The nuclear power industry has been pushing the fantasy of yet another “renaissance” of nuclear power, based on the absurd idea that atomic reactors — which operate at 571 degrees Fahrenheit, produce substantial greenhouse gas emissions and, periodically, explosions — can somehow cool the planet. //

As a green power advocate since 1973, I’ve visited dozens of reactor sites throughout the U.S. and Japan. The industry’s backers portray them as high-tech black boxes that are uniformly safe, efficient and reliable, ready to hum for decades without melt-downs, blow-ups or the constant emissions of heat, radiation, chemical pollution and eco-devastation that plague us all.

In reality, the global reactor fleet is riddled with widely varied and increasingly dangerous defects. These range from inherent design flaws to original construction errors, faulty components, fake replacement parts, stress-damaged (“embrittled”) pressure vessels, cracked piping, inoperable safety systems, crumbling concrete, lethal vulnerabilities to floods, storms and earthquakes, corporate greed and unmanageable radioactive emissions and wastes — to name a few.

Heat, radiation and steam have pounded every reactor’s internal components. They are cracked, warped, morphed and transmuted into rickety fossils virtually certain to shatter in the next meltdown. //

Today, the utility’s two uninsured Diablo Canyon reactors threaten more than ten million people living downwind with potential catastrophes made possible by any of a dozen nearby earthquake faults (including the San Andreas). [All nuclear power plants are insured by the federal government] //

Desperate atomic cultists including Bill Gates are now touting small modular reactors. But they’re unproven, can’t deploy for years to come, can’t be guarded against terrorists and can’t beat renewables in safety, speed to build, climate impacts, price or job creation.

Our energy future should consist of modern solar, wind, battery and LED/efficiency technologies, not nuclear reactors. Let’s work to guarantee that none of them explode before we get there. //

Uneducated article.
The entire preface of the article is predicated around fear, uncertainty, and doubt; evidently motivated by emotions instead of factual information.

Not a single compelling argument against nuclear has been made here - move along.

JOËL LANGLOIS 23 HOURS AGO //

Saying No to Nuclear Power is what brought us the Climate Crisis
It is increasingly apparent that solar, wind, batteries & efficiency cannot provide a complete solution to decarbonise the grid. Anti-nuclear campaigners have promised this for the past 50 years but it is an unattainable goal. Such dogma has simply prolonged the use of fossil fuel, causing millions of avoidable deaths. We could, and should, have decarbonised the grid with nuclear power in the 20th century.

Even if batteries could someday work on the required scale, for the lengthy durations needed, they have a far, far higher environmental footprint than nuclear power. The recent UN report on Life Cycle Assessment of Electricity Generation Options shows (p35 ) that electricity from batteries has a carbon footprint of 175 g CO2/kWh. Whereas nuclear's footprint is only 5g. (p74). The same document shows solar emits 11-37g, and wind 12-14g. Batteries are simply not sustainable as a large-scale alternative to nuclear baseload.

The evidence shows nuclear energy has significantly lower environmental impacts than wind and solar. Lower carbon emissions, lower freshwater pollution (eutrophication), lower carcinogenic effects, lower land use, and lower consumption of metals & minerals.

When it comes to clean energy production nuclear power should really be the first choice for any environmentalist.

https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/LCA-2.pdf

COLIN GLASGOW 1 DAY AGO

until President Carter, many people could legitimately dismiss campaign promises, but President Carter actually made a book of his various promises and worked to try to keep them.

Much to the detriment of nuclear energy development in the United States, two of his kept promises were to halt used fuel recycling in the US and to avoid creation of a “plutonium economy” by stopping the breeder reactor program.

Unlike Dr. Rossin, I am a suspicious guy who believes that many important decisions in the politics can best be understood by following the money. The obvious beneficiaries of a policy to avoid a “plutonium economy” are those entities who already have control over “the hydrocarbon economy”.

Up to $6 billion total, with plants already scheduled to shut down the top priority. //

On Tuesday, the US Department of Energy announced it was releasing guidance that would help nuclear plant operators apply for a slice of $6 billion available under its new Civil Nuclear Credit Program. The money will be coming out of the funds allocated through the infrastructure law that was the centerpiece of President Joe Biden's legislative accomplishments.

The money intends to keep plants operational that would otherwise close due to economic issues. Priority in the first round of funding will go to plants where their operators have already announced closure plans. Next year, the remaining funds will be available to any plant operator, regardless of plans to close it. //

When the money runs out, however, the plants will be facing even stronger headwinds from wind and solar energy, which are likely to see their prices decline even further in the intervening years.

Jennifer Jacobs
@JenniferJJacobs
Scoop: Biden admin is weighing a plan to release roughly A MILLION BARRELS OF OIL A DAY from U.S. reserves, for several months, to combat rising gasoline prices and supply shortages following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sources tell @AlbertoNardelli @SalehaMohsin and me.
8:15 PM · Mar 30, 2022

For context, the US uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day. Releasing one million barrels a day would translate to a savings of about 18 cents a gallon off the national average if it translated directly to the price of gas. It won’t, though. Much of the oil held by the government is no longer useable domestically because of environmental regulations. Instead, any oil released would be dumped into countries like China and India. That could possibly make a small dent in the global price of oil, but when you consider that the world produces 76 million barrels of oil a day, that one million barrels suddenly becomes even more irrelevant.

In other words, Biden’s ploy is completely useless. It’s also dangerous in that the strategic reserves exist to supply years of oil to the United States in the event of some kind of isolating event. They also exist for military use if oil can’t be otherwise garnered while fighting a war. Again, we are talking preparation for apocalyptic-type events, not gas prices being too high because of the left’s self-defeating green agenda.

Further, the Defense Production Act is not at all designed to operate as a communism cheat code for presidents who are too stubborn to change their damaging energy policies. If it’s not profitable now for American companies to go gangbusters producing “green energy,” it won’t be just because Biden makes them. Such a move would also spur more inflation as the supply of the products those companies originally produced will be reduced in order to make things Americans don’t currently want to buy. //

So let’s drain our strategic oil reserves and go full USSR on American companies. What could possibly go wrong?

Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, seems largely unimpressed by President Biden’s foreign policy. //

EastMed was the planned 1,180-mile natural gas pipeline across the Mediterranean Sea from Israel to southern Europe that the Biden administration killed in January. The pipeline, expected to cost $7 billion and to carry at least 10 billion cubic meters of gas a year, would ease Europe’s reliance on Russian oil. Sen. Menendez, who has long supported the project and co-sponsored the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act of 2019, wants the U.S. to rethink supporting the EastMed pipeline.

President Biden gave up on EastMed after approving the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would have increased Germany’s dependence on Russia. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany and other Europeans began to see the folly of relying on Russia.

One might have thought President Biden too would see that relying on one’s enemies is imprudent. One would have been wrong.

The Biden administration went hat in hand to Venezuela and is now trying to rush through a new bad deal with Iran, in order to increase supply and lower oil prices. Biden also reached out to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, a traditional ally whose leader Biden had previously spurned, and the United Arab Emirates, but neither would take his phone calls. Both are deeply worried about Iran and the administration’s eagerness for a rapprochement with it; or at least, about U.S. unwillingness to hold Iran to account.

Menendez favors relying on our friends rather than our enemies: “[W]ith the emergency of the moment, I’d rather not be looking at Venezuela, I’d rather not be looking at Iran, I’d rather not be looking at all these other countries when we have allies like Greece in the region, like Israel and others that can maybe be the source of that energy.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee
@SFRCdems
The democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people, like the resolve & courage of the people of Ukraine, are worth much more than a few barrels of oil. My statement on the Admin's reported talks with VZ breathing new life into Maduro's reign of torture:
foreign.senate.gov
Chairman Menendez Statement on Biden Administration Talks with the Maduro Regime | United States...
9:15 PM · Mar 7, 2022 //

And speaking of NATO and of EastMed, in killing the latter, Biden was reportedly motivated at least partly by a desire to please Turkey, which was trying to muscle its way into any pipeline project.

This is the same Turkey that bought a Russian S-400 air-defense system, although it’s part of NATO. The U.S. responded by barring Turkey from buying F-35 aircraft it wanted. (Per Reuters, the U.S. suggested Turkey solve the problem by shipping the S-400 system to Ukraine.)

It’s the same Turkey that illegally invaded and partitioned Cyprus in 1974, and now demands a cut of the pipeline planned from Israel to Cyprus, then Greece and beyond. As people said of France under De Gaulle, with friends like this, the U.S. sure doesn’t need enemies.

Suppose someone claimed that we are not running out of petroleum? Or that life on Earth began below the surface of our planet? Or that oil and gas are not "fossil fuels"? Or that if we find extraterrestrial life it is likely to be within, not on, other planets? You might expect to hear statements like these from an author of science fiction. But what if they came from a renowned physicist, an indisputably brilliant scientist who has been called "one of the world's most original minds"? In the The Deep Hot Biosphere, Thomas Gold sets forth truly controversial and astonishing theories about where oil and gas come from, and how they acquire their organic "signatures." The conclusions he reaches in this book might be at first difficult to believe, but they are supported by a growing body of evidence, and by the indisputabel stature and seriousness Gold brings to any scientific enterprise. In this book we see a brilliant and boldly orginal thinker, increasingly a rarity in modern science, as he developes a revolutionary new view about the fundamental workings of our planet. Thomas Gold is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and an Emertius Professor at Cornell University. Regarded as one of the most creative and wide-ranging scientists of his generation, he has taughtat Cambridge University and Harvard, and for 20 years was the Director of the Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research.

“Just because you have a lease doesn’t mean there’s actually oil and gas in that lease…” //

There are 9,000 federal drilling permits companies can use to bolster oil production!

Biden repeated this line in his speech about banning Russian energy sources, including oil. We’ve seen gas prices go up before Russia invaded Ukraine, but it’s only going to get worse. //

Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, confirmed the industry continues to use “a higher percentage of federal onshore and offshore leases than at any time in the past, and it’s continuing to increase production to meet surging demand.”

But Biden leaves out necessary information because it voids his argument:

“There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the administration as to how the process actually works,” Sommers said in an interview on the sidelines of the conference.

“Just because you have a lease doesn’t mean there’s actually oil and gas in that lease, and there has to be a lot of development that occurs between the leasing and then ultimately permitting for that acreage to be productive,” he said. “I think that they’re purposefully misusing the facts here to advantage their position.”

The majority of our foreign oil comes from Canada. It’d be more if Biden opens the Keystone XL pipeline. Mexico and Saudia Arabia come next. Russia makes up about 8% of what we got last year:

With monotonous regularity over the last generation, the American people have had the following statements so constantly drummed into them by the media that most Americans, it seems, have come to believe them:

1. Fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, are dangerous pollutants, and anyway we are running out of them.

2. Nuclear power is so dangerous that it cannot safely be used; indeed, the nuclear facilities already in existence represent such a mortal danger that they should be shut down.

3. But there is one hope: power derived from the sun and winds. These are infinite in quantity, or at least indefinitely great; and they are also safe and clean. All we need is a few years in which to develop this kind of power, and our energy needs will be taken care of.

Only the first of these three statements is true, with some qualifications. The second and third statements are utterly false, although it is popular to believe that they are true. //

How is it possible, in the span of a brief article, to prove the comparative safety of nuclear power? Here are a few examples of how nuclear power works and what its effects are on consumers of that power. For an excellent longer treatment, see Petr Beckmann’s incomparable book The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear.

U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil in barrels.

Year 2019 4,485,653
Year 2020 4,129,563
Year 2021 4,082,478

The truth is this: every source of energy has costs and benefits that have to be carefully weighed. Wind and solar are no different. Most people are familiar with the benefits of wind and solar: reduced air pollution, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and reduced reliance on fossil fuels. But not as many recognize the costs of wind and solar or understand how those costs hurt both the environment and people—especially people with lower incomes. //

Solar advocates often gloss over the solar-panel manufacturing process. They just say, “We turn sand, glass, and metal into solar panels.” This oversimplification masks the real environmental costs of the manufacturing process.

Solar panels are manufactured using minerals, toxic chemicals, and fossil fuels. In fact, solar panels require 10 times the minerals to deliver the same quantity of energy as a natural gas plant.[1]Quartz, copper, silver, zinc, aluminum, and other rare earth minerals are mined with heavy diesel-powered machinery. In fact, 38% of the world’s industrial energy and 11% of total energy currently go into mining operations.[2]

Once the materials are mined, the quartz and other materials get melted down in electric-arc furnaces at temperatures over 3,450°F (1,900°C) to make silicon—the key ingredient in solar cells. The furnaces take an enormous amount of energy to operate, and that energy typically comes from fossil fuels.[3] Nearly 80% of solar cells are manufactured in China, for instance, where weak environmental regulations prevail and lower production costs are fueled by coal. //

First, many buildings are not suitable for rooftop solar panels. Rooftop installations are typically exposed to less direct sunlight due to local weather patterns, shade from surrounding trees, the orientation of a building (which are often not angled toward the sun), or the pitch of the roof.

Second, the average cost to buy and install rooftop solar panels on a home as of July 2021 is $20,474.[7] This makes rooftop installations cost-prohibitive—especially for lower-income families.

Finally, even if we installed solar panels on all suitable buildings in the U.S. we could generate only 39% of the electricity the country needs according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.[8]

Solar panels also have a shorter lifespan[9] than other power sources (about half as long as natural gas[10] and nuclear plants[11]), and they’re difficult and expensive to recycle because they’re made with toxic chemicals. When solar panels reach the end of their usable life, their fate will most likely be the same as most of our toxic electronic waste: They will be dumped in poorer nations. It is estimated that global solar panel waste will reach around 78 million metric tons by 2050[12]–the equivalent of throwing away nearly 60 million Honda Civic cars.[13] //

Adding more renewable energy to the grid is not only expensive; it’s dangerous! The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit organization that monitors the reliability, resilience, and security of the grid, says that the number-one risk to the electrical grid in America is adding more unreliable renewables.[16]

The reliability of a power source is measured by capacity factor. The capacity factor of a power plant tracks the time it’s producing maximum power throughout the year. When we compare the capacity factors of power plants, we see that solar is the least reliable energy source: natural gas is twice as reliable as solar, and nuclear energy is three times more reliable. //

A study conducted across 26 countries over two decades by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) concluded for every 1 megawatt of solar or wind power installed there need to be 1.12 megawatts of fossil fuels (usually natural gas) as backup capacity because solar and wind are unreliable.[21] Moreover, using backup diesel generators and ramping power plants up and down to meet energy shortfalls are two of the worst ways to use fossil fuels; they’re inefficient and cause unnecessary pollution.

A final point: solar and wind have low power densities. According to a facts guide on nuclear energy from the U.S. Department of Energy, a typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear facility in the United States needs a little more than 1 square mile to operate. Solar farms, by contrast, need 75 times more land and wind farms need 360 times more land, to produce the same amount of electricity.[22]

Even if we could overcome all the practical constraints on storing, transmitting, and distributing solar power, supplying a country the size of the U.S. would require over 22,000 square miles of solar panels[23]—approximately the size of New Jersey, Maryland, and Massachusetts combined.[24] And the unreliability of solar power means that even with that many solar panels, we would continue to need most of our existing power plants. //

Some people theorize that we will eventually be able to store surplus solar energy in batteries, but the reality is batteries cost about 200 times more than the cost of natural gas to solve energy storage at scale.[34] In addition, batteries don’t have enough storage capacity to meet our energy needs. Currently, America has 1 gigawatt of large-scale battery storage that can deliver power for up to four hours without a recharge. A gigawatt is enough energy to power 750,000 homes, which is a small fraction of the amount of energy storage we would need for a grid powered mostly by renewables. It is, for instance, less than 1% of the 120 gigawatts of energy storage that would be needed for a grid powered 80% by renewables.[35]

Manufacturing batteries also takes a serious toll on the environment, as they require lots of mining, hydrocarbons, and electricity. According to analysis completed by the Manhattan Institute, it requires the energy equivalent of about 100 barrels of oil to make batteries that can store a single barrel of oil-equivalent energy. And between 50 to 100 pounds of various materials are mined, moved, and processed for one pound of battery produced. Enormous quantities of lithium, copper, nickel, graphite, rare earth elements, and cobalt would need to be mined in China, Russia, Congo, Chile, and Argentina where weak environmental regulations and poor labor conditions prevail.[36] //

Here are five steps we can begin to take towards making things better for both people and the planet:

• End subsidies and incentives for solar and wind power;
• Invest in research and development to advance new energy technologies;
• Build new efficient natural gas power plants (and hydro and geothermal where possible);
• Reform regulations and build nuclear power plants;
• Retire the worst coal power plants (5% of power plants create 73% of carbon emissions from electricity generation)[38].

Every day we spend chasing fantasies causes unnecessary harm and suffering. Let’s pursue energy solutions that benefit people and also save the environment.

Thousand Barrels per Day
U.S. Net Imports from Russia of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products

In 2017, congressional investigators found that a money trail linked Russia to millions of dollars funding U.S. nonprofits to work against U.S. shale gas in order to influence the U.S. energy market. Specifically, investigators found that NRDC, Sierra Club, and Climate Action Network were all found to have received millions of dollars of funding in grants from a shady San Francisco-based company called “Sea Change” that a money trail linked back to the Russians. Indeed, it is an open secret that Russians have funded anti-fracking and anti-natural gas propaganda in America for decades, as environmental groups funded the campaigns of Democrats and pressured them to ban fossil fuels.

These same environmental groups relentlessly attacked President Trump and his appointees (I was one) as “anti-science,” “enemies of the EPA,” and “climate change deniers,” pulling out all the stops to frame President Trump’s pro-American energy agenda as harmful to the environment. President Trump knew then what we are all seeing now: Energy independence is crucial to our security, and we don’t have to shut down industry with duplicative and costly regulations to protect our environment.

After spending millions to elect Biden, the environmental left got its wish: Biden canceled America’s Keystone XL pipeline, blocking the safe transport of oil from one of our closest allies and killing thousands of jobs. At the same time, Biden removed President Trump’s sanctions on the Russian NordStream2 pipeline, giving Putin the green light to move forward.

Biden canceled oil and gas leasing on 2.46 billion acres of federal on and off-shore lands, effectively crushing American energy supplies. He unleashed his federal regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and more to hamper energy exploration, production, and transportation with new regulations. Finally, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent, Biden’s regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took one more step to embolden Russian oil by clamping down on pipeline permits and LNG-export terminals, which could have helped supply American gas to the rest of the world.

https://legacy-assets.eenews.net/open_files/assets/2017/07/07/document_pm_02.pdf //

very few of Biden’s punitive moves against American energy would actually help the environment. Numerous studies have shown that pipelines have no material impact on greenhouse gas emissions since crude oil would still be extracted, and shipping it by rail or tanker instead of pipeline results in up to 42 percent higher emissions and more leaks.

Furthermore, American natural gas is far cleaner than Russian gas. A major 2019 study by the U.S. National Energy Technology Laboratory found that Russian gas piped to Europe has up to 22 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than European coal. U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) delivered to the EU, in contrast, has up to 56 percent fewer total emissions than EU coal, the report shows.

With the attention of the world focused on events in Ukraine, one of the questions people are asking is about the country’s nuclear power industry. Here is a brief overview. //

Ukraine is heavily dependent on nuclear energy, with 15 reactors generating about half of its electricity. All its current reactors are Russian-designed VVER types. //

As of mid-2021, six of Ukraine’s 15 reactors were operating using fuel manufactured by Westinghouse, fabricated at its plant in Västerås in Sweden. //

"In the event of loss of the external power supply at the nuclear power plant, the autonomous power supply system starts working by means of powerful diesel generators. Ukrainian nuclear power plants are ready for such a mode of operation: the stock of diesel fuel located at nuclear power plants significantly exceeds the established standards. //

He added that two years' worth of nuclear fuel had been stockpiled in case of interruption of supply.

Europe’s aggressive leap towards ‘green’ energy is proving to be a grave mistake, making it reliant on aggressive foreign neighbors. //

Gas, coal, and nuclear are needed to offer instantaneous energy when unreliable renewables, which also pollute, fail to meet the job. Europe’s energy needs have complicated negotiations with Russia as Putin appears ready to deploy troops into Ukraine in the face of a divided opposition.

The European Commission put forward a plan today that defines what counts as a “sustainable investment,” something that’s all but required to manage a transition to clean energy. But to the chagrin of several EU countries, environmental groups, and asset managers, the proposal would allow both natural gas and nuclear to qualify as “contributing substantially to climate change mitigation.”

The split-the-baby approach came about because some countries, including Germany and Poland, lobbied for the inclusion of natural gas, while others, notably France, lobbied for nuclear power. Germany, which is in the process of shuttering its nuclear power plants, remains heavily dependent on coal and has been boosting its use of natural gas to “transition” away from coal. France, on the other hand, uses relatively little natural gas and gets nearly all of its electricity from nuclear power plants.

The end result appeased many EU countries, which tend to favor one fuel or another, but four, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden, expressed their displeasure. “We are undermining the entire credibility of our Green Deal,” Bas Eickhout, a member of European Parliament from the Netherlands, told CNN. “And on the gas side, I really don’t see it. I fail to see the added value.”

Unhealthy proposal
Even people who had a hand in the plan aren’t happy. Andreas Hoepner, a professor at University College Dublin who helped advise the EU on the plan, told The Washington Post that the proposal was the equivalent of “calling french fries salad.”

While nuclear power is a true low-carbon fuel, producing lifetime carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions on par with wind and solar, its inclusion as a sustainable energy source is controversial in Europe. Several countries, including Germany, Denmark, Austria, and Spain, oppose the construction of new nuclear power plants, mostly because of concerns about safety and waste storage.

A new generation of clean energy is on the horizon

Oklo is a clean energy company that has focused on developing a product and service that people want to buy. In 2020, they made history by submitting, and having had the NRC accept, their combined license application for their Aurora powerhouse design.

Over the last couple of years, Oklo has also made notable strides on multiple fronts. They were approved to use a specific site on the Idaho National Laboratory campus to build their first unit. The arrangement includes the grant of a long term site use permit. An environmental assessment is already underway. //

Oklo is developing a “First of a kind” (FOAK) advanced energy system, which typically involves unusual costs and risks that can scare away investors. Yet, Oklo’s simple, safe and small reactor passively cools itself with a design that has already been well proven. They’ve based their modern implementation on the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-2), that ran for 30 years, providing a wealth of performance data that has helped the NRC regulator get comfortable with the design’s technical capabilities.

Thus, while some might think that Oklo’s first-ever 4th Gen application to the NRC might never be approved, the NRC accepted the application even though it was radically shorter than prior applications submitted for Gen III plants. Under the requirements of the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) the review process is expected to take three years, rather than four to complete. This means that Oklo should have an approved certification in the first half of 2023. //

Doug Coombes says

December 14, 2021 at 7:33 PM

“Oklo further recognized that the INL was storing waste from the EBR-II project and knew that this waste would be well suited to be the fuel for their reactor. They have secured an agreement with the INL to supply this waste and approval from the DOE to use it as fuel in their reactor.”

If it can be bred into fissile fuel like U-238 or Th-232 can or is already fissile like U-235, Pu-239 or other fissile TRUs, is it really waste?

There is a huge amount of fuel currently being stored as “waste” in the US, just waiting for reactors to be built that will burn it. Ed Pheil from Elysium estimates there is enough spent nuclear fuel to power their MCSFRs for 300 hundred years at current demand if they replaced ALL current US energy generation. It would be enough for over 1,000 years if it just replaced current US nuclear power generation.

That’s before we even look at the 470,000 tons of depleted uranium now being stored as “waste” in the US as uranium hexafluoride that can also be bred into fissile plutonium or added directly to the fuel cycle of some fast reactors now being developed.

The quicker we certify and start building these new designs the better.

Engineer-Poet says

December 15, 2021 at 1:34 PM

If it can be bred into fissile fuel like U-238 or Th-232 can or is already fissile like U-235, Pu-239 or other fissile TRUs, is it really waste?

Rhetorical question, I know, but if it was too depleted to be used any further in the EBR-II then it counted as “waste” for that purpose.

During routine maintenance, Electricite de France (OTCPK:ECIFF) ("EDF") found pipe defects on the safety injection systems for two nuclear facilities; both are shut down awaiting repair.

Two additional reactors, using the same technology, will be shut down briefly later this month for inspection. //

With yet another source of energy offline, European natural gas for January delivery continues its relentless march higher; prices now reaching $44 / mmbtu, Europeans will pay 900% more for natural gas in January 2022 than January 2021.

In the US, where natural gas prices have risen almost 50% year over year, consumers are paying less than $4 / mmbtu. //

French month ahead electricity prices for January have risen to ~$620 / mwh on the back of the EDF news, compared to average power prices in the US at ~$100 / mwh.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has slammed California’s plan for homeowners who use solar panels in their homes. The proposal calls for a discounted rate for excess power sold into the grid, as well as a monthly utility charge of $8 per kW to cover the cost of maintaining the state’s power infrastructure. Musk noted that the idea, which essentially penalizes sustainable energy, is “insane.” //

With battery storage systems, the PUC noted that excess power generated by solar panels could be held in reserve by the homeowners themselves instead of being sold back to the grid. The PUC also argued that the current system essentially translates to a multi-billion subsidy for wealthy homeowners that other utility ratepayers are paying for. //

According to the PUC, a review of its policy has revealed that its current systems are not cost-effective since homeowners with no solar panels are shouldered with the price of maintaining the grid. Unfortunately, most of the said ratepayers were from lower-income households. And considering that ratepayers from the state spent about $3 billion a year to support net metering, PUC Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves noted that the funds are better used elsewhere.

Coal plants such as Drax, Ørsted Energy’s Avedøre power station, in Denmark; and the Rodenhuize thermal power plant, in Belgium; started to transition from coal to wood pellets. (Ali Lewis, the head of media and public relations for Drax, disputed Quaranda’s description. “How can we be ‘gaming the system’ when the carbon accounting for biomass is derived from the principles set by the world’s leading climate scientists at the U.N. I.P.C.C., and we follow those rules to the letter?” Lewis asked.) //

By 2019, biomass accounted for about fifty-nine per cent of all renewable-energy use in the E.U. The Dogwood Alliance estimates that sixty thousand acres of trees—trees that would have otherwise sequestered carbon—are burned each year to supply the growing pellet market. Global demand for wood pellets is expected to double by 2027, to more than thirty-six million tons. And although the entire premise of burning wood as renewable energy hinges on the assumption that trees grow back, there is no binding governmental or industrial oversight for replanting trees at all. “There’s no requirement that Drax or anyone has to replant trees, and no requirement that whatever they’re planting has to come back as natural forest,” Quaranda said.

Even if there were strict protocols for replanting trees, it takes between forty and a hundred years for a new tree to pay down the carbon debt racked up by logging and burning an old one. //

Pellets made from these trees are shipped from ports (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is one; Prince Rupert, British Columbia, is another) to England, where they are loaded onto custom-built trains, brought to Drax, and burned to supply around six per cent of the electricity used in the U.K.

The Dogwood Alliance has extensive photographic evidence of whole trees in North Carolina and Virginia being piled up on trucks that are headed for Enviva’s pellet mills, which require some fifty-seven thousand acres of timber per year to operate. //

We pulled up to a giant, open-ended metal shed, where railroad tracks came in one side and out the other. Here, trains bearing the slogan “Powering Tomorrow” carry pellets in from the English ports. Seventeen trains per day, with twenty-eight cars each, bring twenty thousand tons of pellets to this shed every single day.