Entrepreneur Russ Wilcox, who is the former CEO and co-founder of display-maker E Ink, has just joined next-gen nuclear startup Transatomic Power as its CEO. There’s only a handful of web and computing entrepreneurs that go nuclear. Read more »
Kurion, a startup that has developed technology that cleans up nuclear waste and is one of the most successful cleantech firms you haven’t heard of, has been acquiring more cleanup tech. Read more »
Xbox hacker and co-founder of the Chumby project, Bunnie Huang, has designed an open-source Geiger counter to help citizens in Japan detect radiation in the wake of the nuclear disaster, Huang writes on his blog. Read more »
There’s a massive cleantech opportunity right now in Japan, and one small way to commemorate those who lost their lives in Fukushima is to create safe and renewable sources of energy fed into a reliable grid infrastructure. Read more »
Nuclear waste cleanup startup Kurion (which I once called the most successful greentech startup you haven’t heard of) says it’s responsible for removing 70 percent of the radioactivity from the waste water at the Fukushima nuclear plant after last year’s disaster. Read more »
Professor Tom Murphy crunches the numbers for nuclear fusion power, and dissects its potential and problems. Read more »
In a year of struggling cleantech firms in 2011, I’ve been searching for untold stories of successful cleantech startups that have been flying under the radar. Here’s one that’s been at the top of my mind: nuclear waste cleanup startup Kurion, which cleaned house last year. Read more »
Bill Gates says the nuclear startup TerraPower that he has backed is in preliminary discussions with the Chinese government, as well as the governments of Russia, India and other countries, too. TerraPower will most likely commercialize its tech outside the U.S. first. Read more »
When it comes to cleantech investing, we’re in the early innings of a long ball game. The last in a 4-part series from Venrock’s Matthew Nordan. Read more »
Reuters reports that the beleaguered Japanese utility that owns the nuclear reactors at Fukushima, Tokyo Electric Power Company, plans to start treating contaminated water at its reactors with technology from stealthy startup Kurion, Toshiba, Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, and Areva. Read more »
NRG Energy says it will be providing no more money for the development of its nuclear expansion project, the South Texas Project units 3&4, and will be recording a first quarter 2011 pretax charge of about $481 million. Read more »
Beleaguered Japanese utility Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has released dozens of photos and videos of its damaged nuclear reactors and the clean up effort underway by its brave workers. Here’s 25: Read more »
Renewable energy is enjoying a rising profile at the expense of nuclear power. But nuclear power producers and technology developers aren’t necessary the losers there. Some of them have been snapping up solar and wind companies and power plant projects, and the trend will continue. Read more »
What would lead a company to walk away from negotiations for a coveted federal loan guarantee, as solar company Suniva did recently? It has to do with the terms of the government deals, the time it takes to obtain one, and the recovery of private markets. Read more »
Researchers are already predicting how the nuclear disaster in Japan will affect the nuclear industry. According to Mark Cooper, a senior fellow at Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and Environment, construction costs of nuclear reactors are likely to soar for awhile. Read more »
Next-generation nuclear technology could come to a screeching halt in the short term due to the backlash against nuclear in the wake of the Japanese nuclear incident, predicts Ray Rothrock, a partner at venture firm Venrock and a former nuclear engineer. Read more »
The DOE’s Loan Program will seek guidance from relevant nuclear agencies on lessons learned from the Japanese nuclear incident, but at this point remains committed to nuclear power, said Jonathan Silver, DOE Loan Chief at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco on Wednesday. Read more »
Japan’s massive earthquake, tsunami, and now nuclear disaster, is starting to shine a spotlight on just how important the country is in terms of clean energy technology, from solar to electric cars. Read more »
It’s still not clear how big a disaster Japan’s nuclear problem is yet, but what is clear is it will have far reaching effects on policy and public relations around nuclear power. It’s been front and center in global media and policy debates this weekend. Read more »
Nuclear pod company Hyperion has raised $2.8 million in financing, according to a filing, and has also boosted the price of its nuclear device to $50 million from $25 million, according to its website. Will nuclear-in-a-box ever make it to market? Read more »
Energy Secretary Steve Chu laid out near- to long-term research and deployment plans to meeting goals set by President Obama in his state of the union speech. Aside from solar, electric cars and energy efficiency measures, Chu also is bullish about nuclear power. Read more »
Bloomberg is now reporting the next generation Apple TV, rumored to be renamed the iTV, will be unveiled at the annually anticipated Apple event next month. Apple is said to be in talks with networks to bring $0.99 rentals of television shows to the iTunes Store. Read more »
TerraPower, the nuclear power startup backed by Bill Gates, has now brought on another couple of high-profile investors. According to the company this afternoon, TerraPower has raised another $35 million from Khosla Ventures — Vinod Khosla’s venture fund — and Charles River Ventures. Read more »
Out of all the carbon-free power options, nuclear power faces some of the highest hurdles to commercial-scale deployment. But that’s also the reason why supercomputing has started to truly revolutionize the world of nuclear power innovation. Read more »
Yucca Mountain might be “off the table,” for Energy Secretary Steven Chu, but nuclear technology innovation certainly is not. The Obama Administration is planning on allocating $36 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear technology development out of the Department of Energy’s 2011 budget, along with $38.8 […] Read more »
