Nuclear Blog Highlights During Thanksgiving Week

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving last Thursday, at least those who celebrated! :-) For me, I was out all last week with the family enjoying the sun's radiation in hometown Phoenix, AZ. Of course, after unplugging from the internet for quite a few days, I found my Google Reader was +1,000 and that I'd missed out on some great discussions and debates. For those who were out as well, here's my wrap-up of what went on:

David Walters has generated quite the discussion at DailyKos about the UK's latest report that found new renewables are more expensive than new nuclear.

Charles Barton's blog, Nuclear Green, turns one-year-old this coming Friday. Congratulations!

Dr. James Hansen, "best known for his research in the field of climatology" wrote an eight page paper to President-elect Obama (pdf) on how we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Nuclear power was mentioned as one of the five mitigation technologies that can make a difference. Of course, Joseph Romm disagreed with parts of Hansen's paper (nuclear being one part) in which Sovietologist set Romm straight.

Rod Adams at Atomic Insights shared his thoughts on Thomas Friedman's latest book Hot, Flat and Crowded. He also got the comments rolling on the over-hype of Hyperion's mini-reactors.

(I know it's not nuclear-related but I feel it's worth mentioning.) Over at Knowledge Problem, Michael Giberson wrote an interesting analysis on how the abundance of wind capacity has supposedly caused power prices to fall negative at times in West Texas ("suppliers are paying ERCOT to take their power"). He thinks wind's production tax credit has something to do with it.

And Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat explains that an "expansion of federal loan guarantees [for new nuclear plants] could create 100,000 jobs."

There's my wrap-up. If I missed anything, let me know.