 120 million pounds of uranium since they still had to honor their existing supply contracts. This is enough to fuel its restarting fleet for the next decade.

The price of uranium has little effect on the price of nuclear power since the fuel is such a small part of the total cost and the cost of fuel itself is dominated by the fabrication costs, not the cost of uranium. Decisions to build nuclear power plants do not hinge on uranium supplies. And there are sufficient uranium deposits in the world to provide nuclear energy at any level for many thousands of years.

Eighty-nine percent of the fuel requirements of the current fleet of nuclear reactors worldwide, totaling some 377 million pounds U3O8 (yellowcake), will be met in 2016 by Canada, Australia, and Kazakhstan.

Steve Aplin – Canadian Energy Issues



Two cars, and a daily decision: an Ontario parable

Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues wonders how many two-car owners would consciously and deliberately choose an unreliable junker over a dependable set of wheels as their go-to car. Probably not many. So why does Ontario run its electricity grid that way?

Jim Conca – Forbes Nuclear Deal Colors 2016 Election – In Iran A field of candidates vying for the hearts of true conservatives in a crazy election campaign where the past seems to hold no hint of the future. No, it’s not the Republican campaign for the President of the United States – it’s the simultaneous election on February 26 of a new Parliament in Iran and the election of Iran’s Assembly of Experts. You wouldn’t know it from the rhetoric in United States, but these elections are much more important to the people of Iran, and to America’s interest in that region of the world, than our own elections. The battle is essentially democracy versus oligarchy. And the Iran Nuclear Deal is front and center.

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