Electricity affects nearly every aspect of modern life, from the food supply to health, transportation, housing and emergency services. Lives depend on reliable access to electrical power and nuclear power plants generate a fifth of all U.S. electricity. It would take decades to make up their loss… //

And in 2010, after spending $15 billion, the Yucca Mountain project was stopped over still-debatable concerns of possible radiation leakage into groundwater.

This occurred despite a nonpartisan, 1999 US Geological Survey analysis that concluded continuous monitoring would provide “enough confidence for [the] safety and stability” of the facility. An additional, independent safety evaluation of the site, sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2015 concluded, "DOE’s proposed [Yucca mountain] repository as designed will be capable of safely isolating used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste for the one-million-year period.”

If the goal is finding the perfect site — a completely risk-free facility, good for millions of years — then no site is viable, not even the already-built Yucca Mountain. It’s the classic example of “better is the enemy of the good enough.” As a result, nuclear waste is still scattered at 60 different locations instead of stored safely at one.

The problem is unique to the U.S., as the vast majority of countries dispose their nuclear waste in deep geological repositories; a small minority reprocesses their waste, but this raises proliferation concerns.

The time to dispose of nuclear waste is now, and stop kicking that can down the road — either by reopening Yucca Mountain or by building other sites. Because when something does happen that compromises our current dispersed system of storing waste, then by past experience our nation will overreact and seek out a quick, ill-thought out solution. That's when a really disastrous scenario may occur. ///

Not disposing of it means it's still available for reuse. There is still a lot of energy in that "waste", which is really only partially used fuel, not waste.

Standard PWR and BWR are almost the most inefficient method of extracting the potential energy or of uranium -- they only use about 1%, as opposed to about 30% for MSR (molten salt reactor) like Thorcon.

Hydrogen to Heysham (H2H) will test an innovative use for nuclear energy, says Xavier Mamo, Director of R&D at EDF Energy. //

The Hydrogen to Heysham (H2H) project led by EDF Energy will use a different method. We want to test the potential of using electrolysers connected to the Heysham nuclear power station to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. Renewables energy could be used to produce the gas in the same way, but we believe the constant supply of low carbon power from nuclear will be more cost-effective.

Beautiful to some, a blot on the countryside to others, Didcot Power Station's monumental cooling towers have dominated the landscape of rural Oxfordshire for decades. But they will produce clouds of dust rather than steam when they are demolished on Sunday.

The power station's gigantic, concrete towers in the heart of Midsomer Murders country have stood in stark contrast to their surroundings for more than 50 years.

Public opinion is divided over the structure's good, bad, and ugly aspects. Some point to the jobs and communities it has created, while others highlight its 655ft (199.5m) smoke-belching chimney - one of tallest structures in the UK - and say it is part of dirty industry they want to abolish forever. //

Lyn Bowen switched the power station on in 1970 and turned it off in 2013

Lyn Bowen, who moved to the area to run the plant, said the "only thing missing" when he first visited Didcot was "tumbleweed".

The 79-year-old remembers the excitement he felt, flicking the switch in the control room as the power station was turned on.

"All the pieces had been put together and it works," he recalled.

From that day, its boilers consumed 185 tonnes of coal every hour, which was burned to raise the temperature of the steam so high - 568C - so that it powered four mighty turbines.

The turbines then spun a generator rapidly to produce 2,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity to power millions of homes. The steam, still roaring hot, was condensed and allowed to escape through the six giant cooling towers. //

The government plans to phase out the UK's last coal-fired plants by 2025 to reduce carbon emissions.

Dame Marina believes the architects of such stations should not be "vilified", but have their designs recognised as "achievements and a sort of human excessive, triumphalism over nature, which we must say goodbye to".

"The work these buildings were doing was for everybody," she says. "This was the engine of society - this kind of fuel consuming and fuel making machine."

Between 06:00 and 08:00 BST hundreds will watch on as the three northern cooling towers are blown down, leaving the giant chimney to stand alone until the autumn.

The Oxfordshire skyline will never look the same again.

Three Mile Island turned the nation against nuclear energy. Now the notorious complex is closing just as some say it still has a role to play. //

the complex, which sits 100 miles west of Philadelphia along the Susquehanna River, the other unit is one of the region’s biggest power sources, churning out electricity for 45 years without incident. Next month, that too will come to an end. Plant owner Exelon Corp. is scheduled to shutter the entire facility, 15 years before its license is set to expire. //

Compared with the release of radiation at Chernobyl, which the United Nations estimated in 2005 may eventually kill 4,000 people, the accident at Three Mile Island was minor. Only a small amount of radioactive material was released, and it was later determined that the 2 million people in the surrounding area were exposed to less radiation than they would have received from a chest X-ray. //

Today, nuclear energy in the U.S. is at the center of a complicated debate. While cheap gas has upended the economics of operating reactors, whether to shut one down involves more than the bottom line.

U.S. President Donald Trump has taken steps to support unprofitable nuclear and coal power plants, citing national security issues because they generate electricity around the clock. Some of his efforts have been rejected by federal energy regulators.

Meanwhile, environmental groups have mixed feeling about reactors. Some are concerned about the accumulating nuclear waste that will remain deadly for thousands of years, as well as the potential for mishaps. Still, others are alarmed by the intensifying threat of climate change tied to the burning of fossil fuels—even cheap kinds such as natural gas.

Either way, Three Mile Island won’t be part of the future of American energy. Exelon will be switching off Unit 1 in a few weeks, and a decommissioning company is in talks to begin dismantling Unit 2. //

shuttering reactors for purely financial reasons ignores their ability to produce clean energy. New plants are hugely expensive to build; once shut, old plants cannot be brought back on line.

Tanzania has held a mass funeral for people who died when an overturned fuel tanker exploded on Saturday.

Officials have said people were trying to siphon fuel from the vehicle on a main road in the Morogoro region when it exploded, killing 71.

The city of Morogoro is on a major route for transporting cargo and fuel from the port.

"Many people died here, even those who were not stealing fuel because this is a busy place," said eyewitness Daniel Ngogo, quoted by Reuters news agency.

Last month at least 45 people were killed when a crashed fuel tanker exploded in Nigeria's northern Benue state.

Nearly 80 people died in May in a similar incident near the airport of Niger's capital Niamey.

Occasionally such disasters have led to a much higher death toll. In 2010 292 people were killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and five years later 203 died in South Sudan.

The following gallery contains pictures of works as they have progressed during 2017 and 2018. Please scroll through for scenes of the site.

The sections below contain older pictures from the early phases of the project.

For the first time in more than 25 years, Mt Coffee is generating clean, renewable hydropower with the completion of the first of four generating units. The first hydropower turbine and generator unit, with an installed capacity of 22 megawatts (MW), was officially dedicated and commissioned on Thursday, December 15, 2016, at the project site in Harrisburg by the President of the Republic of Liberia, Madame Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Other dignitaries attending the program were the Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway, the Commissioner for Africa of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs of the U.S. Government. When the project is completed, Mt. Coffee Hydropower Plant will have a total installed capacity of 88 MW (four generating units of 22 MW each).

With the completion of the first unit (which is now going through various testing stages) the project is now over 80% completed with the target for overall project completion set for August 2017. This means that by this time next year, all four turbines will be installed and connected by high-voltage transmission lines to both the LEC Bushrod Substation and Paynesville Substation. The December 15, 2016 milestone is hailed as an achievement because it signifies that all the major systems of the hydropower plant, dam, spillway, substation, and one transmission line have been completed, enabling the turning on of power for the first time in so many years.

The challenge the Liberia Electricity Corporation has set for itself over the next eight months is to increase distribution lines and customer connections in Monrovia and its environs so that the Mt. Coffee plant’s full potential can be realized. Currently, the peak power demanded by LEC’s existing customer base is just 18 MW, which is less than the potential of one generating unit of the Mt. Coffee plant. LEC is planning to connect not only additional residential customers throughout Monrovia but also large commercial and industrial users to rapidly increase the demand.

The transmission line that has been built between the Mt. Coffee plant and the Bushrod Substation, and the transmission line that is currently under construction between Mt. Coffee and the Paynesville Substation, each have a rated voltage of 66 kilovolts, which is the same as LEC`s other high-voltage transmission lines that form a ring around Monrovia. //

Rehabilitation of the Mt. Coffee Hydropower Plant was proposed as an important part of the national reconstruction efforts led by H.E. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in 2011. //

According to statistics, only about 7% of Liberians have access to electricity today, and the price of electricity is still among the highest in the world due, until recently, to LECs total reliance on high-speed modular diesel generation. LEC has made remarkable strides in increasing its generation capacity during 2016, including installation of an additional capacity of 38 MW of heavy fuel oil generation (LECs first 10 MW of HFO generation was commissioned in late 2015 by President Sirleaf).

Now that LEC has begun operating its thermal plants on heavy fuel oil, and now that the first turbine at Mt. Coffee is sending hydro-powered current into the LEC system, LECs generating costs are expected to be reduced. It is anticipated that LEC will be able to announce a reduced tariff in the new year due to these improvements in LECs generating sources. //

The budget for the Mt. Coffee project is just under a U.S. Dollar equivalent of $357 million, which includes the main construction contracts for the generating equipment, hydraulic steelworks, dam and civil works, road works, substations at Mt. Coffee and in Monrovia, 50 kilometers of high-voltage transmission lines, the workers’ camp, and engineering and construction supervision; environmental and social safeguards activities; and multi-year training of Liberians both in country and overseas for the operation and maintenance of the Mt. Coffee Hydropower Plant.

Scepticism and safety concerns persist before vessel begins 4,000-mile Arctic journey //

Russia is planning to dispatch the vessel, its first floating nuclear power station, on a 4,000-mile journey along the Northern Sea Route, in a milestone for the country’s growing use of nuclear power in its plans for Arctic expansion.

If all goes to plan, the Akademik Lomonosov will be towed to the Arctic port of Pevek this month, where it will use its twin nuclear reactors to provide heat and energy to homes and support mining and drilling operations in Russia’s mineral-rich Chukotka region.

Russia claims the project will provide clean energy to the remote region and allow authorities to retire an ageing nuclear plant and a coal-burning power station. //

“Our real concern is the reason why they’re making this floating plant – they want to sell this technology to countries like Sudan,” she said in a telephone interview.

“I’m really concerned that such nuclear technologies can be used in countries where levels of nuclear radiation safety, regulation and standards of safety are not on such a high level as in Russia. What will they do with spent nuclear fuel? How will they react in case of emergencies?”

“If this had been a very good way of providing electricity to the north coast of Siberia then we would have seen more of them under construction … I think this is going to be a one-of-a-kind project,” he said.

Rosatom officials declined to say how much the Akademik Lomonosov cost, although they did say they expected prices to fall as further plants were built. In 2016, an official connected to the project said the floating nuclear power station cost an estimated 21.5bn roubles (£274m), and the necessary infrastructure would cost an additional 7bn roubles.

When Richard Fahey returned to Liberia in 2009 to observe and discuss land disputes in the North Eastern part of the country, he was shocked to find that the country had gone backwards from when he was a volunteer in the Peace Corps in the 1960s

technology would offer a more simple, robust and cost-effective solution.

The process first releases sodium and chloride ions from the battery electrodes into the solution, making the current flow from one electrode to the other. Then, a rapid exchange of wastewater effluent with seawater leads the electrode to reincorporate sodium and chloride ions and reverse the current flow. Energy is recovered during both the freshwater and seawater flushes, with no upfront energy investment and no need for charging. This means that the battery is constantly discharging and recharging without needing any input of energy.

While lab tests showed power output is still low per electrode area, the battery’s scale-up potential is considered more feasible than previous technologies due to its small footprint, simplicity, constant energy creation and lack of membranes or instruments to control charge and voltage. The electrodes are made with Prussian Blue, a material widely used as a pigment and medicine, that costs less than $1 a kilogram, and polypyrrole, a material used experimentally in batteries and other devices, which sells for less than $3 a kilogram in bulk.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is set to launch operations in 2025 //

Achieving controlled fusion reactions that net more power than they take to generate, and at commercial scale, is seen as a potential answer to climate change. Fusion energy would eliminate the need for fossil fuels and solve the intermittency and reliability concerns inherent with renewable energy sources. The energy would be generated without the dangerous amounts of radiation that raises concerns about fission nuclear energy. ///

As if the sun doesn't spew ionizing nuclear radiation? Fusion creates more, and more dangerous ionizing radiation than fission, it just doesn't leave behind all the radioactive actinides that fission creates.

This is a scientific journal, not USA Today. Don't be lazy.

ThorCon electric power cost:

Lower capital cost and lower fuel cost than coal.
Competitive with pipelined natural gas.
Lower electricity cost than shipped LNG (liquified natural gas).
Cheaper than solar and wind including natural gas backup.
Cheaper electricity than storage-buffered wind and solar sources. //

Batteries have been proposed to replace CO2-emitting natural gas generators. Storing intermittent electric energy for later dispatch adds expensive storage buffering costs. A 2018 Science article by Steven Davis and 32 other renowned scientists analyzed storage costs. Using low-cost, mass-market, lithium-ion batteries for daily buffering raises electricity costs from 3.5 cents/kWh to 14 cents/kWh. For weekly buffering the cost grows to 50 cents/kWh. Even if future battery costs are halved, that cost will be 29 cents/kWh. Even free intermittent electricity would not significantly reduce storage-buffered, dispatchable electricity costs. ThorCon generated electricity is cheaper than storage-buffered wind and solar electricity. //

ThorCon power should-cost about half as much as coal where coal is cheap. But the did-cost depends on how we regulate nuclear power. The bottom line is simple: will we build nuclear power plants the way the U.S. Navy builds ships or the way the Koreans build ships? If it’s the former, then nuclear will never beat coal regardless of the technology. If it’s the latter, then ThorCon is easily cheaper than coal.

Tesla’s 100 MW/129MWh Powerpack system near Jamestown in South Australia is proving to be so quick in providing backup power to the energy grid that 30-40% of the services it provides end up unpaid. The electric car and energy company claims that this is due to SA’s legacy utility billing system not being optimized for the big battery’s response time. //

Tesla’s earnings from its big battery installation currently follow the standards set by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which breaks down a power provider’s response time into 6 seconds, 1 minute, and 5 minutes for energy to be fed into the grid. Tesla’s SA Powerpack farm near Jamestown, however, has been providing backup energy in as quick as 200 milliseconds. Thus, any amount of energy sent from Tesla’s battery into the grid that lasts between 200 milliseconds and 6 seconds is just too quick to be registered according to AEMO’s current specifications.