Fear of the unknown is a powerful force.

In the days since Japan's earthquake and tsunami combined to create the situation at Fukushima, nuclear professionals across the country have been united in our deep concern over the events in Japan and have contributed countless hours working to ensure that information provided to the public and media was based on fact and reason rather than hysteria and misinformation. I want to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the many ANS members who stepped forward to support the efforts of the Society in this time of great need.

A plain English explanation

The discontinuous nature of current events suggests this graphic of a mobius strip as the design basis for a roller coaster.

The 46th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is up at Next Big Future.  The

This article was originally scheduled to appear on March 17. It has since been slightly revised by the author.

This article was originally scheduled to appear on March 14.

The court will decide Yucca Mountain's future, not the president

For the latest updates on nuclear power stations in Japan, please see the Fukushima tab on the top menu of this page.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-0 to renew the operating license for the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station near Brattleboro, Vt., for an additional 20 years. [NRC web page on Vermont Yankee license renewal]

The time has come for the U.S. to recycle its spent nuclear fuel

Leigh Keever is a professor of sociology at Chattahoochee Technical College, in Marietta, Georgia. Last year, she invited PopAtomic Studios to participate in the service learning program, which has evolved into an ongoing effort to learn about energy issues from a sociological perspective.

In my previous post for the ANS Nuclear Cafe, I described what I had learned from debating nuclear opponents.

Hello, my name is Auguste Priori, and I'm here to conduct a census. How many elephants are there in this room?

The 42 Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is now up at Next Big Future.

Delays seen for new reactor projects in the Czech Republic and Romania

Rather

Dan Rather Reports will be airing a segment on next generation nuclear energy on Tuesday evening, March 1. Dan Rather Reports appears on HDNet (please check with your local television provider for viewing information).

Last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) published a report written by Doug Koplow, titled Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable Without Subsidies, which generated a good deal of discussion and encouraged some observers to parrot the conclusions without reading the document very carefully.

Energy density matters ~ graphic courtesy of Pop Atomic Studios

The 41st Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is up at CoolHandNuke. The carnival is a weekly round-up of the best blog posts from  the leading nuclear bloggers in the United States.

The hard-copy March edition of Nuclear News will soon be in the hands of American Nuclear Society members. That edition will also be available electronically to members. The edition contains the 13th Annual Reference Issue, which includes a 34-page special section on the World List of Nuclear Power Plants. The special section includes:

American Nuclear Society president-elect Eric Loewen on February 17 visited the City College of New York (CCNY). Loewen presented a talk during the noon hour on "Nuclear Reactor Physics at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl" to an audience of about 40 engineering faculty members and students. Most students were from CCNY's mechanical or chemical engineering programs and have taken, or are currently taking, at least one of the college's nuclear engineering concentration courses: