Closure of four nuclear power stations is delayed over fears Labour's net-zero drive could cause electricity shortages and price rises.  The closure of four of Britain's oldest nuclear power stations has been delayed over fears Labour's net zero drive could trigger electricity costs to surge and lead to blackouts.  The owner of the ageing plants, France's EDF, has agreed to extend the lives of its reactors yet again to 'boost energy security and reduce dependence on imported gas'.  The moves will see the Heysham 2 nuclear reactor in Lancashire and the Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian, Scotland, running for an additional two years to March 2030.  It is the second life extension for the two plants, which both started operating in 1988 and were originally expected to run for 30 years.

Report: Public Utility Commission Releases Plan Outlining Future of Nuclear Power in Texas.  The Public Utility Commission of Texas has released its final report detailing recommendations for how the state can build an advanced, preeminent nuclear power industry.  "Texas is the energy capital of the world, and we are ready to be No. 1 in advanced nuclear power," Gov. Greg Abbott stated about the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group's final report.  "As we build an advanced nuclear industry in our great state, we will ensure Texas remains a leader in energy and strengthen the Texas grid to meet the demands of our growing state," Abbott continued.  In the report, the group highlighted the many nuclear assets Texas currently has and explored some of the benefits that advanced nuclear power would bring to the state.  Some of the benefits listed include enhanced energy security, improved grid reliability, and leading the nation in advanced nuclear power development.

When Big Tech Needs Power, They Turn to Nuclear and Not 'Renewables'.  The transnational elite keeps trying to force proles to use unreliable wind and solar power.  But as their own power needs escalate, the "net zero" Big Tech companies that brag about their use of renewable power are turning to reliable nuclear power to ensure their data centers stay up.  [Advertisement]  Data centers draw an enormous amount of power already (who knew?), but now that AI systems are being rolled out the power needs are growing by a factor of 10.  More than that, really, since that only accounts for the increase in power use for each query; as AI gets rolled out into more and more products the power needs will keep growing exponentially.  For years the power draw of data centers has been an issue, driving Big Tech companies to switch away from Intel x86 chips to ones that sip less power, such as ARM chips.  Facebook, Google, and Amazon have been designing their own chips for years to reduce power draw and decrease heat production, but the new chips that power AI (mainly from NVidea) are ramping up the power draw considerably.  [Tweet]

Solar Delusions.  [Scroll down]  If instead of subsidizing solar, we subsidize nuclear, the cost of reducing CO2 emissions would be much less — about $140 per metric ton.  But the environmental lobby [does] not like nuclear, and their dislike of nuclear trumps their fear of climate change.  Nuclear, unlike solar, can completely replace fossil fuel plants.  It is super-reliable.  Further, nuclear would be much cheaper if it weren't for the persistent attempts of the environmental lobby to ban it.

If Germany just kept nuclear power, it could have saved $600 [billion] and cut emissions by 73%.  Germany already had nuclear power in 2002, if they just kept it and didn't build all the wind and solar plants, they wouldn't have had to spend 697 Billion Euro on subsidies, and would have cut their emissions by 73% more.  If ever there is a statistic that says there is something rotten in the State of Climate Panic, this is surely it.  I mean, does CO2 matter or doesn't it?  Do the Greens care at all, or even a bit?  If there was a climate emergency and The Greens were worried about CO2, they might have protested that the EnergieWende was a reckless experiment.  But if the Greens were tools for communists, foreign states or banker-investors, then they might keep choosing options that benefit other countries, help Bankers or just make Big Government bigger.  Either the German Greens have utterly failed at the very task they set out to do, or they were really aiming at something else.

More Hope for Nuclear.  We all know that the only viable future solution for our growing energy needs (even without EVs and banning of other products that use "fossil" fuels) is nuclear.  Solar and wind aren't going to cut it.  Logical people have not only known that for decades, it is proven to us over and over again with solar fields being destroyed by hailstorms and other natural events, and wind turbine blades crashing to the ground or into the ocean.  Both technologies also create a lot of waste even if they do survive a useful life.  Turbine blades are too big to dispose of and/or recycle, and solar panels only last a few decades at best and contain toxic materials that would leach into ground if disposed of in landfills.  The few remaining nuclear plants still operating in the U.S. currently provide about 19% of the energy we use.  It's clean and reliable.  However, nuclear hasn't been without its drawbacks.  Yes, the disasters of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima get all the headlines and stoke fear in the hearts of many, but that was old technology.

America's oldest nuclear plants are in Upstate, and NY needs them.  Twice a year, in June and December, 40 sirens scattered around northern Oswego County scream for three minutes to test a warning system that would alert residents if catastrophe struck the nuclear plants at Nine Mile Point.  It's a periodic reminder of the unique character of nuclear power, where the stakes are high and vigilance is paramount.  Security officers at the plants carry long guns.  Employees wear radiation monitors.  The spent uranium fuel stored on site must be kept safely away from humans for thousands of years.  Oswego County long ago embraced its role as a nuclear powerhouse.  A symbol of the atom lies at the center of the county seal.  But a decision looms over the future of New York's nuclear power reactors that could have seismic implications for Oswego and New York state.  How much longer will the nukes run?  The three reactors in Oswego County, plus a smaller sister plant in Wayne County, are the only remaining nuclear plants in New York.  They are key anchors in the electric grid, cranking out more than one-fifth of New York's electricity.

The Editor says...
A decade from now, New York will need more electricity, not less.  In addition to electric cars, electricity is in big demand for bitcoin mining, artificial intelligence, marijuana farming, and other (largely dispensable) applications that were unimaginable a few decades ago.  The time to begin construction of a nuclear power plant is at least 10 years before the power from that plant is needed.

The Fusion Energy Myth.  Fusion energy is the darling of many people who are concerned about climate change.  As a trained physicist, actually a partially trained (4 year) nuclear physicist, I was never a believer in nuclear fusion as a potential power source even before it was being touted and vastly financed as a climate changer.  I knew how easy it was to produce nuclear power splitting heavy atoms, how utterly safe it was when intelligently installed, and how incredibly hard it was to cause fusion between hydrogen atoms despite being safer overall.

Solar industry sees first projects put on ice as nuclear proposal sows doubt among investors.  Political turbulence around the renewable energy debate is making some clean energy investors nervous.  Despite reassurances from the federal government, the opposition's nuclear policy has sown some doubt over whether the renewable industry will continue to have Commonwealth policy support over the next several decades.  One Australian solar manufacturing business said it had already seen an impact.  Dr Methuen Morgan, head of solar farm installers Meralli Projects, said he had already seen an increase in hesitancy from investors.  "They're concerned about which way a potential future government is going to go," he told the ABC.

Battery Baloney, Hydrogen Hype, and Green Fairy Tales.  Australia has abundant resources of coal and uranium — we mine and export these energy minerals.  But Mr. Chris Bowen, our Minister for Blackouts, says we may not use our own coal and uranium to generate future electricity here.  Someone needs to tell him that no country in the world relies solely on wind, solar, and pumped hydro.  Germany tried but soon found they needed French nuclear, Scandinavian hydro, imported gas, and at least 20 coal-fired German power plants are being resurrected or extended past their closing dates to ensure Germans have enough energy to get through the winter.  Australia is the only G20 country in which nuclear power is illegal (maybe no one has told green regulators that we have had a nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney since 1958).  Australia is prepared to lock navy personnel beside nuclear power plants in our new nuclear-powered submarines but our politicians forbid nuclear power stations in our wide-open countryside.

"A Lot Of Shuttered Nuclear Power Plants Could Be Turned Back On", Fed Energy Official Says.  The United States is about to experience a resurgence in nuclear energy.  The federal government is expected to continue restarting shuttered nuclear power plants in the coming years to meet the increasing demand for clean, dependable energy essential for powering the economy of tommorrow.  "There are a couple of nuclear power plants that we probably should, and can, turn back on," Jigar Shah, director of the US Energy Department's Loan Programs Office, told Bloomberg in an interview.  In March, Shah's office approved a loan to Holtec International Corp. to reopen the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan.  This was a historical shift, and it was the first nuclear power plant to be reopened in the US, setting a precedent for atomic energy to make a triumphal comeback.  The plant could begin producing power as early as the second half of 2025.

German Greens lied to push nuclear power phase-out — media.  Top-ranking German government officials from the Ministry of Economic Affairs intentionally falsified experts' reports to make it look like nuclear power was no longer viable in the country, Cicero magazine reported on Thursday.  Citing internal documents and e-mails it obtained via a court order, the media outlet claims that long-time Green Party proponents of a nuclear phase-out in high positions swept reports under the rug, or altered them, if they ran counter to their ideological convictions.  Following the disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant in March 2011, Germany's parliament voted in favor of shutting down all similar facilities in the country.  In April 2023, Germany's last three operational nuclear power plants were taken offline.

Small nuclear reactors may be coming to Texas, boosted by interest from Gov. Abbott.  Gov. Greg Abbott took the stage at the University of Texas at Austin last August to discuss building up an energy source in the state.  Unlike the oil and gas industry that Abbott often promotes, this fuel could create reliable power without also pumping pollution into the air.  Abbott was there to talk about nuclear power — not big reactors like the ones that already operate in Texas, but a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors that companies are pitching as both safe and less financially risky than large nuclear power plants because they cost less.

Energy Department loans $1.5B to restart Michigan nuclear plant.  The Department of Energy offered a $1.5 billion loan to restart a nuclear power plant in Michigan.  The energy company Holtec International bought the decommissioned plant in 2022 and plans to restore it and resume operations by late 2025.  If successful, it will be the first nuclear power plant to be successfully restarted in U.S. history.

Org That Wants To Cut Carbon Emissions Sues To Close Zero-Emission Nuclear Power Plant.  An environmentalist nonprofit that seeks to cut carbon emissions and promote clean energy is suing to stop the Biden administration from funding a zero-emission power plant.  The Department of Energy (DOE) announced in January that it had approved a $1.1 billion credit payment to the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, a nuclear facility on the central California coast, to provide the plant with a path to avoid its planned shutdown in 2025.  Though nuclear power plants produce negligible carbon emissions, Friends of the Earth (FOE), a group seeking to reduce carbon emissions, filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block the DOE's funding, arguing that climate change could make the plant unsafe to operate due to flood risks and that earthquakes in the area could cause accidents.  Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom had initially supported closing the plant, siding with environmental activists, the Associated Press reported.  The governor, however, now backs the plant, reportedly seeking to avoid a repeat of the widespread blackouts that hit the state in August 2020.

The Editor says...
[#1] Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and CO2 emissions are not something to be avoided.  Blackouts are something to be avoided.  [#2] The opposition to the plant was due to the fear of earthquakes and the fear of floods and the fear of carbon dioxide.  Almost all of environmentalism is based on fear.

Even lefties now admit closing the Indian Point nuclear plant actually harmed the planet.  Those on the environmental left cheering the Biden administration's electric-vehicle mandates or Gov. Hochul's offshore wind farms would be wise to heed a painful and embarrassing lesson New York is learning from its not-so-distant past.  Not only do so-called "green" policies drive up consumer prices, decrease reliability and upend everyday life (say goodbye to wood-fired pizza ovens and gas-powered stoves), they often end up harming the environment they're supposed to be saving.

The Editor says...
Nonsense.  Closing one power plant did not, and cannot, "harm the planet" to any measurable extent.

Politicians should pin little hope on nuclear fusion.  A new briefing from the Global Warming Policy Foundation argues that nuclear fusion is unlikely to be a decarbonisation saviour, at least not in the short-to-medium term.  The author, retired nuclear researcher John Carr, explains that the technical hurdles to be overcome are still considerable:  "There is a litany of technical difficulties, from degradation of materials due to radiation damage, to lack of tritium fuel supply.  Progress towards a working reactor has been dismal, and the problems may be insuperable."  And Dr Carr says that even if fusion reactors can be brought online, they are unlikely to deliver cheap electricity.  "The costs of electricity from a fusion reactor are likely to exceed those from fission by a factor of ten or more.  Fusion is simply not going to ride to politicians' rescue."

Nuclear power generation [is] expected to reach record high worldwide, next year.  Global nuclear power generation is set to reach an all-time high next year, according to the International Energy Agency.  That will aid "efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions," notes the Financial Times.  Power generated by nuclear power plants is expected to rise by about 3 percent in both 2024 and 2025, and by an additional 1.5 percent in 2026, according to the IEA.  By contrast nuclear power production fell in 2022 as nuclear power plants closed in Germany and some other places that have a phobia of nuclear power.

Juice: Power, Politics, and the Grid, Part 4: "Nuclear Renaissance".  We're back with part 4 of Robert Bryce's new energy documentary, which looks at the sudden and surprising revival of nuclear power, which was thought to be dead for good after Jane Fonda's fever dream came true with the Fukushima nuclear reactor explosion back in 2011.  Yet Canada is on course to re-open a nuclear power plant it closed down a decade ago, and even the Biden Administration has just coughed up $1.5 billion to keep some U.S. nuclear plants open.  [Video clip]

2024 Promises the Expansion of the Green Energy Scam.  In 2011, Angela Merkel announced that Germany would shut down all 17 of its nuclear reactors.  Last year, the last three were shuttered.  In 1990 Germany generated 25% of its electricity from nuclear; now it's finally zero.  And it shows.  While harassing citizens to conserve energy, Germany has gone from a net exporter of energy to a net importer.  In addition, in 2010, German GDP growth was ahead of every single nation in the EU and double the average.  By 2022, it was half the EU average and, over the next six years, it's predicted to be dead last in the EU and behind only Belarus and war torn Russia and Ukraine on the continent.  This is all in pursuit of the goal of cutting CO2 emissions 65% below the 1990 level by 2030.

What You Did Not Hear About the Japanese Earthquake:  Nuclear Bad News.  This was rather a refreshing — and surprising — note to the truly awful earthquake and subsequent tsunami the Japanese mainland suffered this week.  [Video clip]  They are desperately trying to find survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings and parking garages.  [Video clip]  For all of the incredible technology that goes into earthquake-proofing modern Japanese construction, a 7.6 on the Richter scale almost underfoot is a whale of a jolt for anything to absorb.  It's a miracle anything was still standing. [...] The resiliency of the reactors Japan has in operation right now — a total of 12 out of 33 operable reactors available — is a testament to the retrofits and safety enhancements installed after the Fukushima disaster.  Every one of Japan's 54 plants had been shut down when that happened, exposing numerous flaws and violations throughout the industry, and a pervasive lax operator attitude towards their nuclear power plant operations.  Utilities have only been allowed to reopen the plants as they meet the stringent new safety upgrades.  It's made for slow progress, but judging by this week, it looks like it's paying off.

Nuclear fusion enters 'new era' after major breakthrough for near-limitless clean energy.  Scientists have managed to repeatedly produce nuclear fusion ignition for the first time, marking a major milestone towards achieving near-limitless clean energy at scale.  A team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the US achieved fusion ignition last December, producing a net energy gain from a fusion reaction for the first ever time.  The feat was hailed as a "moment of history" by physicists, which LLNL scientists have now repeated a further three times.

The Seven Dirty Secrets of Solar Energy.  Four headlines struck me, over my morning coffee, this week.  They are headlines that I think will change forever our understanding of energy sources. [...] All four headlines are courtesy of the E.U.'s disastrous missteps in solar — and successes in nuclear.  The disasters are the result of what I call "the seven dirty secrets of solar."  Germany has led the way down this dark path, with a failed 32-year, quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar experiment, funded by taxpayers, which has left the country ranking among the worst polluters and highest electric bills in Europe, now also burning more brown coal for its grid than ever before, at 40% and climbing, with only 9% contributed by solar.  Germany is fast losing its leading role in energy initiatives to the nuclear successes in France (70% nuclear) and Sweden (40% nuclear).

A remote Air Force base in Alaska is getting its own nuclear reactor.  On August 31, the Air Force announced that a California company called Oklo would design, construct, own, and operate a micro nuclear reactor at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.  The contract will potentially run for 30 years, with the reactor intended to go online in 2027 and produce energy through the duration of the contract.  Should the reactor prove successful, the hope is that it will allow other Air Force bases to rely on modular miniature reactors to augment their existing power supply, lessening reliance on civilian energy grids and increasing the resiliency of air bases.  Located less than two degrees south of the Arctic Circle, Eielson may appear remote on maps centered on the continental United States, but its northern location allows it to loom over the Pacific Ocean.  A full operational squadron of F-35A stealth jet fighters are based at Eielson, alongside KC-135 jet tankers that offer air refueling.

Palisades nuclear power plant lookin' to become the first recommissioned nuke in U.S. history.  Built back in the era of can-do/git-er-done, construction began on the Palisades plant (with its single combustion engineering pressurized water reactor) in March of 1967, and it was commissioned in December of 1971.  Located on the shores of Lake Michigan in Covert, MI, the 50+ year-old Palisades facility has been shuttered since May of 2022, when the reactor ran out of fuel and Entergy sold it to a firm out of Florida called Holtec. [...] Palisades was purchased initially with plans tear the whole thing down — that's what Holtec does.  Somewhere along the way, though, Holtec — encouraged by the help of Gov Gretchen Whitmer, the MI legislature, and available healthy nuclear subsidies — began to rethink the entire demolition idea.  A year later — this June, in fact — Holtec first floated the idea of resurrecting the plant.

Sweden to lift parliamentary ban on uranium mining.  Sweden's Climate Minister Romina Pourmokhtari has announced plans to lift the country's ban on uranium mining and make way for greater nuclear energy capacity.  The Swedish Parliament has shown majority support for a lift on the ban, according to Pourmokhtari.  The government plans to build at least ten large reactors in the next 20 years to meet the demand for low-carbon energy.  Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters in January that the government is "changing the legislation", which will increase nuclear investment in the country.  Swedish ministers decided to phase out nuclear generation in 1980 and have historically taken an anti-nuclear stance.  However, this policy was repealed in June 2010.  Pourmokhtari is a public advocate of nuclear generation and says it should form a part of Sweden's future energy mix.

The Anti-Nuclear Industry Is A $2.3B-Per-Year Racket.  Earlier this month, Ken Braun of the Capital Research Center, reported that the anti-nuclear industry in the U.S. is spending some $2.3 billion per year.  Braun identified more than 200 anti-nuclear NGOs.  The list includes anti-industry behemoths like the Sierra Club ($151 million in revenue in 2021), League of Conservation Voters ($115 million), Environmental Defense Fund ($285 million), and Natural Resources Defense Council ($186 million) as well as smaller groups like Public Citizen ($8 million).  Braun explains that his $2.3 billion figure is "a deliberately conservative estimate of the financial firepower of the American anti-nuclear movement.  It includes only nonprofit groups with a known anti-nuclear position, and within that subset, only some of the anti-nuclear nonprofits.  The real dollar figure is likely far higher."  Braun's report exposes the political power and massive fundraising capacity of what I call the anti-industry industry, which consists of hundreds of NGOs, many of them funded by dark money, that are actively working to undermine the nuclear and hydrocarbon sectors in the United States.

Diablo Canyon extension survives to glow another day.  [California Governor] Newsom went from climate cultist hero to dirty dog overnight when he realized — for once — not cutting the state's energy throat was more important than not cutting his own.  He said the [Diablo Canyon] plant, slated to close in 2025, should remain open until at least 2030.  He also helped facilitate the panicked rush to get a Nuclear Regulatory Commission extension approved.  The state had let their operating licenses expire in anticipation of shutting the facility down, and were shocked to find out the NRC wouldn't just let them pick up where they'd left it.  They were going to have to reapply for everything.  Time crunch was on.  As I said in my post then, I figured lawsuits from environmentalists would be flying once they retrieved the pieces of their exploded heads, and I was correct.

The Power Of Power Density.  The shape and size of our energy systems are not being determined by political beliefs about climate change.  Instead, those systems are ruled by the Iron Law of Power Density which says: the lower the power density, the greater the resource intensity. [...] The mineral intensity of offshore wind, including huge amounts of copper and zinc, is shocking:  roughly 15,400 kilograms per megawatt of generation capacity.  That is roughly 13 times more than the amount needed for natural gas-fired generation (1,148 kg) and six times more than what's needed for a coal plant (2,479 kg).  The Iron Law of Power Density explains why Siemens Energy just reported a $2.4 billion loss on its wind business in the latest quarter.  It explains why offshore wind projects here in the U.S. and in Europe, are being canceled left and right.  It also explains why, all around the world, rural communities and landowners are fighting back against the landscape-blighting encroachment of massive wind and solar projects.

The first US nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia.  The first new U.S. nuclear reactor to be built from scratch in decades is sending electricity reliably to the grid, but the cost of the Georgia power plant could make it a dead end instead of a path to a carbon-free future.  Georgia Power Co. announced Monday [7/31/2023] that Unit 3 at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta, has completed testing and is now in commercial operation, seven years late and $17 billion over budget.

How Germany's Green Energy Transition Led to Dependence on Imported, Fossil Fuel-Based Energy.  Governments around the West are currently scrambling toward adopting more and more renewable, environmentally healthy energy sources — with the notable and regrettable exception of nuclear energy — and to set a path for a world of zero emissions in the coming decades.  There is no doubt that the goal of reaching a greener and cleaner future is laudable and something conservatives and free marketeers should support.  But the top-down, heavy-handed approach by governments is the wrong one and has already caused havoc.  Let's look to Germany as an example.  Europe's largest economy hastily implemented its Energiewende, that is, its transition to green energy, a little more than over a decade ago.  It was done hastily since it was a sudden decision made by the country's then-chancellor, Angela Merkel, who irrationally decided after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster that it was time to get rid of nuclear.  Thus, the Energiewende toward a cleaner future started by abandoning what is perhaps one of the best energy sources for getting us to that future.

We Already Possess the Cure for Poverty and Climate Change.  During the recent power outages and denial of interweb service, I took up reading a book I picked up a while back on a subject I have always had questions: The Case for Nukes: How We Can Beat Global Warming and Create a Free, Open, and Magnificent Future by Robert Zubrin (Polaris Books 2023). [...] Robert Zubrin, an American aerospace engineer of three decades tells the history of energy to set the stage for one of his core arguments, that humanity should use more energy.  Over 700 million people languish in extreme poverty today and billions have not reached a standard of living equivalent to that of a developed country.  In contrast, radical environmentalists urge people to use less energy, which they believe is necessary to avert climate and ecological apocalypse.  Zubrin contends that slashing energy use would be so harmful as to be borderline genocidal, but he does recognizes that the environmental harms of fossil fuels are unsustainable.  Thus he endorses nuclear energy, asserting that only atomic energy can lift all people out of poverty while conserving the environment.

Italy Returns to Nuclear Sanity.  Shouldn't We?  The Italian parliament, demonstrating confidence in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, this week formally backed her plan to reintroduce nuclear power plants into Italy's energy mix, reversing the nation's 1987 moratorium on nuclear power.  Meanwhile, energy-starved Germany is feeling the pinch from shuttering all of its 17 nuclear power plants.  The U.S. has closed 11 nuclear reactors since 2013, with another eight of the 94 remaining reactors scheduled for decommissioning by 2025.  Although Presidents Trump and Biden have favored bolstering the U.S. nuclear energy portfolio, America's bureaucrat-heavy regulatory jungle remains designed to drag out facility permitting and construction for decades.  The sad truth is that the energy crisis is imminent — we don't have decades to play gotcha political games.  Another truth is that wind and solar cannot fully power the U.S. grid.

Sweden Shocks Europe: Abandons 'Unstable' Green Energy Agenda, Returns to Nuclear Power.  Sweden just dealt a severe blow to the globalist climate agenda by scraping its green energy targets.  In a statement announcing the new policy in the Swedish Parliament, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson warned that the Scandinavian nation needs "a stable energy system."  Svantesson said wind and solar power are too "unstable" to meet the nation's energy requirements.  Instead, she said, the Swedish government is shifting back to nuclear power and has scrapped its goal of a "100 percent renewable energy" supply to meet the nation's energy requirement, as reported by Slay.

Time to Go Nuclear.  Director Oliver Stone has made and is exhibiting early showings of a film "Nuclear Now" (based on the book A Bright Future), about the benefits of and need for nuclear power.  Stone is just one of a growing number of environmentalists who are accepting that if their desire is to transition the modern world to a clean, green, low carbon, and inexpensive baseload electrical grid, nuclear is the best option available today.  Whether or not one accepts the myth of man-caused "climate change," we should all be in favor of increasingly clean power generation.  In fact, western civilization has spent the past several decades making energy cleaner (while also keeping it relatively inexpensive) through innovation.  The mass of environmentalists, who demand that we surrender our modern comforts, food security, industry, modes of transportation, etc, in order to bring about their green utopia, want to take us off of that track.

How Finland Ended Up with Too Much Electricity.  As the Western World drives mindlessly into the fantasy of a false green energy future, shortages are a common topic of discussion — blackouts in the frigid winter, brownouts in the heat of summer.  You'd be right to ask.  What "leader" pushes a plan that puts demand before supply?  Finland, not known for its politically conservative nature (quite the opposite), was struggling with that problem.  After Russia invaded Ukraine, available energy became a priority.  You can't run anything these days without it, and we'll only need more.  But it is a problem Finland has solved, at least for now, with Nuclear.

Dr Patrick Moore : "We have no reason to be against nuclear energy other than prejudice & stupidity".  In Part Two of the BizNews interview with Dr Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace and the most prominent figures in the field of environmentalism, Moore makes a compelling case for nuclear energy.  Moore shares why he was silenced on the topic of nuclear energy during his years at Greenpeace and provides excellent insight into both the misconceptions around the risks of nuclear energy and why nuclear energy is not inherently evil in any way.  Moore argues that we should conserve the most precious fuels we have, which are fossil fuels, by replacing them with nuclear energy where feasible.  A brilliant perspective on the world's current energy dilemma and the best way forward.  [Video clip]

Green hypocrisy: Germany shuts down its last 3 nuclear power plants only to end up buying nuclear-generated electricity from France.  After closing its last three nuclear plants, Germany continues to heavily rely on French power generated from nuclear plants.  In recent years, German system operators have very often instructed some large industrial consumers to reduce or completely stop their consumption during certain periods in order to guarantee system balance, nuclear energy expert Zsolt Hárfás told Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet.  Such circumstances arise because the European electricity system is short of capacity and has limited capabilities to import electricity at certain times.  Germany, however, accepts electricity imports from France, mainly from its nuclear power plants.  Hárfás added that two dozen scientists and Nobel Prize winners recently wrote an open letter to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz via Replanet, calling for the last three nuclear power plants to continue operating, citing the energy crisis, climate protection and the lack of Russian gas.  They also pointed out to the chancellor that the three nuclear power plants produced a total of 32.7 TWh of climate-friendly electricity in 2022, enough to power a quarter of Germany's 10 million households.

New Study: Nuclear Power Is Humanity's Greenest Energy Option.  Germany idiotically shut down its last three nuclear power plants last month.  Until 2011, the country obtained one-quarter of its electricity from 17 nuclear power plants.  As a December 2022 study in Scientific Reports shows, turning off this carbon-free energy source is incredibly short-sighted for combatting climate change and protecting natural landscapes.  The European researchers behind the new study do an in-depth analysis of how much land and sea area it would take to implement the Net Zero by 2050 roadmap devised by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2021.  The IEA outlines an energy transition trajectory to cut global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels to zero by 2050.  The Net Zero goal is to keep the increase of global average temperature below the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the late 19th-century baseline.  "This calls for nothing less than a complete transformation of how we produce, transport and consume energy," notes the IEA.

The Editor says...
Who made the decision to set the baseline in the late 19th-century?  Was the world-wide average temperature just right at that moment?  Did anyone know the world-wide average temperature in the 1800's?  Who decides what the "ideal" temperature is?

Unreliable Green Energy Has the World Running Back to Coal and Nuclear.  Tokyo's move away from nuclear energy was entirely because of the unwarranted fears surrounding the technology.  However, once it was understood that Fukushima was more of a natural disaster than a fundamental technological failure, the country began to reverse its nuclear retrenchment and is now fully on track with an ambitious plan to use power reactors.  Historically, much of Japan's electricity needs have been met by fossil fuels, especially coal.  Then, in the late 2000s, like most developed economies of Europe and North America, Japan was confronted by pressures to reduce coal use to address a purported climate emergency.  However, Japan now realizes that it can continue to use coal using state-of-art technology, which reduces pollution significantly.  In its coverage of a new clean-coal plant backed by $384 million of public funds, Nikkei Asia reports that the country's initiatives are bearing fruit and providing much needed electricity.

Smaller, cheaper, safer: The next generation of nuclear power, explained.  Inside the Transient Reactor Test Facility, a towering, windowless gray block surrounded by barbed wire, researchers are about to embark on a mission to solve one of humanity's greatest problems with a tiny device.  Next year, they will begin construction on the MARVEL reactor.  MARVEL stands for Microreactor Applications Research Validation and EvaLuation.  It's a first-of-a-kind nuclear power generator, cooled with liquid metal and producing 100 kilowatts of energy.  By 2024, researchers expect MARVEL will be the zero-emissions engine of the world's first nuclear microgrid here at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).  "Micro" and "tiny," of course, are relative.  MARVEL stands 15 feet tall, weighs 2,000 pounds, and can fit in the trailer of a semi-truck.  But compared to conventional nuclear power plants, which span acres, produce gigawatts of electricity to power whole states, and can take more than a decade to build, it's minuscule.

France's struggle to deliver a second nuclear era.  For 10 years, Gaetan Geoffray worked as a plasterer and painter, before learning metalwork at a company that made cranes.  Arnaud Dupuy was a policeman.  A third colleague at their factory in the depths of rural Burgundy used to be a baker.  The factory is owned by Framatome, a subsidiary of state-controlled power utility EDF, and the trio are hoping to qualify for one of the most sought-after jobs in France, as nuclear-grade welders.  If all goes well, they'll one day be allowed to work on the most intricate features of the steel parts assembled in the plant, where the all-important 24-metre-long casings protecting the core of atomic reactors are made.  For now, that goal is at least three to four years off, so exacting are the demands in a field in which imperfect finishes can delay a project by months and cost millions, if not billions, of dollars.

The Dawn of a U.S. Nuclear Renaissance.  There are geopolitical and energy realities coming to fruition that nuclear can solve.  After more than sixty years, Germany closed all its nuclear power plants (NPPs) with Isar-2, Emsland, and Neckarwestheim-2 officially disconnected from the grid.  Germany lost approximately 5% of its power generation.  The German government went against science, reason, and grid reliability.  Green hydrogen is the process of using renewables (wind and solar) for electricity to produce hydrogen.  It is still in its development phase.  However, to generate the amount of electricity required to unlock hydrogen from water BloombergNEF estimates:  "would take more electricity than the world generates today from all sources combined, and an investment of $11 trillion in production, storage, and transportation infrastructure."

Do tell: German math on "no nukes" not adding up.  There's not much good to be said about the end of nuclear power in Germany.  And the further were get from the reactors going dark, the dimmer the idea and the rationale for it looks.  Take what "electric" means to the average German today, for the most basic effect.  [Tweet]  German leaders, especially those in the Green movement like Economics Minister Robert Habeck, are tapdancing even more so than when I posted about it two weeks ago.  Only then they were worried about their own political survival as a ruling party.  Now, they're worried about German industrial collapse.  [Tweet]  The lights on are a "luxury item."  When even your most committed German Greens and liberals are asking "What did we do to ourselves?" not three weeks after the last reactor shut down?  [Tweet]

Nuclear Power — The Most Misunderstood Source of Energy.  Nuclear power might very well be the most misunderstood source of energy used to generate electricity.  Fear generated from incidents in Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, paired with the frightening fact that the concept of using nuclear fission to create electricity originated from the Manhattan Project, has given many people the image that nuclear power is not a pathway to finding a more sustainable form of generating electricity, but a channel that can only lead to destruction.  While there is danger inherent in the use of nuclear power, there is some level of danger in almost all industries, something that is regulated by legislation and standardized practices.

Palisades nuclear plant may land up to $300M in state funds for restart bid.  Michigan leaders may be willing to put up as much as $300 million toward the unprecedented effort to restart a Michigan nuclear power plant.  State officials may contribute millions in taxpayer dollars toward Holtec International's attempt to get its Palisades nuclear plant upgraded and fired back up to provide 800 megawatts of carbon-free, base load power as the energy sector transitions away from fossil fuels.  If successful, it would be the first nuclear plant in the nation returned to generating power after being decommissioned.  The plant was shuttered last year when its owner exited the nuclear energy generation business and sold the facility to Holtec.  The new owner has now twice applied for federal dollars to help get the plant running again.

Michigan could provide $300m to reopen nuclear power plant.  Michigan could chip in as much $300 million to help restart the 800 MW Palisades nuclear power plant, which is currently being decommissioned.  Holtec International bought the plant in 2022 and shuttered it with an eye toward decommissioning the facility under an agreement with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  Holtec has applied for federal dollars to help get the plant running again.  It hopes to tap a $6 billion fund at the Department of Energy earmarked to preserve the U.S. nuclear reactor fleet and associated jobs.

Idioten!
Germany switches off its last nuclear plants.  "Nuclear power, no thanks!"  What was once a slogan found on the bumper of many a German car became a reality Saturday, as the country shut down its three remaining nuclear power plants in line with a long-planned transition toward renewable energy.  The shutdown of Emsland, Neckarwestheim II and Isar II shortly before midnight was cheered earlier in the day by anti-nuclear campaigners outside the three reactors and at rallies in Berlin and Munich.  Inside the plants, staff held more somber ceremonies to mark the occasion.  Decades of anti-nuclear protests in Germany, stoked by disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, had put pressure on successive governments to end the use of a technology that critics argue is unsafe and unsustainable.

The Editor says...
No power plant is perfectly safe.  Lots of people deal with risks every day.  Windmills and high hopes aren't gonna cut it, as you will soon find out.

Reality Hits Renewable Energy, Nuclear Power Now in Favor.  With renewable energy sources failing to deliver enough power to supply demand, evolving political narratives have altered plans for nuclear power plants in California and beyond.  "Reality happened," Jacopo Buongiorno, director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems and professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told The Epoch Times.  "The renewable energy sources that some were expecting to replace nuclear power failed to reliably supply enough power."  While Germany — a forerunner in the global movement to cut carbon emissions — bids farewell to nuclear energy April 15 after decades of debate, California and other countries equally eager to reach their climate goals are taking an opposite approach, extending and expanding their reliance on this carbon-free energy source.

Germany bids farewell to its last nuclear plants, eyes hydrogen future.  For 35 years, the Emsland nuclear power plant in northwestern Germany has reliably provided millions of homes with electricity and many with well-paid jobs in what was once an agricultural backwater.  Now, it and the country's two other remaining nuclear plants are being shut down.  Germany long ago decided to phase out both fossil fuels and nuclear power over concerns that neither is a sustainable source of energy.

The Editor says...
I just have a few questions.  Why is nuclear power not sustainable?  For that matter, why are all "fossil fuels" suddenly perceived as unsustainable?  The people who say natural gas is unsustainable are the same people who are opposed to fracking.  The people who say petroleum is unsustainable are the same people who are opposed to drilling in Alaska.  What country has used up all of its coal?  What makes anyone think windmills and solar panels and firewood are sustainable?

Nuclear Power has Suddenly Been Branded Clean Energy.  Mere days after the Federal Budget was released the Province of Ontario issued a Press Release announcing they are launching a Clean Energy Credit (CEC) Registry they reputed would not only "fund the construction of clean electricity projects" but would also "boost competitiveness and attract jobs".  The Press Release went on to state:  "Proceeds from the sale of CECs held by the IESO and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will be directed to the government's Future Clean Electricity Fund.  This new fund will help keep costs down for electricity ratepayers by supporting the development of new clean energy projects as the province builds out our grid to meet the demands of a growing population and economy, as well as the electrification of transportation and industry[."]  From the above one would surmise they have discovered how to create a utopia as the release brags about the upcoming Stellantis — LGES battery plant as well as a recent announcement about Volkswagen's planned first overseas gigafactory.  No mention is made as to how much "provincial or federal" taxpayer funds are being thrown at either factory.

Why Britain has big plans to join the rush for small modular reactors.  Sixty years ago, small nuclear power plants were the next big thing. [...] Now small reactors are all the rage again.  This time they are being touted as powerful potential weapons in the fight against climate change.  Governments around the world are investing billions of pounds to push ahead with new designs; private investors, including Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, are piling into what they believe will be a lucrative market.  Britain is trying to secure its place in the rush.  Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, used last week's budget to announce a competition to select a design for a small modular reactor — an SMR — for use in the UK.  The successful applicant or applicants will be chosen by the end of the year and will receive co-funding from the Treasury.  The contest is part of what would be a substantial expansion of the UK's nuclear fleet.

Delayed Reaction: Nuclear power mounts a comeback, but obstacles remain.  For almost a decade, supporters of nuclear power have been predicting a comeback for the beleaguered technology. "In recent years, some eco-pragmatists and climate scientists have begun touting the advantages of zero-carbon nuclear energy," I wrote in City Journal in 2019.  This movement of "pro-nuclear Greens," as energy analyst Robert Bryce once dubbed them, has grown considerably since then.  Many environmental groups have dropped their opposition to the technology.

Faced with rising oil prices, Japan returns to nuclear sanity.  Japan is hellishly hot in the summer and frigidly cold in the winter.  Air conditioning and heating are necessities for a comfortable, modern lifestyle.  For decades, Japan offered those modern amenities to its citizens via nuclear power.  However, after the 2011 earthquake, when the Fukushima nuclear plant lost its cooling systems, Japan shut down most of its nuclear reactors.  Now, though, as energy costs soar thanks to the Ukraine War, Japan is turning its nuclear plants back on.  This is good for its citizens and good for the environment.

The Dawn of Nuclear Energy Abundance.  Nuclear energy is in the ascendant.  Nations across the globe, lured by the prospect of clean, secure, and reliable power, are announcing that they are extending the lives of their nuclear plants or planning to build new ones. [...] This momentum isn't a fad; it's a new beginning.  By the end of this century, the world's electrical grids will be grounded in abundant nuclear energy, because it is the only source of reliable, emissions-free energy that minimizes environmental impacts, can be scaled to meet global demand, and is not geographically constrained.  Areas without geologically specific reliable energy will be forced to adopt nuclear — or remain reliant on fossil fuels.

Bureaucratic Red Tape Is Blocking a U.S. Nuclear Renaissance.  The nuclear energy community was abuzz with news of a nuclear fusion breakthrough at the end of last year.  Yet, while fusion innovation offers the promise of a bright future, there's a more pertinent issue facing the industry today: an antiquated regulatory environment that's stifling clean nuclear energy development.  The Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia made headlines when its new Unit 3 began loading fuel in October of last year, but after a minor setback during pre-operational testing, Georgia Power was left with no choice but to file a license amendment for the plant through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).  A seemingly small problem — vibrations that require a pipe brace — is set to cost the company one million dollars per day, and it's estimated that relicensing will take at least a month.

US nuclear enjoys revival as public and private funding pours in.  The US nuclear industry has hailed 2022 as an "inflection point", with surging private investment and unprecedented government support breathing new life into a sector that fell from favour in recent decades.  New federal legislation enacted in the past 18 months will pump about $40 [billion] into the sector over the coming decade, according to industry estimates, while roughly $5 [billion] in private funds has flowed into companies designing new types of reactor in the past year alone.  "It's a really great investor environment — both publicly and privately," said Ryan Norman, analyst at energy think-tank Third Way.  "There's federal recognition that nuclear energy technologies have a key role to play in the US energy future," he said.  "No matter how you cut it, we're talking about billions of dollars being poured into these advanced reactor companies."

Nuclear Power, Not Wind & Solar, Keeps The Lights and Heat On In France.  European countries are facing acute energy shortages this winter after curtailing their own fossil fuel resources and going all-in on wind and solar power.  European countries are putting together their playbooks on how shortages will be controlled.  In France, up to 40 percent of its people will not be impacted by power outages due to the fact that they might be connected to a priority line. [...] The rolling blackouts could impact up to 60 percent of the French population as sensitive sites, such as hospitals, police stations, gendarmeries, and fire stations will not have their power turned off as well as some industrial sites.  An area already hit will not be hit twice in a row and none of the more-than 3,800 high-risk patients who depend on at-home medical equipment will be impacted.  France, however, banned short domestic flights, but the government is allowing elites to use their private jets.

Global Energy Crisis Forces Japan To U-Turn On Its Nuclear Policy.  Japan has announced a major U-turn in its energy policy after the Asian nation adopted a new policy promoting greater use of nuclear energy, effectively ending an 11-year prohibition and phase-out that was triggered by the Fukushima disaster.  Under the new policy, Japan will maximize the use of existing nuclear reactors by restarting as many as possible, prolong the operating life of old reactors beyond their 60-year limit and also develop next-generation reactors to replace them.  The proposed legislation marks a complete reversal of the nuclear safety measures the country adopted after a powerful tsunami hit caused three of its six reactors to suffer meltdowns.  Fearing a public backlash, the Japanese government has desisted from building new reactors or replacing aging ones.

The Nuclear Energy Ice Age Appears to Be Over.  ice berg calveThe global scope and division of market segments for the international nuclear energy industry are becoming more clear.  As nations seek to replace fossil fueled power plants with reliable 24x7 CO2 emission free sources, global interest in nuclear energy has made a major turnaround in the past two years.  It has gone from being vilified over Fukushima that froze new efforts to a warming trend of investment commitments to major new projects.  The nuclear ice age appears to be over.  Unlike the brief "nuclear renaissance" of the first decade of this century, which disappeared in a cascade of falling naturel gas prices, this time the existential threat of global warming has convinced nations and their peoples that decarbonization in all its forms is here to stay.

A Case for Nuclear As the Most Efficient Form of Clean Energy.  In Sweden[,] an old oil-powered gas plant is being fired up more regularly after the Scandinavian nation decommissioned several nuclear reactors.  California recently announced that it will ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars in a little over a decade.  Shortly thereafter, California asked residents to avoid charging electric vehicles due to electricity shortages.  The Golden State is now reneging on its planned closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.  Turns out shutting down a source of 8 percent of California's power wasn't a bright idea.  Nuclear energy is the only way to transition off of fossil fuels while retaining our high quality of life.

Belgium Permanently Shuts Down Nuclear Reactor Amid Power Crunch.  The Belgian government is shutting down a major nuclear power plant amid a record power crunch and skyrocketing energy costs to "appease" Green parties who oppose nuclear power. [...] This is especially funny because elites are now coming around to the fact nuclear power has the lowest emissions of any power source and is nearly carbon neutral.  While Europeans are being told to suffer high energy prices and the collapse of their industries to fight Russia and "climate change," Russians' gas is so cheap that people are burning it 24/7 on livestreams just for laughs.

How the Fed will Strangle New Nukes.  Of all power generation options, capital-intensive nuclear power is the most sensitive to interest rates.  As interest in nuke plants picks up worldwide, will inflation-driven interest rate hikes strangle a new fleet in the birthing... again?  Today, how many countries wish they had more nuclear power plants up and running?  Although Germany was in the process of shutting its last remaining 3 reactors, even its Green Party was willing to relent, a little, for this winter.  The departing Boris Johnson lambasted his UK government for not building more reactors — almost as if he had actually spent political capital on their advocacy during his term as a member of Parliament or as prime minister — and "committing" for 14 more.  The Philippines' President Marcos Jr. is intent on restarting a mothballed reactor project from the time of Marcos Sr.  The Biden Administration is traveling the planet selling (on low, convenient terms) American industry's newest products — "Small Modular Reactors" or SMRs — and the US Department of Energy is predicting up to 1,000 new reactors by 2050.

France to restart all nuclear reactors by winter amid energy crunch.  France's minister for energy transition said Friday that French electricity giant EDF has committed to restart all its nuclear reactors by this winter to help the country through the broad energy crisis aggravated by the war in Ukraine.  Agnès Pannier-Runacher said the government is taking steps to "avoid restrictive measures" over energy use in the peak winter cold season, following a special government meeting over energy issues.  France relies on nuclear energy for about 67% of its electricity — more than any other country — and on gas for about 7%.

The U.S. also needs a sane policy for immigration, law enforcement, energy production, and election security.
The U.S. Needs a Safe, Sane Energy Policy.  Western democracies are under assault by a Russia determined to bring the United States and its allies to their knees.  It is time our response was nuclear.  As in nuclear power.  Improvements in nuclear power have now reportedly made it a safer source of energy, providing an additional source of power free from the posturing blackmail of leaders such as Putin. [...] The French are not content to sit in the cold this winter.  In recognition that wind and solar cannot possibly replace lost Russian natural gas, their response has been to restart their nuclear reactors.  They seek a clean, reliable source of power that is indifferent to Putin's energy war on the West.  That is not to say nuclear will replace fossil fuels or its "green" alternatives, solar and wind.  Aircraft engines may one day run on hydrogen, but the scores of aircraft now in the air at any given hour will rely on fossil fuels for years to come.

Not Even Keeping 1 Nuclear Plant Can Save California From Its Green Energy Nightmare.  California has waged a decades-long war against sanity — and the laws of physics — in the name of saving the planet by dumping tons of intermittent renewables onto the grid.  Well, after years of wrecking the grid and raising energy costs, sanity seems to have prevailed.  California lawmakers last week approved legislation, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, to extend the operational life of its last remaining nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon.  The $1.4 billion decision may seem costly, but it's a steal compared to rolling blackouts.

Democrats, environmentalists warm to nuclear power for quicker transition to a green energy future.  Nuclear power, once shunned by many Democrats and environmentalists, is gaining acceptance among the party and activists as a clean alternative to fossil fuels amid soaring energy costs and a sluggish transition to renewables.  Proponents argue that the carbon-free energy source is clean and affordable, can be generated around the clock and is already prevalent.  Wind and solar power, meanwhile, are intermittent and hamstrung by limited battery storage capabilities.  "There's been a slow progression, but sufficient modeling that has been done has convinced a lot of people in the environmental community, certainly around the importance of preserving the existing fleet," said Doug Vine, director of energy analysis at the nonpartisan Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.  "There's a recognition of not wanting to backslide on emissions reductions."

California governor signs bill to keep last reactors running.  California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Friday intended to open the way for the state's last operating nuclear power plant to run an additional five years, a move that he said was needed to ward off possible blackouts as the state transitions to solar and other renewable sources.  His endorsement came one day after the plan was approved in a lopsided vote in the state Assembly and Senate, and despite criticism from environmentalists that the plant was dangerous and should be shut down as scheduled by 2025.  Newsom has no direct authority over the twin-domed plant, which sits on a bluff above the Pacific midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  PG&E must obtain approval for a longer run from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees plant safety, as well as a string of state agencies.

Fossil fools: How Germany's fear of nuclear power put Putin in charge of Europe.  On January 1st, 2000, a new leader of Russia ascended to power:  Vladimir Putin.  After his official inauguration that summer, Western leaders greeted him with open arms, hoping to leave Cold War attitudes in the 20th Century.  British Prime Minister Tony Blair would call him a reformer, visit him in the Kremlin, and welcome him into number 10.  President Bill Clinton stated that "no doors can be sealed shut to Russia" and would even float the prospect of welcoming Russia into the EU and NATO.  Gerhard Schröder, then leader of Germany, would embrace Putin too, first politically, then personally and professionally.  Elected in 1998 to lead a coalition with the Green Party, Schröder ran on the promise of phasing out nuclear power, a politically popular idea in Germany with a history of direct action and its own iconic tagline: "Atomkraft?  Nein Danke."  ("Nuclear Power?  No Thank You.")

Shut down the green agenda and go nuclear.  What an awful mistake it was to discard nuclear power as a serious energy source.  The green agenda is what the American left is banking on as yet another means to control Americans and degrade their lifestyles in furtherance of their imaginary socialist Utopia.  It does not include nuclear energy.  As of 2022, only 19% of America's power comes from nuclear reactors.  That needs to change.  America needs more, not less, nuclear energy.  Many of our reactors will be decommissioned, and that should not happen unless they are structurally unsound. [...] Advanced modern European countries use significant nuclear energy, including Britain, Germany, and France, (at least until recently), with others building advanced nuclear reactors.  Nuclear is cheap, and it's clean.

Mega blackout imminent?  France shuts down half its nuclear reactors.  The energy exporter is going to have to access energy from abroad.  But that can turn out to be more difficult than planned with the European energy crisis expanding.  Is a mega blackout looming?  Some 56 nuclear reactors at 18 locations normally supply France with electricity.  But 18 of these reactors are already shut down.  Long-term maintenance work is to be carried out.  That had been planned for a long time, authorities said.  But then France also had to shut down 12 more reactors last week.  Damage caused by corrosion is said to be the reason for this.  The supply in Europe's power grid seems all the more uncertain in winter.

No power technology can replace or do the job of nuclear energy today, says Duke Energy CEO.  There is no technology that can replace nuclear energy today, Lynn Good, CEO of Duke Energy, told CNBC's Jim Cramer at the Evolve Global Summit on Wednesday.  Nuclear energy, which is produced from the splitting of uranium atoms in a process called fission, accounts for about 20% of America's electricity.  Duke Energy, which operates out of Charlotte, North Carolina, is an American electric power and natural gas holding company, which distributes energy to 7.2 million customers.  And in the Carolinas, 50% of that electricity comes from nuclear energy plants.  "I do not have a technology that can replace that today," Good said.  Nuclear energy does not produce greenhouse gas emissions, making it a leading source of clean energy, and a valuable resource in the transition to net zero — accounting for 56% of our nation's carbon-free electricity.

Fossil Fuel.  [Scroll down]  France gets 90% of its electricity from nuclear power.  We could, too.  The question is, why don't we?  What's stopping us from vigorously pursuing the only viable alternative to fossil fuel?  The answer I think, is fear.  Ironically, the same kind of fear that's got many people convinced the planet will end in nine years.  The same kind of fear that leads to false narratives, inaction and hopelessness.  The same kind of fear that makes people forget that the earth is still spinning, and we all share the same atmosphere.

EU Parliament Declares Nuclear Power And Natural Gas As "Green" Energy.  The leadership of the European Union (EU) declared that some gas and nuclear power are, in fact, Green energy, a move that will likely stir controversy in the U.S.  Under a move labeled the EU Taxonomy, today's vote reclassified the energy sources as both green and sustainable.

If Russia cuts off supply of enriched uranium to US power companies, America's nuclear energy reactors will close within a year.  Former Department of Energy (DoE) Under Secretary Paul Dabbar and Columbia University energy researcher Matt Bowen have published a report warning that America's energy crisis could soon get a whole lot worse if Russia stops selling enriched uranium to nuclear power plants.  If supplies get cut, they say, then many United States nuclear power generation facilities would be forced offline within a year.  The result would be much less energy availability and sky-high prices even beyond current inflation figures.  Nuclear power accounts for more than 20 percent of all U.S. electricity generation capacity, and nearly half of the country's 56 operational nuclear power plants use enriched uranium imported from Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.  Although Russia only mines about six percent of the world's uranium, it controls about 40 percent of the global uranium conversion market and 46 percent of total uranium enrichment capacity.

The Editor says...
I suggest you use a non-Google search engine and look for the term Uranium One, or use your browser's search function to hunt for that term after you turn your attention to this page.

Nuclear Power Plant Closes Amid Electric Power Shortage.  The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) issued a report that blackouts are almost inevitable across the nation this summer.  This report was issued in light of our electric grid's low generation capacity, and corresponded with the closure of the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan.  The American Midwest in particular is at a high risk for rolling blackouts during the summer, as the region is generating around 3,200 less megawatts than during this time last year, while energy demand is estimated to be up 1.7%.  This recipe for rolling blackouts is further exacerbated by the closure of Palisades, which produced 811 Megawatts of carbon-free energy.  The shut down of nuclear power plants often leads to replacement by gas-fired energy plants, which given the ridiculous prices for gas and energy in general under Biden right now, is a sub-optimal solution.

The Editor says...
All electricity is "carbon free," technically.  If you see carbon coming out of a light socket, you'd better get it checked.

The energy in nuclear waste could power the U.S. for 100 years, but the technology was never commercialized.  There is enough energy in the nuclear waste in the United States to power the entire country for 100 years, and doing so could help solve the thorny and politically fraught problem of managing spent nuclear waste.  That's according to Jess C. Gehin, an associate laboratory director at Idaho National Laboratory, one of the government's premier energy research labs.  The technology necessary to turn nuclear waste into energy is known as a nuclear fast reactor, and has existed for decades.  It was proven out by a United States government research lab pilot plant that operated from the 1960s through the 1990s.  For political and economic reasons, the technology has never been developed at commercial scale.  Today, there's an increased urgency to address climate change by decarbonizing out energy grids, and nuclear power has become part of the clean energy zeitgeist.  As a result, nuclear fast reactors are once again getting a serious look.

Green Energy Chickens Coming Home to Roost.  This year will graphically demonstrate the malign consequences of the misguided efforts to replace cheap, reliable fossil fuel energy with unreliable, inefficient "renewable" energy like wind and solar.  Never in history has a civilization willfully embarked on destroying its material foundations, based solely on a hypothesis rather than scientifically established fact. [...] Here at home, warnings of electricity blackouts across the country this summer have not slowed down many states' increased efforts to shutter electrical plants powered by coal, natural gas, and nuclear fission.  In New York, Governor Kathy Holchul has announced the state's commitment to enforcing a requirement that new power plants must achieve "zero on-site greenhouse gas emissions for new construction no later than 2027."  This policy of wishful thinking follows New York's Climate Act of 2019, which requires that all power generation comes from "green" sources by 2040, including 70% from renewable energy by 2030.

Elon Musk: 'We should not shut down nuclear power plants, we should reopen the ones that we've shut down'.  Elon Musk did a broad interview that was published on IsraelUnwired.com's website by Phil Schneider.  Elon Musk discussed during the interview the need for nuclear energy and re-opening any nuclear plants that have been shut down.  [Video clip]

Gov. Newsom:  Maybe it was a mistake to shut down California's last nuclear plant.  You may not remember it, especially if you don't live here in California, but the state had rolling blackouts back in 2020. The culprit was a heat wave which meant lots of people were using air conditioners to keep indoor temperatures under control.  And as the sun went down and the state's solar power supplies dried up, there weren't enough back up supplies to replace it.  After that debacle California regulators decided to let some existing natural gas power plants stay open a few extra years.  But the state had already decided several years earlier to shut down the last remaining nuclear plants which would cease to operate when their current licenses expired rather than try to extend those licenses.

Who's Afraid of Nuclear Waste?  Do the dangers of nuclear waste outweigh the potential benefits of nuclear power?  Let's start with the basics:  Why would we even bother with an energy source that generates waste?  Well, there's a pretty easy answer to that question:  because every energy source generates waste.  The reason we're so much more aware of nuclear waste is that ... well, we can see it right there in those concrete casks.  It can be contained.  All of our other fuel sources, by contrast, send their waste out into the environment.  And here's the other thing:  because nuclear power is so efficient, the amount of waste it generates compared to those other fuel sources is actually incredibly small.

The Philippines Sees the (Nuclear) Light.  The Philippines is a tropical country of 113 million, with beautiful beaches, dense rainforests, 11,000 islands, and a smiling, industrious, educated population.  English is an official language, unifying its multitude of native languages and dialects, allowing its "overseas foreign workers" to return billions in remittances and savings annually to the country's economy.  What it doesn't have is ample indigenous energy resources; high electricity prices have hurt it competitively against its Southeast Asian neighbors.  What they also have is a roaring democracy — the Filipinos put the "party" back into "political parties."  With elections coming up on May 9th, high electricity prices and unreliable service have become a campaign issue.  The outgoing Dutarte Administration has been criticized by major presidential candidates for not doing enough about these high prices (presidents serve but a single 6 year term).

A New Disaster is Unfolding in Chernobyl.  Forty-five years ago, a combination of defective Soviet technology, poor planning, and an all-encompassing need to please the communist bureaucracy unleashed hundreds of tons of radioactive poison.  The atomic explosion at Chernobyl admittedly killed hundreds of people and poisoned food and water supplies throughout much of Europe.  A huge swath of the rolling wheatfields of Ukraine now left fallow and untenable are an unmistakable reminder of everything wrong with Soviet communism.  But that is not the end of the nuclear nightmare.  Putin's invasion of Ukraine has now unearthed radiation that will kill hundreds, if not thousands, of his soldiers.  The problem is not a new radiation release from the entombed Chernobyl plant.  Instead, it's the radiation lying in wait underground for the past 45 years, waiting to kill those who disturb it.

Once Again, Environmentalists Are Sabotaging Climate Progress.  New York City is among the most progressive and climate-conscious municipalities in the United States.  It is legally obligated to bring its greenhouse emissions to 40 percent below their 2005 peak by the end of the decade.  And yet over the past year, NYC has dramatically expanded its reliance on fossil fuels — thanks, in no small part, to the efforts of Empire State environmentalists.  In 2019, when the city put its ambitious climate goals into law, the Indian Point nuclear power plant provided the bulk of its carbon-free electricity and 25 percent of its overall power.  The plant was profitable and met the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's exacting safety standards.  Nevertheless, environmental groups had been fighting to close it for decades, arguing that its proximity to both New York City and the Stamford-Peekskill fault line created an unacceptably high risk of a nuclear disaster.  The catastrophe at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 bolstered their cause.  In 2021, New York closed down Indian Point.  At the time, the conservationist organization Riverkeeper argued that Indian Point's electricity could be fully replaced by renewables.

What Happened To Nuclear Cruise Ships?  With sleek, futuristic lines and shining red and white paint, the world's first nuclear passenger ship N/S Savannah was designed to stand out but what really set it apart was its powerplant — at the heart of the ship was a 74 megawatt pressurized water reactor, making Savannah the world's first nuclear-powered merchant ship.  Launched in the summer of 1959, Savannah was built to prove that nuclear energy could safely power civilian merchant ships of the future, promising to make cargo and cruise ships more economical, reliable and faster.  It would also allow ships to travel for years before needing to refuel, offering increased flexibility and operating time.  As the first of its kind, it wasn't just a cruise ship... the N/S Savannah carried both passengers and cargo to demonstrate the safety and reliability of nuclear propulsion for all kinds of civilian uses.

Nuclear power is the future — let's seize it.  In the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many countries around the world have finally started to address their dependency on Russian gas.  It's as if, almost overnight, politicians have woken up to the importance of energy security and resilience.  That certainly seems to be the case for the British government.  Russian imports may make up less than five per cent of the UK's energy supply, but this doesn't mean that we are protected from rising energy prices — the UK is too thoroughly enmeshed in the global energy market for that.  Indeed, most of the UK's electricity is still produced by burning imported fossil fuels, mainly natural gas (42 percent in 2016), coal (nine per cent in 2016), and other fuels (3.1 percent in 2016).  In response, the British government is now, in Boris Johnson's words, making 'a series of big new bets on nuclear power'.  It wants the UK to generate 25 percent of its electricity from nuclear power by 2050.  As a result, the government is already trying to speed up planned nuclear builds, including switching to a 'regulated asset base' (RAB) model to encourage long-term investors.

Carbon-Free Nuclear Power.  Carbon-free nuclear energy is an essential component of America's energy security and clean energy program of reducing carbon emissions in order to reduce global warming.  Fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) power 60% of the electricity produced in America, emitting 5,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide.  Nuclear energy produces 20% of the electricity and emits 0 tons of carbon dioxide.  Ninety-three nuclear reactors in fifty-six plants are located in twenty-eight states.  The average age of the reactors is thirty-nine years.  Currently, there are only two nuclear reactors under construction in America in Vogtle, Georgia.  Twenty-three reactors are shut down or are in various stages of decommissioning:  Illinois (9), Pennsylvania (8) and South Carolina (7) lead the nation in number of nuclear reactors.

The Editor says...
If your goal is "reducing carbon emissions in order to reduce global warming," congratulations.  Global warming stopped in 1998.  If warming is at a standstill already, it can't be reduced.  Incidentally, if global warming resumes at the rate of one degree per century, nobody will notice unless they watch television.  And once again, please note that carbon dioxide is not carbon.  Power plants don't have carbon emissions.  Carbon dioxide, maybe, but not carbon.

Why smaller is better when it comes to nuclear power.  Mention "nuclear power" and attention almost immediately turns to safety.  Despite huge advances in nuclear technology in recent decades, everyone still thinks about the accidents that occurred at older reactors like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukushima.  Safety — and the politics surrounding it — remains the single biggest issue influencing the development of nuclear power around the world.  Dozens of countries don't even have — or don't want — nuclear power.  Some have nuclear but are phasing it out.  Germany, for example, closed three of its six remaining nuclear plants on 31 December 2021, which together accounted for 6% of the country's electricity.  The other three will shut down later this year, with much of the shortfall in the short term being made up by burning natural gas.

Feds Move to Shut Down Nuclear Power in Florida.  One of the lessons of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that Europe never should have let itself become so dependent on Russian energy, which it did in part by letting leftists strangle its nuclear power industry. [...] Among the advantages of nuclear energy is that even liberals admit it has no impact on the supposedly problematic climate, as it generates no carbon dioxide.  But environmentalists have a new angle.  They claim that the Florida plant will become flooded because it was foretold by their prophet Al Gore that climate change will cause the seas to rise. [...] Biden's war on energy does not stop with fossil fuels.  Nuclear energy is efficient; therefore, progressives oppose it.  What leftist kooks did to New York by closing Indian Point (which was supplying 25% of NYC's power), Democrats plan to inflict throughout the country.

In 3 states that have closed nuclear power plants, CO2 emissions are up.  This isn't exactly a new story but today Politico notes that blue states that have recently shuttered nuclear power plants are now producing more CO2 emissions at a time when elected officials in those states keep talking about the need to battle climate change. [...] Last April, the NY Times warned that shutting down Indian Point plant in New York would lead to more use of fossil fuels.  Even Vox has published a video arguing that shutting down the plant seemed not to be based on scientific concerns so much as irrational fear.  And it's not just blue states in the US where this is happening.  Germany is also shuttering its nuclear plants and relying more on natural gas and coal which won't be phased out of the German energy system until 2038.

Possible Globs of Melted Nuclear Fuel Photographed Inside Damaged Fukushima Reactor.  Images captured by a remotely operated probe appear to show mounds of melted nuclear fuel at the bottom of a Fukushima reactor core that experienced a meltdown 11 years ago.  The robot, deployed by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), gathered these eerie images last week, as the Associated Press reports.  The apparent mounds of melted nuclear fuel were detected in reactor No. 1, one of three Fukushima reactors that experienced meltdowns after a devastating tsunami in 2011.  A TEPCO spokesperson told the AP that the piles were located at the bottom of containment vessels and also a structure directly beneath the core.  The container is filled with cooling water, requiring a submersible robot.  That these mounds are globs of melted fuel seems plausible, but the spokesperson said future probing will be required to make sure.

France to cut carbon emissions, Russian energy influence with 14 nuclear reactors.  France is planning to build up to 14 nuclear reactors in an attempt to shore up the country's aging nuclear fleet while also reducing the country's carbon emissions.  And while the first reactors won't open for years, the announcement could serve to undercut Russia's attempts to keep Europe dependent on natural gas.  President Emmanuel Macron announced the decision last week, saying that state-backed Électricité de France, also known as EDF, will build six new plants starting in 2028, with the option to build another eight by 2050.  EDF estimates that six next-generation pressurized water reactors will cost around €50 billion ($57 billion).  The first could be commissioned as early as 2035.  The move is a sharp reversal of Macron's earlier pledge to close several reactors over the next decade or so.

When the Left Hates Green Energy.  Although progressives have advocated for renewables such as solar and wind power, they often oppose any increase in nuclear power, a carbon-neutral and readily accessible energy source. [...] Opponents of nuclear power argue that nuclear waste and safety concerns make nuclear a non-starter.  Yet that argument doesn't withstand logical scrutiny:  if the left truly believes that climate change will bring about Armageddon over the next decade, it would seem that nuclear power would be worth the risks to mitigate greenhouse gas emission.  The reality is that the progressive movement's distaste for nuclear and natural gas is driven by something far simpler:  their hatred of corporate greed.  Editorials from publications such as The Hill, Bloomberg, and the Chicago Tribune have decried subsidies for nuclear energy, despite the fact that as of 2016, nuclear energy was subsidized significantly less ($365 million) at the federal level than renewables ($6.682 billion), coal ($1.26 billion) and natural gas ($773 million).

European scientists announce 'major breakthrough' on nuclear fusion energy.  Scientists at the U.K.-based JET laboratory announced they have achieved "record-breaking" results on a landmark nuclear fusion experiment.  According to researchers at the Oxfordshire-based lab, the team successfully squeezed together two forms of hydrogen for a period of five seconds, allowing them to produce 59 megajoules, or 11 megawatts, of energy, more than double the record set in 1997.  While the energy output itself is nothing to write home about — it's enough to boil roughly 60 kettles of water — scientists say it's a major validation of their design choices in crafting a fusion reactor, a bigger version of which is currently being built in France, and puts scientists one step closer to creating what would be an abundant supply of low-carbon, low-radiation energy.

Hot stuff:  Lab hits milestone on long road to fusion power.  With 192 lasers and temperatures more than three times hotter than the center of the sun, scientists hit — at least for a fraction of a second — a key milestone on the long road toward nearly pollution-free fusion energy.  Researchers at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California were able to spark a fusion reaction that briefly sustained itself — a major feat because fusion requires such high temperatures and pressures that it easily fizzles out.  The ultimate goal, still years away, is to generate power the way the sun generates heat, by smooshing hydrogen atoms so close to each other that they combine into helium, which releases torrents of energy.

California's Nuke Follies.  Of all of the endless follies of California these days — I know, it's hard to enumerate all of them let alone put them in rank order — closing our last nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon ranks perhaps at the top of the list.  It provides more than 10 percent of California's electricity, and can run 24/7, unlike wind and solar power.  As one of the last nuclear power plants built and brought online in the 1980s, it easily has another 40 years of potential service left in it, if not more.  The perverse energy policy of California, which excludes nuclear along with any new dams from its legal definition and mandates for clean or "renewable" energy, virtually compelled the closure of Diablo Canyon, and the corporate socialists who run PG&E simply lied to the public that they can make up the shortfall with wind and solar power and magic batteries.  In fact, they will make up electricity shortfalls in large part with natural gas and power imports from other states.

Without nuclear energy, there is no large-scale decarbonization.  While decarbonization is the umbrella under which all energy technologies will gather, the push for a carbon-free system and the introduction of massive amounts of generation that can't be scheduled to match demand patterns are two of the factors destroying the traditional underpinnings of utility planningMeanwhile, the lines between the sectors of the energy world increasingly are becoming blurred, as cars and trucks shift from petroleum to electricity and heating our homes, shops and offices becomes a job for electricity rather than fossil gas or oil.  We will also need carbon-free energy for new or expanded purposes, like making potable water from the sea or moving water vast distances.  We will need energy from new, carbon-free sources to make steel and concrete.  Put these all together and we find ourselves at a crossroads with no road signs.  At least the size of the problem is clear.  Today, renewable energy provides only 12 percent of total energy use, about one-third of which may not be compatible with a zero-carbon economy due to its substantial carbon footprint:  biofuels such as ethanol are processed with fossil energy, and wood is harvested in a way that releases carbon dioxide from the soil.

Why Greta's Climate Panic Failed.  The most influential climate activist in the world, with no runner-up in sight, is Greta Thunberg. [...] But the EU's decision to ratify gas and nuclear as green is a major blow to Thunberg and the climate-renewables lobby. [...] Just a few weeks ago it appeared that Europe was "transitioning to renewables."  Why is it now embracing natural gas and nuclear?  And why were Thunberg and the climate movement defeated in Europe, the place where they were presumed to be the strongest?

Germany 'Dramatically Behind' its Emissions Target After Abandoning 'Dangerous' Nuclear Energy.  Germany is now 'dramatically behind' its CO2 emissions target shortly after it abandoned half of its remaining nuclear plants, calling the tech 'dangerous'.  Germany's Climate Minister, Robert Habeck has said that Germany is "dramatically behind" its emissions targets for 2030, just weeks after the country abandoned half of its remaining nuclear power plants.  Habeck now says that the country has a "gigantic task" ahead should it still wish to achieve its goal of making itself climate neutral.

The Editor says...
One of these days, Mr. Habeck will wake up and realize that he can't have it both ways.  It is not possible to achieve unrealistic "emissions targets" while doing away with every practical source of energy.

Germany shuts down half of its 6 remaining nuclear plants.  Germany on Friday is shutting down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power.  The decision to phase out nuclear power and shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy was first taken by the center-left government of Gerhard Schroeder in 2002.  His successor, Angela Merkel, reversed her decision to extend the lifetime of Germany's nuclear plants in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and set 2022 as the final deadline for shutting them down.

Shift to nuclear brightens Asian energy future.  At a time when the global media narrative is dominated by fossil fuels and renewables, countries in Asia have been commissioning an increasing number of nuclear plants, contrary to many European countries and the U.S.  With a string of new approvals in recent years, the future of energy security in Asia appears to be increasingly dependent on nuclear energy to bolster the already strong fossil fuel sector.  Unlike renewables, nuclear plants do not occupy large swaths of land and do not stop working when there is no wind or sun.

Nuclear Bans Tumble as Once-Skeptical States Seek Carbon Cuts.  States that were once wary about nuclear power are now mulling policies to move forward with it as a way to decarbonize the electric grid, reach emissions-free energy goals, and preserve jobs in communities with aging and shuttering coal plants.  While 13 states have bans or restrictions on nuclear power construction, some are repealing moritoria and seeking to advance nuclear energy pilot projects within their borders.  Critics, however, say such efforts are misguided and amount to too little, too late to address climate change.  In West Virginia, where coal has long reigned supreme, lawmakers plan to reconsider legislation to repeal the state's 25-year-old ban on construction of new nuclear power facilities.

Key Facts about Spent Nuclear Fuel.  Radioactive waste is a byproduct of the nuclear power cycle and is considered the tail-end of the process [...] .  The waste from nuclear power generation is classified according to radioactivity as either low-level (LLW), intermediate-level (ILW) or high-level waste (HLW).  Compared to other energy sources, only a small amount of waste is produced from nuclear power.  According to estimates, the total waste from a reactor supplying one person's electricity needs for a year would be about the size of a brick.  Only five grams of this is high-level waste (HLW) — the same weight as a sheet of paper.

California needs to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open to meet its climate goals.  The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is scheduled to close when its federal 40-year license expires in 2025 — marking the end of nuclear power generation in California.  This schedule was set in a complex multi-stakeholder process approved by state regulators in 2018, and modifying it would be at least as complex.  However, much has changed in the last few years, underscoring the need to revisit this decision — including rolling blackouts in California in 2020, global awareness of the need for greater ambition in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and a better understanding of the limitations of existing technology within a reliable and resilient system.  Reconsidering the future of Diablo Canyon is now urgently needed in advancing the public good.

NASA Seeks Ideas for a Nuclear Reactor on the Moon.  If anyone has a good idea on how to put a nuclear fission power plant on the moon, the U.S. government wants to hear about it.  NASA and the nation's top federal nuclear research lab on Friday [11/19/2021] put out a request for proposals for a fission surface power system.  NASA is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory to establish a sun-independent power source for missions to the moon by the end of the decade.  "Providing a reliable, high-power system on the moon is a vital next step in human space exploration, and achieving it is within our grasp," Sebastian Corbisiero, the Fission Surface Power Project lead at the lab, said in a statement.

The Editor says...
[#1] Who would benefit from this boondoggle, other than the contractors who put it together?  [#2] The moon is made of sterile dirt.  There is no reason to go there, other than to impress other countries with our rockets.  In the Cold War, when rockets were relatively new, that was important.  Today it is not.  [#3] The people making this proposal are the same people who oppose the construction of nuclear power plants in the United States, and instead recommend the use of solar panels.  With 100 percent sunny days, the moon is an ideal place for solar panels.

Nuclear May Be The Ticket To A Carbon-Free Future.  Why Do Environmentalists Hate It?  Expanding U.S. nuclear power — an energy source that many environmentalists and lawmakers oppose — could be the most reliable way to achieve a carbon-free electricity grid, according to experts.  Nuclear energy is considered a renewable energy source because it produces zero emissions through fission, the process of splitting uranium atoms, according to the Department of Energy.  Currently, nuclear accounts for about 9% of total U.S. energy consumption, slightly less than all other renewable energy sources combined and coal, government data showed.  "If there is meant to be a serious conversation about changing the way we generate electricity in the United States, particularly with a focus on carbon emissions, nuclear has to be a part of the conversation," American Institute for Economic Research senior faculty Ryan Yonk told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  "Absent that, I don't see a way that we change electrical generation," he continued.

Doug Casey on Why the Carbon Hysteria is a Huge Threat to Your Personal Freedom and Financial Wellbeing.  [Scroll down]  To sum it up in one word, it's insane.  In two words, it's criminally insane.  Before the Industrial Revolution, the overwhelmingly major fuel source was wood.  After that, we went to coal, which was a big improvement in density of energy and economics.  Then, we went to oil, another huge improvement in energy density and economics.  These things happened not because of any government mandates but simply because they made both economic and technological sense.  If the market had been left alone, the world would undoubtedly be running on nuclear.  Nuclear is unquestionably the safest, cheapest, and cleanest type of mass power generation.  This isn't the time to go into the numerous reasons that's true.  But if nuclear had been left unregulated, we'd already be using small, self-contained, fifth-generation thorium reactors, generating power almost too cheap to meter.  The world would already be running on truly clean green electricity.  Instead, time, capital, and brainpower have been massively diverted to so-called "ecological" power sources — mainly wind and solar — strictly for ideological reasons.  The powers that be want to transition the whole world to phony green energy, like it or not.

Nuclear Energy Could Bridge The Energy Transition Gap.  Small scale nuclear companies are picking up pace, following the example of bigger nuclear firms looking for their place in future of renewables, as nuclear power finally makes a comeback following years of criticism and fear of power stations.  Two companies in Poland, KGHM and Synthos, are looking to get small-scale modular SMR nuclear reactors up and running in a bid to stake their claim to the future of Europe's nuclear power.  To date, over 70 companies around the world are involved in SMR nuclear reactor projects, with the popularity of small-scale nuclear business quickly expanding.

5 questions for Arthur Turrell on fusion energy.  Fusion energy has been the promise of physicists for decades, but is it finally arriving?  As we face a warming climate and increasing energy needs, fusion power may hold the potential to deliver an abundant, clean energy future.  On a recent episode of "Political Economy," Arthur Turrell discussed whether nuclear fusion will be powering our homes any time soon, what government can do to push this technology forward, and if renewables are making fusion obsolete before it can get off the ground.  Arthur is Deputy Director at the Data Science Campus of the Office for National Statistics in the UK and the author of The Star Builders:  Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet.

The Deep Optimism Manifesto.  Nuclear power is future power.  Nuclear is the dispatchable power the world needs.  If we work on it, nuclear power plants will be built in a factory and shipped to markets around the world, along with enough fuel to power them for ten years.  At the end of that time, send them back for refurbishing and refueling.  This can last indefinitely with minimal waste.  Markets will naturally "transition" from today's power sources to nuclear without any government mandates, carbon offsets, or subsidies.  Cheap reliable power solves many, many problems.

Through incompetence and corruption, Illinois may lose two nuke reactors and their power grid.  The state of Illinois is facing a looming energy crisis almost entirely of its own making, but despite having options on the table to avert it, the state appears ready to simply let the situation continue to implode.  Thanks to state policies intended to end all energy production using fossil fuels, energy producers are increasingly struggling to remain viable.  This is particularly true of the state's nuclear power plants, run by energy company Commonwealth Edison, a subsidiary of Exelon.  They have been unable to compete with the cheaper natural gas-fired plants in the state and are facing a potential bankruptcy situation.  Governor J.B. Pritzker has proposed a plan to have the state provide significant subsidies to Exelon to keep the plants afloat, but the state legislature has remained focused on not passing any sort of energy bill that isn't based almost entirely on carbon reduction and renewable energy.

The World's First Small Nuclear Reactor Is Now Under Construction.  China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) launched on Tuesday [7/13/2021] the construction of the first onshore small nuclear reactor in the world, in its efforts to gain a leading position in the modular reactors market.  Construction began on the demonstration project at the Changjiang Nuclear Power Plant in the Hainan province in southern China, local publication Global Times reports.  The start of the construction for the 'Linglong One' small nuclear reactor comes four years later than initially planned, due to delays in regulatory clearances, Reuters notes.  The small reactor was originally planned to see the start of the construction phase in 2017.  A year earlier, the Linglong One small reactor had become the first to pass a safety review from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Now is the Time to Get Serious About Nuclear Energy.  While no other "carbon free" method of producing electricity comes even close to nuclear energy, climate change alarmists refuse to even consider the option.  If you do an objective benefit-cost analysis of nuclear energy compared to the so-called "green energies" of solar and wind you learn that green energies have serious time and space limitations.  For example, you learn that with solar and wind there is a disconnect between when they're produced and when they're consumed.  Nighttime and cloudy days happen, and the wind does not always blow, but the need for electricity goes on.  The only solution to those limitations is reliance on batteries.  Batteries, of course, have their own problems.  It takes at least an hour and usually eight hours to charge an electric vehicle's batteries.  It takes only five minutes to fill your gas tank.

Devin Nunes trying to rescue California from insanity.  California is, as the old quip goes, "the land of fruits and nuts."  But with Gavin Newsom facing a recall election, the plan to shut down the nuclear power plant that provides almost 10% of the state's electric power is obvious madness. [...] Of course, Nunes's plan will go only as far as Nancy Pelosi permits, and with her speakership hostage to the left-wing crazies of all stripes in the Democrat caucus, she will deep-six it.  The greenies don't seem to care if people in the Central Valley die of heat exposure with no air-conditioning.  They don't care if businesses shut down when electricity is not available.  They are fanatics.  They don't even care that nuclear power emits no CO2.  But I do wonder how long Californians will put up with blackouts and staggering electricity bills.

Nunes seeks to stop California from shuttering last nuclear plant amidst energy crisis.  California's push for clean energy has already created hardship for consumers, from a 40% decade-long climb in electricity costs to rolling blackouts that loom as a threat every heat wave.  Now the state is poised to exacerbate that crisis with plans to retire its last remaining, zero-carbon emissions nuclear plant in 2025.  The planned closure of Diablo Canyon, approved by the state in 2018, will take offline another 2200 megawatts of electricity production — nearly 10% of the state's needs — with no ready replacement.  As many as 3 million consumers could be impacted.  Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), one of the senior members of the state's congressional delegation, told Just the News he is moving to stop the closure.

If we want to fight the climate crisis, we must embrace nuclear power.  On 30 April, the Indian Point nuclear power plant 30 miles north of New York City was shut down.  For decades the facility provided the overwhelming majority of the city's carbon-free electricity as well as good union jobs for almost a thousand people.  Federal regulators had deemed the plant perfectly safe.  New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, a key figure behind the move, said that the shuttering of Indian Point brought us "a big step closer to achieving our aggressive clean energy goals".  It's hard to reconcile that optimism with the data that's recently come out.  The first full month without the plant has seen a 46% increase in the average carbon intensity of statewide electric generation compared to when Indian Point was fully operational.  New York replaced clean energy from Indian Point with fossil fuel sources like natural gas.  It's a nightmare we should have seen coming.

The Editor says...
[#1] Carbon dioxide is not carbon, nor is it a pollutant.  [#2] There are very few ways of generating large quantities of electricity on demand.  The left-wing socialists oppose all of them.  Burning natural gas to make electricity is not a nightmare.  If anything, it's a dream come true; and if the electricity stays on 24 hours a day, it is a very pleasant dream.

Another Facility Leak in China, This Time with the Threat of Radiation.  The Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong Province is right next to Macau, which is right across the Pearl River Delta from Hong Kong.  The whole area is effectively one sprawling mega-city that houses an astounding 65 million people, which makes it a particularly terrible place to have any kind of nuclear accident or radiation leak.  It will probably not surprise you to hear that the Chinese government insists everything is fine.  "China's nuclear power plants have maintained a good operating record and no incidents affecting the environment or public health have occurred," Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said during a press briefing on Tuesday [6/15/2021].  Japanese nuclear authorities, who know a thing or two about nuclear-power-plant accidents after Fukushima, are not quite so sanguine.  "Under normal operating conditions it is true some gases like krypton and xenon will escape and be detected but in this case the concentrations are much higher, so something is happening," said Tatsujiro Suzuki, a former vice-chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission.

Bill Gates, Warren Buffett to Launch 'Game-Changing' Nuclear Power Plant in Wyoming.  Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon on June 2 announced that a next-generation nuclear power plant will be built at a soon-to-be-retired coal-fired plant in Wyoming in the next several years, with the project a joint initiative between Bill Gates's TerraPower and PacifiCorp, owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.  "Today's announcement really, truly is game-changing and monumental for Wyoming," Gordon said at a press conference at the state Capitol in Cheyenne.  The project features a 345-megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system, which would produce enough power for roughly 250,000 homes.  The storage technology is also able to boost output to 500 megawatts of power for about five and a half hours, which is equivalent to the energy needed to power around 400,000 homes, according to TerraPower.

The Editor says...
Oh, good.  The plant can supply plenty of power, but only for 5½ hours.  That's just what this country needs:  Another intermittent power source.  What happens if they let it run for six hours?  Does it melt down?  How long does it have to rest before it can put out another 5½ hour surge of power?  A day?  A week?

Wyoming's bet on small nuclear reactors could launch a new industry.  If Bill Gates can successfully build an advanced nuclear reactor at a retiring coal plant in Wyoming, it will validate how a new breed of carbon-free nuclear power can play a meaningful role in the transition to cleaner energy.  As developers of new reactors promise a smaller, cheaper, and safer alternative to financially struggling large nuclear plants, skeptics have questioned whether they can be counted on to fight a problem as urgent as climate change.  The first of these reactors are not expected to be on the market until late this decade.  But proponents say a new partnership announced this week by Gates's TerraPower, utility PacifiCorp, and Republican leaders in Wyoming shows that small nuclear reactors can serve a unique role by creating a credible alternative for coal plants and their workers in a way that wind and solar can't.

Democrat Projectionists.  I'm not the first person to note that whatever Democrats accuse their opponents of doing, it is they, in fact, who are doing it.  If you are puzzled why the Biden Administration scotched the Keystone Pipeline but gave a thumbs up on the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany, perhaps this explanation will help.  Under the banner of "green energy" to control emissions.  Germany began shutting down the cleanest emitting power stations:  nuclear.  In 2000, nuclear had a 29.5 percent share of its power generation mix.  In 2020 that share dropped to 11.4 percent and next year every one of its nuclear plants is scheduled to be shut down.  Where will the lost energy generation come from?  Russia.  Do you think that this will place Germany increasingly at the mercy of Russia?  I do, and it's not just Germany.

How Nuclear Power Excels Renewables.  In Chernobyl, when a Soviet reactor built on the cheap and lacking any built-in safety features melted down, just over fifty fatalities occurred.  The Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan caused a single fatality as a result of Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS), which would be the demonstratable casualty indicator in such a situation.  On the other hand, the burning of coal causes 13,000 deaths a year in the United States and approximately 3,000,000 worldwide due to its particulate pollution, according to various health experts.  What about all the resultant cancer fatalities due to those nuclear incidents?  Those numbers are more difficult to ascertain, but according to the World Health Organization, there appears to have been only a slight discernible increase from any of those incidents.  Other experts have suggested there might be as many as four thousand additional impending cancer deaths resulting from the Chernobyl meltdown.  Those actual deaths and people living with possible future cancer are not insignificant, but the risks are far smaller than for those attendant upon coal.  Statistics show that coal, not oil or natural gas, is the fuel whose consumption is being most rapidly increased worldwide.  It is no coincidence that these facts are unknown by the general population.

Get ready for blackouts after Cuomo foolishly killed the Indian Point plant.  Thanks to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's anti-nuclear vendetta, Unit Three of the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, NY, will permanently shut down this Friday, one year after its sister unit was forced to close.  The premature shutdown of the 2,069-megawatt nuclear plant perfectly encapsulates the governor's green-energy madness.  He has forced the closure of the highly reliable, low-cost and emissions-free source of 10 percent of the Empire State's electricity — and 25 percent of Gotham's power.  In its place, he will — eventually — offer high-cost and intermittent offshore-wind power, as well as solar.  Why?  Well, back in January 2017 the governor claimed that Indian Point was just too dangerous to be allowed to operate.  Then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman also chimed in, claiming that "shutting down the Indian Point power plant is a major victory for the health and safety of millions of New Yorkers and will help kick-start the state's clean-energy future."

Indian Point nuclear-reactor shutdown [is] a huge blow to New York's environment.  By Tuesday, the pandemic had infected 295,000 New Yorkers and killed more than 17,000.  Amid the horrific toll, it's appropriate to mourn the passing of one notable longtime New Yorker in particular:  the Unit 2 reactor at the Indian Point Energy Center.  The workhorse, Westchester-based nuclear-power generator, which could have run for several more decades, is scheduled to be unplugged Thursday.  Cause of death: political expediency and exaggerated fears about accidents and radiation.  Welcomed into the world just 10 months after the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, Unit 2 was an industry giant, churning out huge amounts of reliable, carbon-free electricity from a tiny footprint.  A modest sort, it rarely bragged, but the 1,028-megawatt Westinghouse machine delivered about 8,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity a year from a site on the Hudson River that covers less than a half square mile.

Go Green, Go Nuclear.  This Thursday, Earth Day, politicians and activists will shout more about "the climate crisis."  I don't think it's a crisis.  COVID-19, malaria, exploding debt, millions of poor children dying from diarrhea — those are genuine crises.  But global warming may become a real problem, so it's particularly absurd that Earth Day's activists rarely mention the form of energy that could most quickly reduce greenhouse gases: nuclear power.  When France converted to nuclear, it created the world's fastest reduction in carbon emissions.  But in America, nuclear growth came to a near halt 40 years ago, after an accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.  The partial meltdown killed no one.  It would probably have been forgotten had Hollywood not released a nuclear scare movie, "The China Syndrome," days before.

Japan Decides to Dump One Million Tons of Radioactive Fukushima Water into the Pacific; IAEA Approves.  We live in a bizarre world: one where the the Keystone XL pipeline must be shut in case of a hypothetical (and extremely unlikely) leak, but where Japan is allowed to dump over one million tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.  Actually, it's either bizarre or simply exposing just how profoundly hypocritical, self-serving and corrupt the ESG/Green/Greta Thunberg theater truly is.  Last week we wrote that ten years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan had finally come "clean", and admitted that it is "unavoidable" that it would have to dump radioactive Fukushima water in the Pacific Ocean.  Fast forward to today when moments ago Kyodo confirmed what we already knew: the Japanese government decided to release treated radioactive water accumulating at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea, having determined "it poses no safety concerns to humans or the environment" despite worries of local fishermen and neighboring countries.

This Nuclear Reactor Just Made Fusion Viable by 2030.  TAE Technologies, the world's largest private fusion company, has announced it will have a commercially viable nuclear fusion power plant by 2030, which puts it years — or even decades — ahead of other fusion technology companies.  The California-based company has raised $880 million in funding for its hydrogen-boron reactor.  This reactor isn't a traditional tokamak or stellarator; instead, it uses a confined particle acceleration mechanism that produces and confines plasma.  All fusion technology has plasma, which mimics the extreme reactions that power all the stars — it's what we're emulating when we make fusion energy experiments.  "Plasma is an oozy substance; the challenge of containing it is akin to holding Jell-O together using rubber bands," TAE says on its website.

The real lessons of Fukushima.  A decade has passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the name Fukushima is etched into history.  But few people know the truth of what happened.  The phrase, "the lessons learned from Fukushima," is well-known.  But how do people implement them, if they don't know what happened, or what lessons they should actually learn?  It was after lunch on 11 March 2011 that a giant earthquake occurred 72 kilometers (45 miles) off the Oshika Peninsula in Japan.  It registered 9.0 on the Richter Scale, making it the largest 'quake ever recorded in Japan.  The undersea ground movement, over 30 km (18 miles) beneath the ocean's surface, lifted up a huge volume of water, like an immense moving hill.  Meanwhile, the ground shockwave travelled toward the land at high speed.  It struck Japan and shook the ground for six terrifying minutes.

Nuclear Power Continues To Break Records In Safety And Generation.  Energy Northwest in Richland, WA, which operates the only nuclear power plant in the region, the Columbia Generating Station, has earned the American Public Power Association's Safety Award of Excellence for safe operating practices in 2020.  The agency earned first place in the category for utilities with 1 million to 3.9 million worker-hours.  It is always surprising to hear the public and anti-nuke activists repeating the willfully ignorant ideology that nuclear is unsafe.  It turns out to be the safest of all energy sources by any measure and in any study.  At the same time, nuclear has the highest rate of electricity generation of any energy source, producing the amount of electricity it's suppose[d] to produce over 90% of the time even in years when they have outages for fuel replacement.  Energy Northwest is usually over 95% capacity factor (cf = power produced over a year divided by the maximum power that could be produced).  On the other hand, coal averages about 55%, natural gas about 60%, hydro about 44%, wind 35% and solar 25%.

How and why a nuclear reactor shut down in Texas cold snap when energy was needed most.  The shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Texas has contributed to the state's power shortage crisis caused by extreme cold weather.  One of two reactors shut down at the South Texas Nuclear Power Station an hour southwest of Houston, knocking out about half of its 2,700 megawatts of generating capacity.  The plant, which is one of the newer ones in the country, normally provides power to more than 2 million Texas homes. [...] Shutdowns related to weather are uncommon for nuclear plants, which are known for their ability to provide carbon-free power around the clock.  But like other power plants in Texas of differing fuel types, the South Texas Nuclear Power Station was not built to protect against very cold weather.

OPG successfully defuels second reactor on the Darlington Refurbishment.  In 2016, after years of detailed planning and preparation, Ontario Power Generation's team of project partners, industry experts, energy professionals, and skilled tradespeople successfully shut down the first of four Darlington reactors scheduled for refurbishment over the next 10 years.  Explore how this ambitious initiative took place, and how the Darlington Refurbishment Project continues to progress on time and on budget.

Bellevue-based TerraPower gets $80 million federal grant to develop next-generation nuclear power plant.  Bellevue-based TerraPower, chaired by Bill Gates, has received a $80 million federal Energy Department grant, the first installment of what is intended to be a seven-year effort to test, license and build its first advanced nuclear-reactor plant.  Possible U.S. locations for the plant include a site near Richland, where Energy Northwest, which is collaborating with TerraPower, operates Washington's only commercial nuclear power plant, according to Energy Northwest officials.  The TerraPower design calls for a 350-megawatt nuclear unit to be coupled with a molten salt energy storage system.

Technology that will end the turgid climate debate.  In a year that has brought us a pandemic, a steep economic recession, and widespread urban rioting, there hasn't been much to celebrate.  But little noticed in the maelstrom of news events has been a technological development that could render the debate over global warming moot once and for all.  Scientists have long sought a way to replicate the energy production process of the sun to generate power.  The goal has remained elusive and was widely thought to be decades away.  But scientists have published several research papers indicating that the creation of a functioning nuclear fusion reactor might just be feasible with current technology. [...] A nuclear fusion breakthrough would drive emissions much lower still, almost immediately, and could eventually bring man-made carbon [dioxide] emissions to zero.

The Editor says...
And then, when global warming and cooling continues, everyone will have to admit that we're all at the mercy of the sun.  But it will be decades before fusion power is universally adopted, because poorer countries will continue to use coal, because the price of coal will drop, due to reduced demand.

Will America's Return To Nuclear Power Kill The Dems' Green New Deal?  Let's Hope So.  While the media focus on the chaos in American cities and the COVID-19 shutdowns, you might have missed this good news on the energy front:  The federal government just approved a new, smaller, safer nuclear power plant design, putting nuclear back on the nation's menu of energy choices. [...] As recently as the 1990s, we had 116 nuclear plants.  Utilities, tired of the non-stop trouble of justifying a perpetual source of clean, CO2-free energy to radical green groups and burdened by enormous regulatory costs, have been decommissioning older plants.

How nuclear power may become a reality for cities in Utah [and] 5 other states.  Nuclear power providing energy for some cities in Utah and five other states in the West is inching closer to reality after federal regulators endorsed the design of a planned small modular reactor plant at Idaho National Laboratory.  The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued what is called a "Final Safety Evaluation Report," which means the technical review of the NuScale Power plant design is complete, and potential customers can now move ahead with the development of plants knowing that the safety aspects have been approved.

Nuclear to Replace Wind and Solar.  In the words of James Hansen, the scientist most responsible for promoting global warming, wind and solar are "grotesque" solutions for reducing CO2 emissions.  Michael Shellenberger, a prominent activist, has the same opinion.  Hansen and Shellenberger, as well as many other global warming activists, have come to the conclusion that nuclear energy is the only viable method of reducing CO2 emissions from the generation of electricity.  Nuclear reactors don't emit CO2.  Coal and natural gas do.  Hydroelectric electricity does not emit CO2 either, but opportunities for expansion are limited.  In the United States most of the good sites have already been developed.

Why is today's Left so anti-science?  [Scroll down]  Then there's nuclear power.  In France, 75% of the country's electricity is nuclear generated.  Scientists agree that nuclear power is safer than coal, natural gas, wind or solar.  And it generates zero greenhouse gas.  But the left hates it.  Because hating it apparently makes them feel good.  Which brings me back to the question posed at the outset.  I think the reason so many on the left are anti-science is because they don't look for solutions that work.  They look for solutions that feel good to them.

Nuclear 'Power Balls' May Make Meltdowns a Thing of the Past.  The basic idea behind all nuclear power plants is the same:  Convert the heat created by nuclear fission into electricity.  There are several ways to do this, but in each case it involves a delicate balancing act between safety and efficiency.  A nuclear reactor works best when the core is really hot, but if it gets too hot it will cause a meltdown and the environment will get poisoned and people may die and it will take billions of dollars to clean up the mess. [...] But a new generation of reactors coming online in the next few years aims to make these kinds of disasters a thing of the past.  Not only will these reactors be smaller and more efficient than current nuclear power plants, but their designers claim they'll be virtually meltdown-proof.  Their secret?  Millions of submillimeter-size grains of uranium individually wrapped in protective shells.

Reassessing radiation safety.  The adoption of the so-called 'linear no-threshold assumption' (hereafter LNT), which is used to estimate cancer risks in the low-dose zone, was due to a series of difficult-to-comprehend errors, deceptions and purposeful scientific misconduct by a relatively small group of strategically placed scientific elites in the United States.  These individuals included Nobel Prizewinners and other high achievers in the field of radiation genetics, who not only thought they were saving humanity from the harmful consequences of all things nuclear, but were equally concerned with ensuring that grant funding to support their research would never end.  While their duplicitous actions have been hidden from view for 70 years, their story has unravelled in recent years in a series of painstaking investigations of newly uncovered scientific reports, personal letters, internal memos and other materials.

Trump policy change could be game changer for small nuclear reactors.  A new Trump administration policy enabling U.S. government financing for nuclear energy projects abroad could help accelerate the use of smaller reactors, a budding technology that supporters see as a lifeline for the struggling industry.  "The U.S. will have a whole suite of technologies in different sizes available in the next couple of years, and that really changes the game in terms of this modernization of policy," said Rich Powell, executive director of ClearPath, a conservative clean energy group.  The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation proposed this week to reverse an Obama-era ban that prevents it from funding civil nuclear projects overseas, a development first reported by the Washington Examiner.

The Big Boy Fusion Reactor Takes a Big Boy Step.  Engineers have installed the first and largest piece of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) fusion project in France.  The gigantic assembly begins with this piece, the steel base, which weighs more than 1,200 tons.  ITER has been in the works for 30 years.  The experimental tokamak fusion reactor — a nuclear fusion plasma reactor where extremely hot, charged plasma spins and generates virtually limitless energy — is one of a handful of extremely costly "miniature suns" around the world.  The tokamak is on track to switch on in 2025, and then the reactor will begin to heat up to temperatures hot enough to induce nuclear fusion.  That will take years.  So ... baby steps.  Making this single part, which is 30 meters high and 30 meters wide, has taken 10 full years by itself.  It's the base of the cryostat, which is the supercooling chamber that enables the rest of the reactor to function.

Hydrogen-boron fusion could be a dream come true.  In principle, the fusion reaction between nuclei of hydrogen and boron could provide a highly efficient, radioactivity-free form of nuclear energy with practically unlimited fuel reserves.  The reaction produces no dangerous penetrating radiation and no radioactive waste, but only stable alpha particles, whose electrical charge even permits a direct conversion of fusion energy into electricity.  These advantages have long been known, but until recently the physical conditions thought necessary for a hydrogen-boron reactor — including temperatures of billions of degrees Celsius — seemed far beyond anything one might expect to achieve in the foreseeable future.

Recycled Nuclear Waste Will Power a New Reactor.  Idaho National Laboratory sprawls across nearly 900 square miles in the southeastern corner of its namesake state.  Home to America's first nuclear power plant, INL has served as the proving grounds for the future of nuclear energy technology for decades.  Along the way, the lab has generated hundreds of tons of uranium waste that is no longer efficient at producing electricity.  The spent fuel resides in temporary storage facilities while politicians duke it out over where to bury it.  Most of this spent fuel will probably end up underground, although where and when are open questions.  As it turns out, a lot of people aren't thrilled by the idea of having nuclear waste buried in their backyards.  But at least some of the spent fuel may have a second chance at life feeding advanced nuclear reactors that will be smaller and safer than their predecessors.  For the past year, scientists at INL have started recycling spent uranium to meet the fuel needs of a new generation of small commercial reactors.

Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech.  "We are sidestepping all of the scientific challenges that have held fusion energy back for more than half a century," says the director of an Australian company that claims its hydrogen-boron fusion technology is already working a billion times better than expected.  HB11 Energy is a spin-out company that originated at the University of New South Wales, and it announced today a swag of patents through Japan, China and the USA protecting its unique approach to fusion energy generation.  Fusion, of course, is the long-awaited clean, safe theoretical solution to humanity's energy needs.  It's how the Sun itself makes the vast amounts of energy that have powered life on our planet up until now.  Where nuclear fission — the splitting of atoms to release energy — has proven incredibly powerful but insanely destructive when things go wrong, fusion promises reliable, safe, low cost, green energy generation with no chance of radioactive meltdown.

Here's a Devastating, Little-Known Story About Bernie Sanders.  Why Haven't His Rivals Exploited It?  As someone who follows politics quite closely, I'm often fascinated when a potent piece of opposition research against a major candidate for office percolates below the radar for years, yet never quite breaks through.  Have you ever heard of 'Sierra Blanca,' as it relates to Bernie Sanders?  Neither had I.  Neither had hardly any voters, I'd wager. [...] Bernie drew up an environmentally-controversial proposal to dump nuclear waste in a Latino community, then refused to meet with the people it impacted.  Oh, and he managed to secure a little sweetheart deal to enrich his wife in the process.  Funneling public and campaign money to his spouse (no stranger to financial scandal) has been something of a pastime for this socialist, who was a jobless deadbeat before becoming a career politician who is now a millionaire with three homes.  This episode is problematic for Bernie on the subjects ranging from environment, to race, to his "man of the people" persona, to graft.

You Should Know About This Chernobyl Fungus That Eats Radiation.  Scientists have discovered that a longtime fungal resident of the Chernobyl complex could actually "eat" radiation.  In an upcoming paper, scientists will share the results of growing the fungus on the International Space Station.  Scientists have known about this fungus, and similar extremophile organisms that can thrive on radiation, since at least 2007.

Don't like CO2? Advanced nuclear power is the answer.  So you don't like CO2? What you need to know, then, is that there's no alternative to advanced nuclear power.  Concern about the climate effects of man-caused CO2 emissions has prompted gigantic investments into so-called renewable energy sources:  wind, solar, hydropower and biofuels.  Meanwhile, in a huge mistake, nuclear energy — a reliable CO2-free power source producing 14% of the world's electricity — has been left far behind.  Germany provides a bizarre example, albeit not the only one.  Here the government's commitment to its so-called climate goals has been combined, paradoxically, with the decision to shut down the country's remaining nuclear power plants by 2022.

Worried About Cutting CO2 Emissions?  Then Nuclear is the Only Solution.  Anyone gifted with our good friends logic and reason knows chaotically intermittent wind and solar can never work.  Sunset and calm weather are both real things.  Sensible Australians, facing a renewable energy inflicted power pricing and supply calamity have forced politicians to at least begin using the dreaded 'N' word in public:  nuclear power generation is banned in Australia.  That's right.  20 years ago, the country with the largest uranium reserves in the world placed a ban on nuclear power stations; unlike the 30 Countries around the Globe currently running 450 nuclear plants, Australia has never had the benefit of nuclear power, despite its abundant resources.  The only G20 nation not to use nuclear power, it's not just an outlier, it's a joke.

Is the Coronavirus Outbreak China's Chernobyl?  To refresh our memories, it was in 1986 when the No. 4 nuclear reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded and was burning as the solid fuel rods of Uranium melted down.  The smoke and steam from the fire and firefighting spread across Northern Europe and the Russian steppes.  The number of deaths attributed to this disaster could be as high as 100,000 but accepted estimates are closer to 27,000.  It was the failure of the Soviet system in dealing with a coordinated response that shook the faith of the people.  They began to question whether the Soviet government had abandoned the interests of the people in favor of propaganda.  The conclusion was that it certainly was not the health and welfare of the people which was first and foremost in Soviet governmental policy.

Russia's New Floating Nuclear Power Plant Begins Delivering Electricity To The Arctic.  On September 14, we reported that the world's first ever floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov, reached the port city of Pevek in Russia's Chukotka after covering a distance of more than 4,700km from Murmansk. [...] And now, as The Barents Observer reports that at 11 am Moscow [Time] on December 19th, the "Akademik Lomonosov" delivered its first electricity to the grid in Pevek, Arctic Russia.

How The U.S. Navy Remains The Masters Of Modular Nuclear Reactors.  You might be aware of the 98 or so commercial nuclear power reactors that produce about 20% of our electricity.  But there are another hundred nuclear reactors that power 86 submarines and aircraft carriers, producing electricity, heat and propulsion. [...] America's Nuclear Navy is one of the oldest and largest nuclear organizations in the world, and has the world's best safety record of any industry of any kind.  In terms of work hazards apart from combat, it is safer to work on a U.S. nuclear submarine or aircraft carrier than it is to sit at a desk trading stocks.  Thousands upon thousands of people, 22,000 people at any one time, have lived, worked, eaten and slept within a stone's throw of these nuclear reactors for 60 years with no adverse effects from radiation at all.

Bitter Cold Stops Coal, While Nuclear Power Excels.  [Scroll down]  Through thick and thin, extreme hot or extreme cold, the nuclear plant never seems to stop producing over 9 billion kWhs of energy every year, enough to power Seattle.  The same with all other nuclear plants in America.  Whether it's coal, gas or renewables, cold weather seems to hurt them like grandpa with a bum knee.  And it doesn't help that our aging energy infrastructure keeps getting a D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers.  Most generation systems suffer outages during extreme weather, but most of those involved fossil fuel systems.  Coal stacks are frozen and diesel generators simply can't function in such low temperatures.  Gas chokes up — its pipelines can't keep up with demand — and prices skyrocket.

Potential Human Health Impacts Associated with Retirement of Nuclear Power Plants in Illinois.  CATF's analysis finds significant health and associated economic impact from the loss of zero emission nuclear plants in Illinois.  This leads to social, personal and economy-wide consequences for the citizens of Illinois and surrounding states that could be avoided if nuclear plants in Illinois continue to operate.

Ohio's bizarre nuclear bailout brawl might be just getting started.  Xenophobia.  Harassment.  Arrests.  Lawsuits.  The fight over nuclear bailouts has become the strangest and nastiest campaign in recent Ohio history — and it hasn't even made the 2020 ballot yet.  Monday [10/21/2019] is the deadline for Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts to submit 265,774 valid signatures from at least 44 counties to block a $1 billion bailout of two nuclear plants in northern Ohio.  FirstEnergy Solutions, the bankrupt company that owns the two plants outside Cleveland and Toledo, and its allies have fought the referendum at every turn.

A beginner's guide to the debate over nuclear power and climate change.  "What's the deal with nuclear power?" is consistently the most common question I receive.  So, for those joining this conversation concerned about climate change but uncertain of the correct take on nuclear, this post is an introduction.  One thing I hope to convey is that "pro-nuclear" and "anti-nuclear" are not considered policy positions.  They are identities, ways of signaling membership in a tribe.  You sign up for one team and then scold the other team on social media (you will have lots of company).  If you approach nuclear power as a policy question, on the merits, you will find that, like most things, it's complicated; there are multiple, overlapping issues involved, and the answers cannot be captured in a single binary.

Keywords: fairy dust, moonbeams, snowflakes.
Marianne Williamson On Nuclear Energy:  Don't Use 'Hard Data,' Think 'With Your Hearts'.  Democrat presidential candidate Marianne Williamson came out against using nuclear energy, which experts say should be used to combat climate change, on Thursday during a climate change town hall on MSNBC, urging students to not use "hard data" when thinking about nuclear energy.  Williamson made the remarks while answering a question from a college student who wanted to know why she thought that nuclear energy was problematic.

Dan Brouillette: 'Impossible' to Reduce 'Carbon Emissions' Without 'Nuclear Energy'.  A national energy strategy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions yielded from the burning of fossil fuels requires the use of nuclear energy, determined Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, offering his analysis in a Tuesday [9/17/2019] interview on SiriusXM [...] Those opposing the use of nuclear energy — or neglecting to highlight its value within a national energy policy — cannot be "serious" or "sincere" in their stated concerns to address carbon dioxide emissions, stated Brouillette.

Climate experts want more nuclear power.  Sanders and Warren pledged to eliminate it.  I'm grateful that others had the time and patience to sort through that seven-hour "climate crisis" ratings debacle on CNN this week, because I certainly couldn't sit through it.  One of the key moments, at least in terms of the nation's future energy policy, came from Elizabeth Warren when she decided to weigh in on America's nuclear energy capabilities.  The consensus among virtually every expert in this field, including scientists who are concerned about carbon emissions and climate change, is that we need more nuclear power (actually, a lot more) not less.  And yet there was Warren, vowing to shut down every reactor in the country as quickly as possible.

Elizabeth Warren comes out against nuclear power.  Elizabeth Warren said Wednesday [9/4/2019] she would oppose the building of new nuclear plants in America and work to phase out existing nuclear power from the energy mix.  "In my administration, we won't be building new nuclear plants," Warren said at CNN's climate change town hall.  "We will start weaning ourselves off nuclear and replace it with renewables," she added, saying that she would aim to do so by 2035.

Emerging From Darkness:  Britain's Mass Blackout Drives Push For Ever-Reliable Nuclear Power.  Wind and solar obsessed South Australians set the benchmark for blackouts and mass load shedding.  Now the UK and had its first taste of the kind of grid chaos inevitably delivered when you pin your hopes on the weather.  The idea that a modern economy can power itself on sunshine and breezes is nonsense.  Not so with ever-reliable nuclear power.  There are around 450 nuclear reactors operating in 30 countries around the world, 15 countries are currently building another 60 reactors and their combined output accounts for over 11% of global electricity production — compared with total global output from wind which, to the nearest decimal point, is zero.  And all without so much as a hiccup.

Renewable Energy Hits the Wall.  If the official definitions of renewable energy were logical, renewable energy would be defined as energy that does not emit CO2 and that is not using a resource in danger of running out anytime soon.  But the definitions written into the laws of many states are not logical.  Hydroelectric energy is mostly banned because the environmental movement hates dams.  Nuclear is banned because a hysterical fear of nuclear energy was created by environmental groups.  Both nuclear and hydro don't emit CO2.  Hydro doesn't need fuel.  Nuclear fuel is cheap and plentiful.

Is There a Future for Nuclear Power in the United States?  Some environmentalists consider nuclear power to be crucial to reducing carbon emissions; others continue to vehemently oppose nuclear power and believe that our energy must come solely from renewable sources.  Asked whether they favor or oppose nuclear power, the public is split.  Meanwhile, the nuclear power industry itself is in a parlous state for a variety of reasons. [...] Nevertheless, nuclear power provides valuable benefits.  It is highly reliable and emissions-free.  It provides generation diversity, which can reduce the adverse impacts of fuel price shocks.  It does not require backup and storage, unlike wind and solar power generation.  New designs for nuclear plants promise lower costs and improved safety.

The Energy Solution That Should Make Everyone Happy.  Nuclear radiation has been the target of a long running scare story.  Yes, a big dose will make you sick or kill you.  But the evidence is that small doses are harmless or beneficial.  This is important because society will not accept nuclear power if it is terrified of nuclear radiation, even though the radiation emitted by nuclear power plants is microscopic.  The argument for the danger of low-level radiation is demolished easily.  You only need to observe that elephants are not suffering greatly from cancer, even though they have vastly more cells that are suspectable to radiation damage.  There are scientific studies that back up the elephant story completely.

Radiation fraud must be exposed.  Paul Driessen wrote about Calabrese's work in November 2018 in his article "Fraudulent science behind radiation regulation."  Now, further investigation has led to an even clearer trail of fraud behind the 1946 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.  It was awarded to American geneticist Dr. Herman Muller for his claimed discovery that the smallest element of radiation could lead to the formation of cancer, allowing for no safe threshold of radiation.  As a result, radiation medicine has been held back ever since.  It has also contributed to unwarranted fear of nuclear energy.

We Shouldn't Be Surprised Renewables Make Energy Expensive Since That's Always Been The Greens' Goal.  Nuclear plants used to operate for just 50% of the year.  Now, thanks to greater experience in operations and maintenance, they operate 93% of the year.  Nuclear plants were expected to run for 40 years, but thanks to greater experience, they're expected to run for 80.  And simple changes to equipment allowed the amount of power produced by existing nuclear plants in the US to increase the equivalent of adding eight full-sized reactors.  By contrast, the output of solar panels declines one percent every year, for inherently physical reasons, and they as well as wind turbines are replaced roughly every two decades.

What Separates Chernobyl from Three Mile Island and Fukushima.  The partial meltdown and radiation leak at Three Mile Island in 1979 was serious — but the public was informed quickly, if not terribly clearly.  Three Mile Island forever tainted the image of nuclear power in the United States; no new plants were opened for 30 years after the accident.  The effects of the radiation leak were, thankfully, mild. [...] No one died at the plant or in the surrounding area from the radiation leak during the incident; for many years conservatives offered the dark joke, "more people died because of Ted Kennedy's car than because of Three Mile Island."  But that is probably understating the effect of the disaster.

Chernobyl: Devastating Indictment of Socialism, Not Trumpism.  I can scarcely praise Chernobyl enough.  Creator Craig Mazin's five-part miniseries, which just wrapped Monday night [6/3/2019], is a masterful suspense tale directed with nerve-shredding gusto by Johan Renck: a whodunnit looking backward in time as the characters try to figure out the cause of the 1986 catastrophe but also a mystery moving forward, as the specialists try to figure out how to save millions from dying.  It's a terrifically stimulating lesson on the details of nuclear energy that artfully weaves in reams of expository and technical dialogue without ever disrupting the drama.

A moral case for zero emission electricity for all.  New energy pundits and soap box orators would have you believe, would shout at the top of their lungs, how dangerous nuclear reactors, nuclear fallout and the number of nuclear power plant accident caused deaths are.  It's enough to scare anyone away from the mere thought of accepting nuclear energy as a way to help electricity deficient nations move up the economic ladder.  I applaud their efforts.  However, the opposite is actually true.

German Failure on the Road to a Renewable Future.  The vision of the fantastic new world of the future was born eight years ago, on March 11, 2011, the day an earthquake-triggered tsunami damaged the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan.  The disaster led Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet to resolve to phase out nuclear power in Germany.  It was an historic event and an historic decision.  But the sweeping idea has become bogged down in the details of German reality.  The so-called Energiewende, the shift away from nuclear in favor of renewables, the greatest political project undertaken here since Germany's reunification, is facing failure.  In the eight years since Fukushima, none of Germany's leaders in Berlin have fully thrown themselves into the project, not least the chancellor.  Lawmakers have introduced laws, decrees and guidelines, but there is nobody to coordinate the Energiewende, much less speed it up.  And all of them are terrified of resistance from the voters, whenever a wind turbine needs to be erected or a new high-voltage transmission line needs to be laid out.

The Editor says...
The lesson here is clear:  Don't make rash and sweeping changes to an entire country based on an unpredictable accident in another country 5,000 miles away.

California Liberals Can Beat Climate Change by Stopping Illegal Immigration.  In the last 50 years, there have been three major nuclear disasters worldwide:  Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania (0 dead), Chernobyl in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (49 dead), and Fukushima in Japan (1 dead).  In the case of Fukushima, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake and tsunami killed 15,897 people.  Only one person directly died as a result of reactor meltdown caused by a tsunami from the earthquake hitting the plant.  The safety results of the nuclear industry, when looked at objectively, have been strong.

Transformative Technology Needed?  The idea that batteries will somehow make intermittent energy sources like wind and solar reliable is fanciful.  There is, however, a newish technology close at hand that could solve any problems relating to power generation without — unlike wind and solar — emitting CO2, if you think that is important.  That technology is nuclear energy.

Only fracking and nuclear power can save planet Earth.  When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., rolled out her plans for her Green New Deal, there were several chuckle-worthy elements to it.  Conservatives had quite a bit of fun with her "farting cows," her proposed abolition of air travel, and her guaranteed incomes for those "unwilling to work," among other things.  But if you're not convinced by those gaffes that the proposal wasn't serious, there was a much more convincing proof buried in the text.  For in the process of making all U.S. electrical generation carbon-neutral, the Green New Deal not only ruled out the creation of new nuclear generation capacity, but also called for dismantling the nuclear capacity that exists.

Cory Booker goes nuclear.  In a break with his Democratic opponents and the leftists dominating the debate in the House, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey is an unapologetic supporter of using nuclear energy to displace carbon fuels. [...] His pro-nuclear power stance runs contrary to other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates who are skeptical of nuclear energy.

AOC Isn't Even a Good Environmentalist.  The data from countries that have embraced nuclear power, such as France, compared to countries that have embraced the Greens' preferred alternative energy sources — wind and solar — indicate that the renewable sources are a non-starter.  Fact is, neither wind nor solar power, regardless of taxpayer investment, will ever be able to meet America's energy needs or be completely environmentally safe.  Nuclear energy, however, does help the environment and allow for Mankind to continue meeting its energy needs.  Germany, for instance, has been championed by Greens around the world as the example par excellence for having become almost totally dependent on wind and solar energy.  Yet, Germany's renewable-produced electricity is 12 times more carbon-heavy than France's, which relies on nuclear power.

Become a Nuclear Safety Expert!  You too can become a nuclear safety expert, and it should take you less than an hour.  Becoming a nuclear safety expert does not require an advanced college degree.  Further, you may learn aspects of nuclear safety that many, even some in the nuclear energy field, are unaware of.  All you need to do is read the first three pages of this report.

Cost of US nuclear generation at ten-year low.  Average total generating costs for nuclear energy in 2017 in the USA were at their lowest since 2008, according to a study released by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI).  The report, Nuclear Costs in Context, found that in 2017 the average total generating cost — which includes capital, fuel and operating costs — for nuclear energy was $33.50 per megawatt-hour (MWh).  This is 3.3% lower than in 2016 and more than 19% below 2012's peak.

SCANA settles $2 billion lawsuit over VC Summer project's failure.  SCANA Corp. has agreed to a $2 billion settlement with the S.C. customers it charged high electric rates for a failed nuclear plant construction project.  And, in a new twist, the legal agreement turns over to SCE&G customers the $115 million golden parachutes that had been set aside for soon-to-be-ousted SCANA executives.

Solar Power Too Cheap to Meter?  Another Green Dream.  [Scroll down]  The nuclear industry has been plagued by its own "too cheap to meter" trope ever since 1954 when Lewis Strauss, the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, originated that phrase in a lecture extolling the unbounded potential of fission energy.  Nuclear did proceed to grow from under 1% of U.S. electricity in 1968 to 20% by 1988, where it's remained ever since.  For all its manifold advantages, the inherently high capital costs of that technology remain the obvious challenge.

Wind, Solar Are a Distraction.  Let's Go Full Steam Ahead on Nuclear Power.  It's repeated so often, that it's become conventional wisdom.  To sustainably meet our energy needs, the world requires a balanced "energy mix" or an "all-of-the-above" strategy:  a little solar power here, a little wind power there, and toss in some hydrothermal, geothermal, and natural gas for good measure.  That's nonsense, argues a new paper in the journal Sustainability.  Instead of treating our energy policy like salad toppings at a buffet, let's just go full steam ahead on the one thing that could meet all of the world's energy needs right now:  Nuclear power.  The lead author, Barry Brook, is a nuclear power advocate and makes a compelling case centered around three major arguments.

Lockheed Martin Now Has a Patent For Its Potentially World Changing Fusion Reactor.  Lockheed Martin has quietly obtained a patent associated with its design for a potentially revolutionary compact fusion reactor, or CFR. If this project has been progressing on schedule, the company could debut a prototype system that size of shipping container, but capable of powering a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier or 80,000 homes, sometime in the next year or so.  The patent, for a portion of the confinement system, or embodiment, is dated Feb. 15, 2018.

Why the Environmental Left Is Secretly Petrified by Truly Renewable Energy.  On March 9, a team from MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced in the academic journal Nature that they are closer than ever to making nuclear fusion a reality.  If successful, nuclear fusion would provide incredibly cheap, environmentally friendly energy to the world — and the researchers believe that the technology could be ready for a commercial rollout in as few as fifteen years. [...] If nuclear fusion is achieved, it will in relatively short order render much of the existing energy market useless.  Many traditional power plants would close.  Carbon dioxide emissions would be cut dramatically in countries with enough wealth to build nuclear fusion plants.  Billions of people would have access to affordable energy that they never had before.  This scenario might sound as though it's every environmentalist's paradise, but there's more to leftist environmentalism than obsessing about global warming.

Why Is Asia Returning to Coal?  Just a few short years ago, few would have dared to predict that coal could have a future in the energy policies of emerging and developed countries alike.  Yet the fossil fuel is undergoing an unexpected renaissance in Asia, buoyed by technical breakthroughs and looming questions about squaring development with energy security.  For Japan, coal has emerged as the best alternative to replacing its 54 nuclear reactors, which are deeply unpopular with the population and seen as symbols of devastation after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster six years ago.  Mindful of the public mood, the government of Shinzo Abe has completely given up on the country's dream of nuclear self-sufficiency, and pulled the plug in December on the $8.5 billion experimental reactor project at Monju.  On February 1, the government pledged to decommission all reactors and replace them with 45 new coal-fired power plants equipped with the latest clean coal technology.

SCE&G workers face heckling, lose millions in savings after nuclear project fails.  In the four months since SCE&G's announcement, the utility's linemen have been heckled from passing cars and seen plenty of middle fingers.  The company's customer service specialists have fielded calls from customers asking about refunds for the $27 a month they are being billed for the unfinished reactors. [...] And if public scorn wasn't enough, the utility's plummeting stock price has cost its employees hundreds of millions of dollars, collectively.

Why turning on the lights costs more in New Hampshire.  Our state's Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) offers a case study in bad energy policies. [...] It's worth noting that nuclear power, which has zero carbon dioxide emissions once a plant is constructed, is not included in the list of acceptable alternative electricity sources.  If the ultimate objective of RPS is to reduce harmful emissions, this makes no sense.  The Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant accounted for 56 percent of our state's electricity generation last year.  It can produce enough power to supply 1.2 million households; there are only 1.3 million people living in New Hampshire.  Excluding nuclear energy takes an affordable, reliable source off the table.

Five Myths About Nuclear Power.  Popular discussions about nuclear power eventually get around to at least one of five objections:  It's not safe; no one knows what to do about waste; it's too expensive; it leads to nuclear weapons proliferation; or there isn't enough uranium.  All of these objections are baseless.

Researchers Announce Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough.  For years nuclear fusion was the stuff of sci-fi books and movies, but technology has brought it, like so many other things, closer to reality.  So close, in fact, that there are plans to build the first nuclear fusion reactor by 2025 — a reactor that could yield a lot more energy than is fed into it and provide vast amounts of clean, sustainable energy.

A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades.  The road to cleaner, meltdown-proof nuclear power has taken a big step forward.  Researchers at NRG, a Dutch nuclear materials firm, have begun the first tests of nuclear fission using thorium salts since experiments ended at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the early 1970s.  Thorium has several advantages over uranium, the fuel that powers most nuclear reactors in service today.  First, it's much harder to weaponize.  Second, as we pointed out last year in a long read on thorium-salt reactors, designs that call for using it in a liquid form are, essentially, self-regulating and fail-safe.

Why the Greens Hate Nuclear Power.  Let's stretch our imaginations for a moment and assume that the left is right that global warming will bring apocalyptic warming by the end of the century and that the only way to save the planet from extinction is to stop using fossil fuels right now.  That will be a spectacular disruption to world economic prosperity, because cheap fossil fuels account for about two-thirds of all electric power generation and at least 80 percent of transportation fuel.  But if we did stop using fossil fuels, what would make the most sense as a mass-scale substitute to coal, natural gas and oil?  What could reduce carbon emissions while also keeping energy affordable and reliable?  If you answered "wind and solar power," you flunk.

Getting more coal and nuclear power on the grid should be a priority.  Nearly 100 people are back to work in Pennsylvania, where the newly opened Corsa Coal Corporation's Acosta Mine in Somerset County, Pa. will produce 400,000 tons of coal annually for 15 years.  President Trump vowed to end the war on coal and prioritize job growth, this mine opening shows he is already on his way to making this dream a reality.  Trump praised the mine's opening in the Rose Garden while he announced the United States withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, the gesture was meant to highlight Trump's focus on returning jobs and stable energy to the nation over environmental policy.  President Trump could not have selected a more pressing time to make this announcement, as weakening infrastructure in our nations power grid has halted economic growth and placed our entire country at greater risk for rolling blackouts.

Pitting Wind and Solar Against Nuclear Power.  Nuclear power isn't just the third-largest source of electricity in the US; it is by far our largest producer of zero-emission power:  3.5 times the output of wind in 2016 and 22 times solar.  A large drop in nuclear power is simply not compatible with the desire to continue cutting US emissions.  Environmental groups like EDF are reaching similar conclusions.  Nuclear's scale is even more of a factor when it comes to considering what could replace it.  For example, it takes the output of about 2,000 wind turbines of 2 megawatts (MW) each — roughly half of the 8,203 MW of new US wind installations last year — to equal the annual energy production of a single typical nuclear reactor.

The War on Affordable Electricity.  Safe, reliable, and affordable power is a crucial partof a strong and growing economy.  The dependability and general affordability of electricity here in U.S. is a significant component of our historically robust economy.  But recently, a vocal and active few here in New Mexico are part of a coordinated, nationwide effort to severely restrict our ability produce economical and reliable power.

A new twist on fusion power could help bring limitless clean energy.  In a world struggling to kick its addiction to fossil fuels and feed its growing appetite for energy, there's one technology in development that almost sounds too good to be true: nuclear fusion.  If it works, fusion power offers vast amounts of clean energy with a near limitless fuel source and virtually zero carbon emissions.  That's if it works.  But there are teams of researchers around the world and billions of dollars being spent on making sure it does.

New York's Indian Point nuclear plant to close by 2021.  The aging Indian Point nuclear power plant just north of New York City will close within about four years under a deal with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has long argued it should be shuttered to protect the millions of people living nearby.

New York will pay big for Cuomo's Indian Point shutdown.  Gov. Cuomo just struck a deal to shutter the nuclear reactors at the Indian Point Energy Center by 2021.  Cuomo has been agitating to close the plant for years.  But his win is a loss for New Yorkers who need reliable and affordable electricity.  The shutdown also contradicts Cuomo's push to cut the state's greenhouse-gas emissions.  Other than that, it's a great deal.

America Needs More Nuclear Power, Not Less.  Since 2012, 13 nuclear plants have been shuttered or will be retired prematurely — and their energy production replaced almost entirely with fossil fuels.  Natural gas is now fueling more than half of the electricity production in a number of big states, including California, Florida, Massachusetts and Texas.  An unintended result is that we are becoming increasingly reliant on a single fuel that is a major source of carbon dioxide and methane emissions that pollute the atmosphere.  As a result, greenhouse-gas emissions from electricity production are likely to increase in the years ahead, millions of households and businesses are paying more for electricity, and in some parts of the country electricity reliability is in jeopardy.  In California, where two reactors have been shuttered and another two are scheduled to be shut down prematurely, people are being urged to use less electricity and to expect possible power shortages this summer.

The Nuclear War Over Climate Change.  If you're concerned about climate change, it would be perverse to fight a technology that can supply copious quantities of no-carbon energy 24 hours a day — right?  Well, when it comes to nuclear power, lots of leading environmental activists are indulging in just such perversion. [...] Existing nuclear power plants are extraordinarily efficient, producing electricity at an average cost of $35.50 per megawatt-hour.  (The average U.S. household consumes about 11 megawatt-hours in a year.)  Due to low natural gas prices, wholesale electricity prices in the Northeast fell below $20 per megawatt-hour during some months in 2015.  In addition, nuclear power generators must compete with electricity produced by highly subsidized renewable energy sources.

Renewables are useless: The Evidence is Overwhelming.  There is no evidence that renewables in their current form are a viable replacement for fossil fuels.  But there is plenty of evidence that nuclear power delivers results.  Nuclear power, the zero emission alternative to renewables, has been economically supplying 75% of France's power since the 1970s.  Nuclear power works, and works well.  France demonstrated by doing, that mass production and economies of scale makes nuclear power affordable.  If the whole world copied what France did in the 1970s, by 2030 the world could cut billions of tons of CO2 emissions, without destroying the global economy.

New York Nuclear Plant Restarts, Environmentalists Object.  On June 16, 2016, the Indian Point Unit 2 nuclear reactor restarted, despite objections from environmentalists, after a routine planned maintenance shutdown.  During the maintenance, inspectors had found a small number of bolts had degraded that fasten plates that direct cooling water.  Two bolts had failed entirely.  Degradation of these particular bolts was not unexpected; it's a well-known and well-studied issue that was first identified in European reactors.  Indian Point replaced the bolts after finding no additional damage. [...] Anti-nuclear-energy groups had used the planned shutdown and the degraded bolts found during Indian Point's inspection to petition the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to prevent Indian Point from restarting.  NRC

Low Energy.  [Scroll down]  That's the irony of the green energy movement.  Even if the significant scientific hurdles can be overcome for things like solar and wind, the greens will scuttle the projects anyway.  The same people banging their tom-toms over coal and oil are out blocking the so-called green alternatives.  Nuclear, which has the most promise in terms of "clean" energy, has been stalled for generations now.  Gen-IV reactors are extremely safe and productive.  If not for the greens, we could have all our electric from nuclear, but that will never happen.  No one reading this will live to see the day when America is getting the bulk of its electric from nuclear.  Your children and grandchildren will not live to see it.  The most optimistic estimate puts the window for the change to nuclear well past mid-century.

Despite Solar and Wind, We Still Need Nuclear Power.  If you are concerned about climate change, then you should take note of this:  Over the last eight months, utilities from New York to Nebraska have announced plans to shutter six nuclear reactors by 2019.  These closures will come on the heels of earlier ones — five reactors have been shuttered in the last three years alone.  The latest closure announcement came earlier this month when Exelon Corp., the country's largest nuclear-energy producer, said it would close three reactors at two sites in Illinois by 2018.  The six targeted reactors have been safely producing about 40 terawatt-hours of zero-carbon-emissions electricity per year (one terawatt-hour equals 1 billion kilowatt-hours).  These reactors' output exceeds the amount of zero-carbon electricity produced annually by every solar energy installation in the nation.  (Last year, American solar output totaled 38.6 terawatt-hours.)  Even with solar installations growing at a rapid rate, we won't add enough solar capacity anytime soon to make up for the clean nuclear energy we are about to lose.

Study Shows Why U.S. Nuclear Power Costs Are High: Standardized Design Is Key.  [Scroll down]  Jessica Lovering, director of energy at The Breakthrough Institute and one of the authors of the report, says one of the things other countries do differently than the United States is use a standardized design, which is important because producing large numbers of identical units is cheaper than producing one-off nuclear plants, each with individualized designs.  "The French fleet of 58 reactors falls into four major designs, whereas the U.S. fleet of 100 reactors falls into 50-plus designs," Lovering said.  "Regulatory designs spurred by the Three Mile Island accident caused delays and cost overruns, as new safety features were retrofitted into under-construction plants.  [The] lack of standard designs exacerbated this problem; every plant had to meet the new safety regulations in a different way, as they were all different designs."  The study's authors say other countries also build multiple reactors at a single site, spreading the overhead costs, such as costs for a control room, security, transmission, and emergency planning, across multiple power-generating units.  "Many sites in the United States only have one reactor," Lovering said.  "By contrast, Korea and China are building six to eight at each site.  "Building the same reactor [repeatedly], in close pairs or quadruplets, also helps to keep costs down, as the workforce gains experience with the same design and benefits from using the same equipment."

Renewed Interest In Nuclear Power.  American nuclear energy plants contribute $60 billion annually to the U.S. gross domestic product, according to the Brattle report.  Even while operating in a constrained regulatory environment for decades, the U.S. nuclear industry accounts for nearly 475,000 full-time jobs, and nuclear energy provides almost 20 percent of the nation's electricity.  In addition, energy generated from nuclear plants "prevents 573 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions," the Brattle economists state.  The report also notes nuclear power has a very small carbon footprint, a favorite metric touted by the Obama administration.  For those concerned about carbon emissions, the generation of carbon-free electricity from nuclear power plants should be a high priority today, the authors say.

For Sustainable Energy, Choose Nuclear.  Energy based on nuclear fission has many of the same advantages and none of the disadvantages of solar and wind:  it emits no carbon dioxide (CO2) and is practically inexhaustible.  Nuclear does have special problems; but these are mostly based on irrational fears.  A major problem for solar/wind is intermittency — while nuclear reactors operate best supplying reliable, steady base-load power.  Intermittency can be partially overcome by providing costly "stand-by" power, at least partly from fossil fuels.  But nuclear also has special problems (like the care and disposal of spent fuel) that raise its cost — and inevitably lead to more emission of CO2.  Such special problems make any cost comparison with solar/wind rather difficult and also somewhat arbitrary.

Energiewoopsie, Or, What Happens When You Dump Nuclear Power.  The greens have been aflutter for years about Germany's energiewende, or "energy revolution," partly because it involves a lot of their sacred windmills and solar panels and partly because it's a revolution man, so dig it!  Better put the patchouli-infused hemp robes away for the moment, because Germany is backpedalling fast.

How Do You Fight Green Dogma?  A week ago we came across the welcome news that some "blue chip" environmental groups were reportedly rethinking their staunch and increasingly irrational opposition to nuclear power.  According to a Wall Street Journal article published last week, the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund were both undergoing internal debates about the eco-merits of nuclear power.  But the Sierra Club's executive director, Michael Brune, wrote in to the WSJ to flatly deny that any such sober reflection was ongoing.

More evidence that renewables alone don't cut it.  If there was any rational scientific, engineering and economic logic underpinning Australia, it would be building best-of-breed nuclear power stations.  It's tectonically stable, has huge amounts of uninhabited space to store waste and vast reserves of resources that it almost always ships offshore for other to do the value adding that comes from refining ores.

3 Ways Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) Overcome Existing Barriers to Nuclear.  Last week, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) submitted the first-ever permit application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a small modular nuclear reactor.  The TVA's application comes as a huge milestone in the pathway of small modular reactors (often abbreviated SMRs) from the laboratory to the marketplace, and brings a glimmer of hope to the future of nuclear power in the United States.

Germany spars with Belgium over ageing nuclear plants.  Belgium on Wednesday [4/20/2016] rejected a request by Germany to shutter two ageing nuclear plants near their shared border, arguing the facilities met with the strictest safety standards.  German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks earlier on Wednesday requested that the 40-year-old Tihange 2 and Doel 3 reactors be turned off "until the resolution of outstanding security issues".  In response, Belgium's official nuclear safety agency (AFCN) said the two plants "respond to the strictest possible safety requirements."

Exelon Again Threatens to Close Nuclear Plant, Unless Taxpayers Subsidize Operations.  Having failed to get cash-strapped Illinois to provide new state subsidies for three nuclear plants it claimed are losing money in 2015, Exelon, a utility with the largest fleet of nuclear plants in the United States, is once again seeking expanded taxpayer support from state legislators.  Crain's Chicago Business news reports Exelon has informed Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) and Republican leaders in both chambers of Illinois' legislature it will close its Southern Illinois Clinton nuclear plant if it does not receive new financial support from the state in 2016.

Why renewable energy is a worse option than nuclear.  There is a strange belief in the new green religion that "renewable" always means "good".  It doesn't.  Slave labour is a form of renewable energy but is far from good.  Wood is renewable but the burning of trees for firewood is causing environmental calamity in Africa.  Solar and wind energy are both excellent for many applications such as solar water-heating, windmills on Karoo farms and the provision of small amounts of electricity in remote households, clinics and schools.  But they are bad for generating grid electricity — bad for the environment and bad for the economy.  The Western Cape provides a good demonstration of energy realities.  About 30km north of Cape Town is Koeberg Nuclear Power Station; a further 30 km north is the Darling Wind Farm.  A comparison of the two is instructive.

Federal Control of Nuclear Waste Hamstrings Industry.  The nuclear power industry in the United States has been held back by a dysfunctional, federally controlled, centrally planned system of nuclear waste management, say the authors of a new study by The Heritage Foundation.  The report says the bipartisan Senate bill aimed at reforming nuclear waste management, The Nuclear Waste Administration Act, fails to address core issues plaguing the treatment of spent nuclear fuel.  The Heritage Foundation study, titled "Fooled Again: The Nuclear Waste Administration Act Preserves Futile Status Quo," notes commercial nuclear plants provide 19 percent of the nation's electrical power without emitting any carbon dioxide.

Bill McKibben and Nuclear Power  Bill McKibben, a writer for The New Yorker, has emerged as the leader of the popular movement to get us to give up fossil fuels.  He is the founder of 350.org, which is intent on returning the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (it just passed 400). [...] After McKibben gave his rousing speech to an enthusiastic audience, I was able to grab him for a moment in back of the little makeshift stage.  I asked him about nuclear power.  He admitted that nuclear was going to be necessary if we were ever to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.  "Why don't you come out favorably in public for nuclear power, then?" I asked.  He surveyed the hillside, almost half the people crusading against Vermont Yankee.  "If I came out in favor of nuclear," he said, "it would split this movement in half."

5 Factual Errors In The NAACP's $5 Billion Demand For 'Climate Justice'.  [#2] Nuclear reactors "spew" radiation.  The radiation risks of nuclear power are massively overestimated, recent studies show.  Nuclear reactors are remarkably safe, even in a worst case scenario.  Worries about radiation from nuclear power plants have no "scientifically valid support," Carol S. Marcus, a professor of nuclear medicine at UCLA, told The Wall Street Journal.  Other scientists have shown that radiation is far less dangerous than current regulations assume.

California nuclear reactors face uncertain future.  The issues in play at Diablo Canyon range from a long-running debate over the ability of structures to withstand earthquakes — one fault runs 650 yards from the reactors — to the possibility PG&E might be ordered by state regulators to spend billions to modify or replace the plant's cooling system, which sucks up 2.5 billions of gallons of ocean water a day and has been blamed for killing fish and other marine life.

Costs of the Failure to Go Nuclear — Part 1.  There is no such thing as an infinitely sustainable steady state for an economic process.  To exist an economy must continually generate and implement scientific and technological progress.  Without this progress an economy will become entropic, drawing down resource supplies and requiring an increasing physical cost to society to produce and provide the capital goods needed by society.  Perhaps one of the clearest examples is the failure of the US economy to fully embrace the revolutionary transition to nuclear power.

Electricity from New Wind is Four Times More Costly than Existing Nuclear.  Today [6/30/2015], the Institute for Energy Research released a first-of-its-kind study calculating the levelized cost of electricity from existing generation sources.  Our study shows that on average, electricity from new wind resources is nearly four times more expensive than from existing nuclear and nearly three times more expensive than from existing coal.  These are dramatic increases in the cost of generating electricity.  This means that the premature closures of existing plants will unavoidably increase electricity rates for American families.

Nation's Largest Nuclear Power Plant Operator Seeks State Subsidies.  The nation's largest nuclear power plant operator, Exelon Corp., is strong-arming state legislators in its home state of Illinois.  The utility is unreasonably demanding "taxpayer bailouts," state subsidies, and new regulatory restrictions on its lower-cost electricity generating competitors.  If these shrill ultimatums are not met, Exelon threatens to shutter three of its six nuclear power plants in Illinois

Nuclear Energy vs. Wind and Solar.  If you think you can run the country on wind and solar, more power to you.  It's an attractive idea, but before you become married to it, you should cuddle up with a calculator and figure out exactly what the long-term relationship entails.

An Open Letter to Environmentalists on Nuclear Energy.  Although renewable energy sources like wind and solar will likely make increasing contributions to future energy production, these technology options face real-world problems of scalability, cost, material and land use, meaning that it is too risky to rely on them as the only alternatives to fossil fuels.  Nuclear power — being by far the most compact and energy-dense of sources — could also make a major, and perhaps leading, contribution.

Nuclear should be in the energy mix for biodiversity.  Leading conservation scientists from around the world have called for a substantial role for nuclear power in future energy-generating scenarios in order to mitigate climate change and protect biodiversity.  In an open letter to environmentalists with more than 60 signatories, the scientists ask the environmental community to "weigh up the pros and cons of different energy sources using objective evidence and pragmatic trade-offs, rather than simply relying on idealistic perceptions of what is 'green' ".

Dems Pushing Through Nuclear Commission Nominee Who Recently Visited His First Nuke Energy Plant.  Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee remain annoyed that Democrats are pressing ahead with the appointment of Jeff Baran to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission without a confirmation hearing before the full panel.  The nomination made it through the committee on Dec. 2.  The 10 affirmative votes in Baran's favor came from Democrats.  Republicans did not attend the session — all voted no by proxy.

Renewable Energy Will Never Work, But Can Nuclear?  Via the indispensable Watts Up With That? come two of the most interesting articles I have read in a very long time.  The first is by two Google engineers who were charged with thinking creatively about how to replace fossil fuels with renewables.  After four years, Google shut down the project.  The engineers concluded that it simply couldn't be done: [...] Note that these engineers are not climate skeptics; they assume that the global warming theory is true.  On that assumption, renewable energy simply can't make a significant difference.

Nuclear Energy: The Once and Future Power Source.  To say the nuclear industry has had highs and lows in the last 35 years is an understatement.  The "atoms for peace" that were intended to wean Planet Earth off fossil fuels, make Western nations energy independent, and provide a clean environment all but screeched to a halt after the disasters at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986. [...] In the United States, nearly all of the currently active nuclear power plants were built 40 years ago or more.  We'd gone almost 30 years without seeing any new ones built.  Now, five reactors are under construction, with one close to coming online, and many more are receiving licenses to operate for another 20 years.  After four plant closures since 2013, the United States has 100 working reactors with clear support from the American public.

Technology revolution in nuclear power could slash costs below coal.  Scientists in Britain, France, Canada, the US, China and Japan have already designed better reactors based on molten salt technology that promise to slash costs by half or more, and may even undercut coal.  They are much safer, and consume nuclear waste rather than creating more.  What stands in the way is a fortress of vested interests.  The World Nuclear Industry Status Report for 2014 found that 49 of the 66 reactors under construction — mostly in Asia — are plagued with delays, and are blowing through their budgets.

EPA Forced To Retreat On Radiation Limits.  [Jon] Utley documented how the Fukushima, Japan earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear power plant meltdown illustrated through adversity how safe nuclear power is.  Unjustified radiation fears proved deadly in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that shut down the Fukushima nuclear power facility.  The earthquake and tsunami killed more than 15,000 people, but the nuclear power plant meltdown killed no one and did not cause a single serious illness.  Tragically, however, 1,600 people died during a chaotic and unnecessary evacuation of the region in response to overhyped fears of nuclear radiation.

Greens are the enemies of energy.  Events such as the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster raised understandable fears.  The Greens began opposing nuclear energy claiming that radiation would kill millions in the event of a meltdown.  This simply is not true.  Unlike France that reprocesses spent nuclear fuel, President Carter's decision to not allow reprocessing proved to be very detrimental, requiring repositories for large quantities.  To this day, one of the largest, Yucca Mountain Repository, authorized in 1987, is opposed by Greens.  Even so, it was approved in 2002 by Congress, but the funding for its development was terminated by the Obama administration in 2011.  Today there are only four new nuclear power plants under construction and, in time, all one hundred existing plants will likely be retired starting in the mid-2030s.

Energy Sources, Costs and Global Warming.  Last month the Wall Street Journal (8/18/12) published a breakdown of federal subsidies for electric power production, citing the U.S. Dept. of Energy and the Institute for Energy Research as sources.  Here is the comparison of subsidy costs per megawatt hour:

  Fuel Type              $ Subsidy per megawatt hour
  Oil and Gas            $0.64
  Coal                    0.64
  Hydropower              0.82
  Nuclear                 3.14
  Wind                   56.29
  Solar                 775.64

Environmentalism 'has become a religion' says Gaia Theory's Godfather of Green.  Environmentalism has become a "religion" — and "religions don't worry too much about facts" says scientist James Lovelock, father of the modern green movement.  Interviewed in the Guardian on the day of the IPCC's latest report, Lovelock also praises nuclear power as "an extraordinary gift to humans" and dismisses criticisms of it as "propaganda".

Kitty litter switch may have caused leak at New Mexico nuclear waste dump, report says.  A mysterious radiation release that has indefinitely shuttered the federal government's only permanent nuclear waste dump may have been caused by a change in the type of kitty litter that is mixed with the toxic waste.

To Balance Energy Demand, We Need Nuclear Power.  Nationally, since 1995, the United States has built 342,000 megawatts of gas-fired power capacity, approximately 75% of all capacity additions.  But coal and nuclear power account for only 6% of the total.  Looking forward, at least 50,000 megawatts of gas capacity is expected to be added by 2020.  But less than 10,000 megawatts of new coal and nuclear capacity is expected to be added by 2020, a negligible amount, because approximately 100,000 megawatts of generating capacity — much of it coal — will be retired this decade.  Long-term energy fundamentals support continued reliance on and expansion of nuclear power.

'Mini-nukes' beat monster wind farms on every count.  As the shambles of Britain's energy policy and soaring bills continues to make shock headlines, many in the south-west of England are staring in angry amazement at plans by foreign-owned firms to build two of the largest offshore wind farms in the world just off their coastlines.  The German power company RWE hopes to spend £4 billion on its "Atlantic Array", covering 125 square miles of sea between Devon and South Wales with 240 vast 5 MW turbines, more than 600 ft high.

No two nuclear power plants are alike.
Why nuclear power costs so much.  [N]uclear power in the west has been on a journey of relentless cost inflation for several decades.  As the late great nuclear physicist Bernard Cohen explained in a book in 1990, the reason the west stopped building nuclear plants in the 1980s was not the fear of accidents, leaks or the proliferation of waste; it was the escalation of costs driven by regulation.  Labour costs shot up as more and more professionals had to be employed signing off paperwork; and according to one study, during the 1970s alone new regulatory requirements increased the quantity of steel per megawatt by 41%, concrete by 27%, piping by 50% and electrical cable by 36%.  As the regulation ratchet tightened, builders added features to anticipate rule changes that sometimes did not happen.  Tight regulations forced them to lose the habit of on-the-spot innovation to solve unanticipated problems, which further drove up costs and delays.

Nuclear power vs wind farms: the infographic the Government doesn't want you to see.  Hat-tip to our Energy Correspondent Emily Gosden for this Department of Energy & Climate Change infographic.  It was deleted from Gov.uk this week "because of sensitivities", according to a DECC press officer. [...] It turns out that the Renewable Energy Association called it "unhelpful" in a press release, pleading that "as Ed Davey stressed... it is not an either/or choice".

I'll Take Sweden.  [Scroll down]  Sweden does indeed have the lowest rate of carbon emissions in Europe, 5.3 metric tons per capita as opposed to 6.1 in France, 8.1 in Austria, 10.5 in Norway and 17.2 in the United States.  Why?  Because Sweden gets 42 percent of its electricity from nuclear power.  In Europe, this is second only to France's 75 percent.  In a county the size of California and with a population smaller than North Carolina, Sweden has 10 operating reactors and two more held in reserve.  Illinois, our most intensely nuclear state, has only 11 reactors with a 25 percent larger population.

Entergy to Close Vermont's Only Nuclear Power Plant.  Entergy Corp. (ETR) will permanently shut its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in 2014 after battling for years with state officials to keep the 41-year-old reactor in service.  The decision to shut Vermont's only operating reactor was based on natural gas prices, the high cost of running the single-unit plant and "artificially low" power prices in the region, New Orleans-based Entergy said in a statement today.

The Editor says...
Energy prices are not "artificially low" if they are determined by the laws of supply and demand.

Nuclear Power's New Friends?  Watch Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, and you'll hear not a word about nuclear, pro or con... but you will see a nuclear weapon being detonated in glorious color.  The disdain is not at all subtle.  But suddenly, some environmentalists are publicly embracing nuclear power.  A new movie is out, Pandora's Promise, featuring five prominent people from the movement telling their stories about how they came to embrace nuclear power because it remains a workable alternative to fossil fuel use, at least for electric generation.

Edison will close San Onofre nuclear plant.  Southern California Edison announced Friday it would shut down the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant.  The move comes 17 months after the San Onofre plant was closed because of problems in steam generator systems.  The plant powered about 1.4 million households in Southern California before the outage.

Navajo Plans to Block Access for Uranium Transport.  A uranium mining company seeking a mineral lease on state land in northwestern Arizona could have a hard time transporting the ore off-site because of the Navajo Nation's objections to an industry that left a legacy of death and disease among tribal members.

BLS Green Jobs Report: Less Than Meets the Eye.  [Scroll down]  Since nuclear power generation emits no particulates or oxides of sulfur or nitrogen (or carbon dioxide) it should be considered a green energy source.  However, no new plants have been both licensed and built in the past 30 years.  Though two construction operations licenses have recently been issued, the green jobs noted above are associated with current power generation, so those jobs are clearly not the result of any green energy or green jobs programs.  Plus, the Obama Administration has stalled and nearly killed Yucca Mountain without offering an alternative for nuclear waste disposal.

Is it safe? Radioactive Japanese wave nears US.  In the wake of the deadly tsunami that hit Japan in 2011 and severely damaged a nuclear reactor, Japanese officials say the levels of radiation are safe for everyone outside the reactor area itself. [...] "There should be no concern among Americans, of any age or location," Gilbert Ross, executive director of the American Council on Science and Health, told FoxNews.com.  "If you want to list health concerns that Americans should worry about, start with the real killers — drunk driving and smoking," Ross said.

Fukushima Radiation Proves Less Deadly Than Feared.  Since the earthquake, a powerful movement gained momentum to halt Japan's use of nuclear energy, which provided 30 percent of the country's electricity.  The last of 54 nuclear reactors was shut down in May 2012.  Two facilities were restarted in June 2012; 52 remain shut.  Japan has therefore had to increase its imports of natural gas, low-sulfur crude oil and fuel oil at a substantial economic and environmental cost.  Seventy-five percent of the country's electricity now comes from fossil fuels.  Accustomed to large trade surpluses, Japan, in 2012, had a record $78 billion trade deficit, thanks to increased energy imports and a drop in exports as Japanese goods became more expensive to produce.

US Navy sailors seek £600m damages from owners of Fukushima nuclear power plant.  Dozens of American sailors who assisted Japan during the 2011 nuclear disaster are suing the operators of Fukushima power plant for more than £612 million (US$1bn) in damages, claiming that they have become sick from radiation exposure.  The sailors were on board the USS Ronald Reagan super-carrier when it was diverted to northeast Japan following the devastation of the March 11, 2011 earthquake which triggered a tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster.  As they helped rescue victims and evacuate disaster zones, the claimants allege that they drank, bathed and waded through water contaminated with radiation from the damaged nuclear power plant and were reportedly exposed to radioactive plumes.

Navy Lieutenant: Power Plant Mission Ruined My Health.  A historic earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, causing a nuclear power meltdown.  The U.S. Navy rushed in to help, but are those sailors now paying the price?  Nearly 100 believe that mission ruined their health.  Vic Carter reports a Navy lieutenant from Maryland who can no longer walk is demanding someone take responsibility for what's happened.

Last chance to protest before the EU snuffs out thorium energy in Europe.  Just as China, Japan, India, Russia, Norway, and the US Academy of Sciences hone in on the tantalising prospect of safe, clean, and ultimately cheap energy from thorium nuclear reactors, the Europeans seem to be going in the opposite direction.

The Future Of Energy Is Nuclear.  [Scroll down]  Then there's Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie, MIT Phd candidates and co-founders of TransAtomic Power, have a plan for a reactor design that if rolled out nationwide could have the potential to power the entire country for 100 years and run on our existing mountain of nuclear waste. [...] In fact those old fuel rods still contain 95% of their radioactive energy, meaning that by Dewan's calculations America's stockpile of nuke "waste" could power the whole country for 100 years.

The Obama administration supports nuclear power — in India.
GE plans to make nuclear reactor parts in China.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is supporting a bid by General Electric to export jobs and nuclear technology to China by seeking assurances from Beijing that it will not steal or transfer valuable reactor technology, the Free Beacon has learned.  Clinton's support for a future deal with GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy, a Wilmington, N.C., company, to make reactor vessels in China for a nuclear plant it hopes to build in India was disclosed in a cable sent Nov. 21 to the United States Embassy in Beijing.

The Power Of Thorium.  One of the best kept secrets regarding alternative energy sources is based on an element most people have never heard of — thorium.

Rare Earth and Uranium Mining Potential in the States.  Rare earth and uranium are crucial to modern life in the United States.  Rare earths are necessary for a wide array of products from iPhones to advanced medical support to defense equipment.  Uranium fuels 20 percent of our electricity.  Fortunately, the United States has the capacity to expand domestic production of both rare earths and uranium, which could reinvigorate our economy, add jobs and increase revenues to suffering state budgets.

Wildlife Is Thriving in Chernobyl Nuclear Zone.  Many species in the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone have higher population numbers than before the nuclear accident, according to a new study published in Current Biology.  The higher population numbers contradict prior assertions that radiation fallout would negatively impact wildlife population numbers.  The study's authors, led by Jim Smith of Portsmouth University in England, found no evidence of long-term radiation damage to the animals in Chernobyl.  The wolf population in particular is seven times higher in the exclusion zone than in nearby nature reserves, and elk, roe deer, and red deer are also noticeably abundant.

Defying radiation, elderly residents cling on in Chernobyl.  Defying radioactive contamination and a government evacuation order, Yevgeny Markevich returned to his beloved Chernobyl shortly after it suffered the world's worst nuclear accident 30 years ago this week.  The sturdy 78-year-old former teacher is among 158 people still living in the 30 kilometre (19 mile) exclusion zone around the Ukrainian nuclear power plant where reactor number four exploded on April 26, 1986.

On the 30th Anniversary of Chernobyl, Here's What We Are Still Not Being Told.  On the 30th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear catastrophe yet, a new report shows radioactive contamination from the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl in Ukraine still lingers in startlingly large amounts across the border in neighboring Belarus.  In an exclusive report by the Associated Press, fresh milk from a Belarusian dairy farm contained a radioactive isotope, traceable to the Chernobyl disaster, at "levels 10 times higher than the nation's food safety limits" — thirty years after the accident occurred.  Though the AP turned to a laboratory to test the milk, dairy farmer Nikolai Chubenok called the results "impossible."

Inside the new effort to entomb Chernobyl's wreckage.  In the aftermath of the world's worst nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986, which resulted in radiation that ultimately reached as far as Japan and the US, the Soviet Union slapped together a massive sarcophagus of metal and concrete as hastily as possible to contain further fallout at the site of reactor 4.  With no welded or bolted joints and a leaky roof that led to corrosion "hastening its demise," it was never seen as a permanent solution, reports Live Science.  Construction began on its enormous replacement, the New Safe Confinement, in 2012.  Now French consortium Novarka is using 224 hydraulic jacks to slowly slide the steel structure 1,070 feet to cover the ruins in Ukraine.

Stop Worrying About Chernobyl — It's The Russian Invasion That's Deadly.  On Friday, Russian forces in Ukraine seized Europe's largest nuclear facility, the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (also Zaporizhzhia or Zaporiz'ka or Saporischschja), after their shelling set the Administration building and other outbuildings on fire.  The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine said technicians in the Zaporozhye facility, about 342 miles southeast of Kyiv, were still at work, and local authorities confirmed that the fire was extinguished around 6:20 a.m. local time. [...] Ukrainian officials immediately raised the possibility of another disaster echoing the deadly 1986 catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in northern Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in a video message that an explosion at the six-reactor, 5,700-megawatt Zaporozhye plant could spell the "end of Europe."  Just a bit of hyperbole as this could not possibly happen, since Chernobyl itself didn't do that much damage and the reactors are about as different as they could be.  Chernobyl was an RBMK dual-purpose weapons reactor with no containment structure, with graphite as its moderator, and operated with a positive void coefficient, the combination of which, together with human stupidity and hubris, cause the meltdown and explosion.  It was designed to make a lot of plutonium for weapons, thus the graphite.

The Environmentalist Crusade Against Progress and Technology Aims at Making Man's Life a Hell on Earth.  [Scroll down]  Environmentalists are also against energy generated by nuclear plants.  They claim nuclear power is unsafe and a threat to our lives.  But the fact is that there are over four hundred nuclear plants in operation around the world, which have been safely producing electricity for forty years.  France, for example, gets over seventy five percent of its electricity from nuclear power.  The famous incident in Chernobyl, used to discredit nuclear power, was the consequence of a disintegrating, corrupt and negligent Communist government.  It did not reflect an intrinsic lack of safety in nuclear plants, but an intrinsic lack of safety in Communist rule.

Is Uranium Exhaustible?  First, if one spends any amount of time looking into the claims of those who advocate for so called "renewable energy" one will quickly see that for many of the advocates for this expensive, and thus far essentially useless form of energy, are often less interested in replacing dangerous fossil fuels than they are in displacing nuclear energy. [...] Secondly, if nuclear energy is safe, clean, and infinitely or nearly infinitely sustainable, the rationale for constructing truly massive numbers of wind turbines collapses.  As we have seen in parts 1 and 2, wind turbine construction involves digging up huge amounts of increasingly rare elements, as well as vast quantities of elements that are not yet rare but nonetheless involve significant environmental impacts to refine.

In reversal, Trump drops Yucca Mountain as nuclear waste site.  The president's fiscal 2021 budget will not include funding for the licensing of Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository, a senior administration official confirmed to CQ Roll Call on Thursday [2/6/2020].  President Donald Trump tweeted earlier what appeared to be a rejection of the long-debated plans for the federal site about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, an abrupt reversal of his administration's policy.

The New Premise for Nevada and the Yucca Mountain Project.  [Scroll down]  During the heyday of nuclear testing, ironically, the leadership of Nevada, including the Governor, the Clark County Commission, and the City of Las Vegas all signed endorsements for the spent nuclear fuel repository at Yucca Mountain.  As the entertainment industry heated up in the 1980s and the work at the Nevada Test Site spun down, the attitude changed for unknown reasons.  By 1987, the prospect of hosting the spent nuclear fuel in Nye County became an almost heretical protestation by candidates to boost their chances of election, supported by biased anti-nuclear media stories.  Local nuclear scientists and engineers were horrified at this approach.  Technically, this move seemed like economic suicide.  Yucca Mountain became a household phrase and misinformation spread unfounded fear despite the great economic benefit possible.

Court rules for US in fight over Nevada plutonium shipment.  A federal appeals court on Tuesday [8/13/2019] ruled against Nevada in a battle with the U.S. government over its secret shipment of weapons-grade plutonium to a site near Las Vegas but the state's attorney general says the fight isn't over yet.

Fact-Check: Nevada's Rep. Susie Lee Fearmongers Over Yucca Mountain.  An absolutely excellent, must-read article by physicist Dr. Richard Muller explains the science behind nuclear waste disposal.  We routinely say that nuclear waste needs to be secure for about 10,000 years.  That's because, by then, most of the radioactivity has decayed away.

Related topic:
Rare Earth Minerals and Thorium.  Rare earth minerals are found in a number of areas around the world, including North America.  Rare earths are comprised of the 15 Lanthanide Elements in the periodic table and two outliers; Scandium and Yttrium.  As with many mineral deposits, there are also other less desirable minerals collocated in these veins of rare earth minerals.  These include uranium and thorium, which are radioactive.  When exploiting a deposit of rare earth minerals, the processing of the minerals leaves behind "mining tailings" of radioactive thorium and uranium. [...] By contrast, China does not care about the environmental impacts of industry, which explains the toxic air quality of cities like Shanghai and Beijing.  The mining operations of the Chinese rare earth mineral deposits leaves behind huge toxic and radioactive waste dumps.

Nevada lawmakers push back on effort to revive nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain.  A bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives voted this week to revive the nuclear waste site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, drawing fierce criticism from lawmakers in the Silver State.  The bill, H.R. 3053, was approved by a 340-72 vote that just five Republicans opposed.  It would direct the Energy Department to revive the licensing process for Yucca Mountain to be designated as the country's permanent site for nuclear waste that's currently spread out in storage facilities in 121 communities across 39 states.  The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, enacted in 1982, established a national nuclear waste strategy and assigned responsibility to the Energy Department to dispose of nuclear waste.

Here's what Congress is stuffing into its $1.3 trillion spending bill.  [Scroll down]  Yucca Mountain:  The legislation blocks attempts by the Energy Department to restart a moribund nuclear storage program at the mountain in the Silver State.  Former Senate majority leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) was a fierce opponent of the measure.  Sens. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) — the most embattled GOP incumbent up for reelection this year — and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) proved that they, too, can stop a federal program that is widely unpopular in their state from starting again.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission restarts Yucca Mountain licensing process.  The nation's top nuclear energy regulator voted on Tuesday to proceed with the information-gathering stage of approving a license for the contentious nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 2-1 to begin actions related to the review of the Department of Energy's license to build the radioactive waste facility after the Obama administration attempted to scuttle the program entirely.

Revive Yucca Mountain:  Illinois has more nuclear waste than any other state, all of it in temporary storage.  It has been 30 years since Congress designated Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the secure site for the nation's nuclear waste.  Since then, taxpayers have coughed up $11 billion creating a repository 1,000 feet underground that would keep the radioactive refuse permanently sealed off.  As yet, it's still empty.  But that could finally change.  Yucca Mountain is in a remote section of the Mojave Desert.  But many people in Nevada didn't want the waste, no matter how safe or isolated the storage facility may be.  It was the ultimate NIMBY project.  One of those opponents, alas, was Harry Reid, who for 10 years was Senate Democratic leader and in a position to get his way.  As president, Barack Obama gave Reid exactly what he wanted, closing down the entire effort.

Chicago Paper Implores Trump To Solve Yucca Mountain Mess Left By Obama.  The Chicago Tribune's editorial board implored President Donald Trump Tuesday [4/11/2017] to clean up the nuclear waste storage debacle left by former President Barack Obama.  Obama helped former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid to derail plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.  Without Yucca, nuclear power plants don't have a permanent location to store spent fuel and left the federal government with $50 billion in legal liabilities.

Perry, make Yucca Mountain great again.  One of the Energy Department's few essential functions (which could easily be shifted to the Defense Department, by the way) is to safeguard and dispose of the nuclear waste produced by America's commercial nuclear power plants.  Utility companies across America paid $21 billion to the Energy Department for this appropriate government service, which the Energy Department has completely failed to perform.  Its failure, due to political sabotage, is both dangerous and expensive.  The Yucca Mountain repository, in a deserted, uninhabitable section of Nevada, was supposed to begin taking in nuclear waste on New Year's Day 1998, so that the material would not have to be stored in communities across the nation.  Nineteen years and countless scientific studies later, Yucca is just a $15 billion hole in the ground, thanks mostly to ferocious opposition from the retiring Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid.

Top 10 Facts About Yucca Mountain.  [#2] In 1987, Congress directed DOE to focus its studies solely on the site.  Over the next 20 years, DOE completed a 5-mile tunnel through the mountain in which to conduct its characterization studies.  A second 2-mile "cross drift" tunnel was completed, along with numerous niches, alcoves and more than 180 boreholes in which various experiments and studies were performed — see this 2004 DOE video on some of the work that was carried out.  By 2006, a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee report dubbed Yucca Mountain the "Most Studied Real Estate on the Planet."

Yucca Mountain, politics versus facts!.  Nevada's Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, after 30 years of a passed Congressional law, $15+ billion spent for the science and engineering study and countless efforts by thousands of people remains empty.  This national Repository is not built because of political maneuvering primarily of one, Senator Harry Reid.  We know, for all practical purposes, that the science studies administrated to Yucca Mountain prove its public safety and operational functionality.  In multiple surveys today, nearly 73% of the "people" are willing to have the study completed and nine of Nevada's 17 Counties, over 50% (the grassroots).  The facts stated here are proof that Nevada's politics are in play for their game and NOT representative of Nevada's citizens.  It is fine to claim, "Not in my backyard" but, don't portray that the science and engineering is unsafe with such overwhelming proof, it just discredits character and the state's political versus science position.

Yucca Mountain Declared Safe for Nuclear Waste Storage.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined it would be safe to operate a nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.  The NRC completed the last two volumes of its five-volume safety evaluation in January.  Even though the report found Yucca Mountain would be safe, NRC staff did not recommend construction begin on the repository because land and water issues remain to be resolved, and a supplement to the Department of Energy's Environmental Impact Statement is still incomplete.

Obama refuses to follow the law on nuclear waste.  Just months after announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., wrote the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2007 seeking to clarify his position on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage project.  "I want every Nevadan to know that I have always opposed using Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository," he wrote.  "States should not be unfairly burdened with waste from other states."  Problem is, the 1987 amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act directed the U.S. Department of Energy to pursue the Yucca Mountain project as the only nuclear waste-solution projection.  Furthermore, the NWPA also directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make a "final decision approving or disapproving" any application to store waste at Yucca Mountain within three years of its submission.

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2013.  [President] Obama and [Senator Harry] Reid have long opposed a proposed nuclear waste dump in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which has already cost U.S. taxpayers an astounding $15 billion, according to various federal audits.  So, Obama simply instructed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission(NRC) to decline to conduct the statutorily mandated Yucca Mountain licensing process, essentially destroying the project.  In mid-August, a federal appellate court ruled that Obama "is simply flouting the law."

NRC seeks input on Yucca Mountain restart.  The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has asked for views on how it should go about resuming the licensing process for the Yucca Mountain waste repository.  The Department of Energy (DoE) submitted its application to build a permanent repository for the US nuclear industry's used fuel as well as military high-level wastes in 2008, but the NRC suspended work on the licence following a 2009 decision by the US administration to abandon the project and start afresh on developing a new strategy to deal with nuclear waste.

The Editor says...
Sounds like the DOE and the NRC are playing a game of hot potato, wasting time with constant studies and reviews.

Obama's Fall From Grace Sets A Scary Precedent For Future Presidents.  The increasing lawlessness with which President Barack Obama has been acting in his second term is not going unnoticed.  In fact, in a strong rebuke last week to the unilateral actions being taken by the Obama administration, a federal appeals court came down hard on the administration's Nuclear Regulatory Commission by ruling that delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste storage facility was in violation of federal law.

Obama Flouts the Law.  There was one bright spot this week when the U.S. Court of Appeals, in a case involving the disposal of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain ruled that it was illegal for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to disregard congressional mandates simply because the executive branch disagrees with what Congress has enacted. [...] While this strong rebuke is a promising development, a look at Obama's remedies going forward demonstrates how weak is the judicial tool to reign in executive lawlessness.  For example, the government can seek a rehearing, a rehearing en banc (the entire court) or both, which would hold up compliance for several months.

Why the law does not matter to Obama.  Does this ruling bind this president from doing what he wants to do?  Of course not.  No one in America has both the power and the determination to hinder Obama from doing whatever he wants.

Appeals Court: Obama Shutdown of Yucca Mountain Is Illegal.  A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) violated the law by allowing the Obama administration to shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site, according to the Associated Press.

Appeals court: Obama violating law on nuke site.  By a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the commission to complete the licensing process and approve or reject the Energy Department's application for a never-completed waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

Problems With Authority.  In re: Aiken County is another episode in the political soap opera about spent-fuel storage at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, an Energy Department project that requires the approval of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1983 requires that the NRC "shall consider" the license application for the repository and "shall issue a final decision approving or disapproving" it within three years of submission.  Yucca has since been infamously stop-and-go amid opposition from the green lobby and not-in-my-backyard Nevadans and Californians.

Mystery memos fuel battle between Nevada, DOE over nuclear waste.  U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz plans to meet with Nevada's governor on Tuesday [8/13/2013] to discuss an escalating dispute between the state and the federal government over where to dump hundreds of canisters of radioactive waste, FoxNews.com has learned.  Tensions have risen in recent weeks over who should be forced to keep the nuclear material.

Boondoggling in Never-Never Land.  Washington engineers waste.  After pouring billions into a nuclear waste storage repository, the Obama administration has added its two cents:  Start over.  Energy Secretary Steven Chu issued his report Jan. 11, rubber-stamping the final recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.  This was not surprising since he selected the panel members and imposed restrictions on its purview.  Most important was his order that the commission not examine the viability of the nuclear repository already constructed and virtually ready for use:  Yucca Mountain.

Obama tries to move past Yucca controversy, proposes new nuclear dump.  Seeking to move past the Yucca Mountain controversy, the Obama administration on Friday [1/11/2013] disclosed it will ask Congress to approve a new national nuclear waste plan that would start with a pilot interim storage site by 2021.

If GOP wins, Reid could lose nuclear waste fight.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's eight-year effort to keep a nuclear waste dump out of his home state of Nevada could soon become much more difficult.  Since 2007, Reid has used his powerful Senate position to block the federal government from moving more than 70,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain, a federally designated nuclear waste repository located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Senate to call Reid's bluff on closing Yucca nuke dump.  Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has kept Nevada's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump closed for business, is facing the first solid threat on his iron grip as the new GOP majority moves to finally open the facility.  Sen. Lamar Alexander, the new Republican chairman of the subcommittee that oversees spending on the facility, said that he is working up a plan that could unlock the gates of Yucca and pour in waste mostly from power plants before there is a major disaster from overloaded temporary dumps at the plants.

The Nuclear Theory You Never Knew Was Nonsense.  Steve Milloy, long-time editor and founder of JunkScience.com, announced an explosive exposé this month in an extended article.  Government and private scientists in radiation safety have been attempting to cover up a pattern of misconduct and hijack the Health Physics Society, a professional organization of radiation safety experts and officials, to take down the society's series of twenty-two videos featuring Dr. Ed Calabrese, which exposes a longtime scam in radiation safety matters.  The issue is Linear No Threshold Toxicology — LNT for short, also called the "one hit" theory of toxic radiation genetic mutation.  These bad actors have also conspired to censor and silence Calabrese, a prominent toxicologist and the subject of the video series, who did the investigation that exposed the lies used to promote LNT during the '40s and '50s by the influential Hermann Muller, awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for what Calabrese has demonstrated is a pack of lies, creating the LNT scam that is with us today.  Milloy says:  ["] [...] The LNT is used by regulatory agencies to set permitted exposure standards for radiation.["]

Preliminary Data Suggests Low-Dose Radiation May Be Successful Treatment For Severe Covid-19.  Human medical trials have begun on severely ill COVID-19 patients using low-doses of radiation.  The first results on a very small group were published this week in a non-peer-reviewed journal that exists to get critical results out quickly to the scientific and medical community.  The results were quite extraordinary.  Researchers at Emory University Hospital, led by Dr. Mohammad Khan, Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, treated five COVID-19 patients with severe pneumonia who were requiring supplemental oxygen and whose health was visibly deteriorating.  Their mean age was 90 with a range from 64 to 94, four were female, four were African-American, and one was Caucasian.

Even a 'Limited' Nuclear War Could Wreck Earth's Climate And Trigger Global Famine.  Deadly tensions between India and Pakistan are boiling over in Kashmir, a disputed territory at the northern border of each country.  A regional conflict is worrisome enough, but climate scientists warn that if either country launches just a portion of its nuclear weapons, the situation might escalate into a global environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.

The Editor says...
There were hundreds of atomic bomb detonations in the 1950's, and they had no lasting environmental effects, except on a few Pacific islands.

Nuclear accident in New Mexico ranks among the costliest in U.S. history.  When a drum containing radioactive waste blew up in an underground nuclear dump in New Mexico two years ago, the Energy Department rushed to quell concerns in the Carlsbad desert community and quickly reported progress on resuming operations.  The early federal statements gave no hint that the blast had caused massive long-term damage to the dump, a facility crucial to the nuclear weapons cleanup program that spans the nation, or that it would jeopardize the Energy Department's credibility in dealing with the tricky problem of radioactive waste.

Fighting Junk Science.  The theory Linear, No Threshold, abbreviated LNT, exerts a pervasive bad influence across many fields of public health. [...] The LNT approach is responsible for generalized hysteria concerning nuclear radiation.  Since nuclear radiation and nuclear isotopes can cause cancer in high concentrations, using the LNT theory it can be calculated that tiny radiation levels will also cause cancer, even if the cancer cannot be detected apart from "naturally" caused cancers.  Studies of atomic bomb survivors and studies of various other groups, as well as animals, exposed to radiation for various reasons, support the idea that much higher levels of radiation than currently allowed by government guidelines are harmless, or — get this — beneficial for health.

Nuclear missile gets rear ended!.  Have you ever seen a nuclear missile being transported in a convoy?  Several helicopters in the air and federal marshals leading the way.  The crazy thing is that the fed pulled over and was yelling and waving his hands that I can't record this video!  And then a truck rear ended the nuke!

Suburban St. Louis Feels Ground Burning Beneath Its Feet, Worries Missouri Nuclear Waste Dump Ready to Explode.  Suburban St. Louis residents say it is time for President Obama to take responsibility for a nuclear waste mess left in their neighborhoods by the federal government before it's too late and the whole thing burns, or worse.  They are clamoring for the EPA to stop studying a 200-degree Fahrenheit underground landfill fire that could be moving dangerously close to 50,000 tons of highly radiotoxic, uncontained nuclear waste from the World War II Manhattan Project in St. Louis County, Mo.  The time for study, they say, is over.  They want action.

EPA Forced to Retreat on Radiation Limits.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is raising by a factor of 350 what it considers to be the threshold for safe radiation exposure, Jon Utley reported at Reason.com.  The higher threshold belatedly rectifies overly restrictive standards that have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars, Utley reported.

EPA's Excessive Radiation Limits Are Costly, Unattainable, Unjustified.  Unjustified radiation fears proved deadly in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami affecting Japan's Fukushima nuclear power facility.  The earthquake and tsunami killed more than 15,000 people but the damage to the nuclear policy facility killed no one and did not cause a single serious illness.  Tragically, 1,600 people died during a chaotic and unnecessary evacuation of the region in response to overhyped nuclear radiation fears.  In the United States, similarly unjustified radiation restrictions are costing our economy billions of dollars and providing no public health benefits.

The Top Ten Unfounded Health Scares of 2008.  [#10] Granite countertops emit radiation:  [I]t is growing more and more common for the media to highlight health scare stories with no scientific basis as a way of attracting attention in a crowded media market. [...] While granite countertops may contain traces of radioactive substances, such as uranium, the low level of radiation they may emit does not pose a health threat.  Homeowners should not spend money on unnecessary tests or bother having their granite countertops replaced.

Irradiated Foods.  The safety of food irradiation has been studied more extensively than that of any other food preservation process.  As is true of other food processes, irradiation can lead to chemical changes in food.  Radiolytic products (compounds formed by radiation), are similar to compounds formed by heat treatment.  None of these products, in the amounts found in irradiated foods, has been demonstrated to be toxic by any modern toxicological methods.

The Facts About Home Radon.  More than half of our natural background radiation exposure comes from radon, because it is a constituent of the air we breathe.  If radon were as deadly as some would have us believe, mankind would have become extinct long ago.  The radon isotope of interest is radon-222 (Rn-222), which has a half-life of about 3.8 days.  Radon radioactive decay byproducts emit both alpha particles and gamma rays.  While radon itself is exhaled from our lungs with the air we breathe, it is the radioactive decay byproducts which remain in the lungs and produce the radiation dose to lung tissue.  In the low concentrations encountered in American homes, radon is not a cause of lung cancer, let alone "the second leading cause," as claimed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  On the contrary, in this setting radon is actually protective against lung cancer.  Any attempt to reduce the concentration in homes lowers that protective feature, and leads to a greater, not lesser, probability of developing lung cancer.

Reassessing radiation safety.  [Scroll down to page 15]  Indoor radon:  In 2013 the EU set a legally binding standard for airborne radon levels in all European Union buildings outside the workplace.  Radon is a radioactive gas that seeps out of the ground and is concentrated inside buildings.  It has been suggested that radon causes lung cancer at low levels, but such claims are hard to prove.  Even at high concentrations, there is only a small increase in cancer risk, so extrapolations to low concentrations using the LNT model are scientifically controversial.  Indeed, most cases of lung cancer in Finland involve radon exposures below levels at which the state would demand action.  It is true, however, that radon — at least in higher exposure levels — does increase the risk of developing lung cancer among smokers — there appears to be an additive effect.  However, efforts to lower radon levels in homes have made little difference to exposures, so reducing lung cancer risk is best addressed by smoking cessation.