Even this conservative journal recognises renewables as the only meaningful future energy source – nuclear is irrelevant
Regardless of what the nuclear industry itself wants, the signs are that renewables may be defining themselves not only as the cheapest, but also as the only meaningful energy proposal for the future.
Let’s Leave Nuclear Power In The Past https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2021/06/30/lets-leave-nuclear-power-in-thepast/?sh=4beadbb23864 Enrique Dans, Senior Contributor
It makes a lot of sense to start this article by linking to the old smiling sun badge that symbolizes the opposition to nuclear energy, to talk about the increasingly negative perceptions of nuclear power around the world, to the point where, with the exception of a few unconditional enthusiasts, it is beginning to be seen as a technology with less and less of a role in the world’s energy future.
During the 1950s, the term atomic age was widely used to describe a future where all energy would be based on nuclear fission, one in which energy would be so cheap and inexhaustible that it wouldn’t be worth metering it, to the point that it would be used not only to make weapons or provide energy, but even to power cars like the Ford Nucleon, to heat water in swimming pools, to keep artificial hearts beating and even for the mechanism of a ballpoint pen.
What happened? First, the obvious problem of safety: in a world with an increasingly unstable climate and more extreme weather phenomena, nuclear power plants are, as the tenth anniversary of the Fukushima accident on March 11 reminded us, a reckless option. Germany became the first major economy to commit to retiring its nuclear power plants by 2022, but China also seems to be losing interest in the technology due to cost and safety concerns, while nuclear power is relegated to a token role in the US energy map.
Large reactors cannot compete with low renewable energy prices. Many of them have already closed, and furthermore, due to their high cost, complexity and difficulties, it seems very unlikely that any new large plants will be built in the coming decades. Nuclear power has turned out to be a promise that never materializes, and looks increasingly remote as an answer to the climate emergency.
Some point to small modular reactors (SMRs) as the only option that could be implemented on a significant scale in the climate-critical period of the next few decades, but quite a few analyses suggest this is extremely unlikely to happen.
The option that seemed the most obvious can easily be sidelined as new technologies develop and undergo their own economies of scale. Nuclear power, which still generates around 10% of the world’s total energy, is now seen as too slow, too expensive and too dangerous, something no one wants to see being built near their home or town. Regardless of what the nuclear industry itself wants, the signs are that renewables may be defining themselves not only as the cheapest, but also as the only meaningful energy proposal for the future.
Canada is a warning: more and more of the world will soon be too hot for humans
 | |||
Canada is a warning: more and more of the world will soon be too hot for humans https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/30/canada-temperatures-limits-human-climate-emergency-earth# Simon Lewis How did a small town in Canada become one of the hottest places on Earth?
Without an immediate global effort to combat the climate emergency, the Earth’s uninhabitable areas will keep growing
The climate crisis means that summer is a time of increasingly dangerous heat. This week in the Pacific north-west, temperature records are not just being broken, they are being obliterated. Temperatures reached a shocking 47.9C in British Columbia, Canada. Amid temperatures more typically found in the Sahara desert, dozens have died of heat stress, with “roads buckling and power cables melting”.
Another heatwave earlier in June saw five Middle East countries top 50°C. The extreme heat reached Pakistan, where 20 children in one class were reported to have fallen unconscious and needed hospital treatment for heat stress. Thankfully, they all survived.
Additional warming from greenhouse gas emissions means that such extreme heatwaves are more likely and scientists can now calculate the increase in their probability. For example, the 2019 European heatwave that killed 2,500 people was five times more likely than it would have been without global warming.
In most places, extreme heatwaves outside the usual range for a region will cause problems, from disrupting the economy to widespread mortality, particularly among the young and old. Yet in places in the Middle East and Asia something truly terrifying is emerging: the creation of unliveable heat.
While humans can survive temperatures of well over 50C when humidity is low, when both temperatures and humidity are high, neither sweating nor soaking ourselves can cool us. What matters is the “wet-bulb” temperature – given by a thermometer covered in a wet cloth – which shows the temperature at which evaporative cooling from sweat or water occurs. Humans cannot survive prolonged exposure to a wet-bulb temperature beyond 35C because there is no way to cool our bodies. Not even in the shade, and not even with unlimited water.
In most places, extreme heatwaves outside the usual range for a region will cause problems, from disrupting the economy to widespread mortality, particularly among the young and old. Yet in places in the Middle East and Asia something truly terrifying is emerging: the creation of unliveable heat.
While humans can survive temperatures of well over 50C when humidity is low, when both temperatures and humidity are high, neither sweating nor soaking ourselves can cool us. What matters is the “wet-bulb” temperature – given by a thermometer covered in a wet cloth – which shows the temperature at which evaporative cooling from sweat or water occurs. Humans cannot survive prolonged exposure to a wet-bulb temperature beyond 35C because there is no way to cool our bodies. Not even in the shade, and not even with unlimited water.
Second, prepare for the inevitable heatwaves of the future. Emergency public health planning is the initial priority: getting essential information to people and moving vulnerable people into air-conditioned locations. Heatwave forecasts should include wet-bulb temperatures so that people can learn to understand the dangers.
Plans should account for the fact that heatwaves intensify structural inequalities. Poorer neighbourhoods typically have fewer green spaces and so heat up more, while outdoor workers, often poorly paid, are especially vulnerable. The rich also buy up cooling equipment at high prices once a heatwave is underway and have many more options to flee, underscoring the importance of public health planning.
Beyond crisis management, governments need to invest in making countries function in the new climate we are creating, including the extremes. In climate policy terms this is known as “adaptation”.
Of paramount importance is energy supplies being resilient to heatwaves, as people will be relying on electricity for cooling from air-conditioning units, fans and freezers, which are all life-savers in a heatwave. Similarly, internet communications and data centres need to be future-proofed, as these are essential services that can struggle in the heat.
Beyond this, new regulations are needed to allow buildings to keep cool and for transport systems, from roads to trains, to be able to operate under much higher temperature extremes.
Many of these changes can meet other challenges. Retro-fitting homes to be energy-efficient is also the perfect opportunity to modify them to also keep us cool. For example, installing electric heat pumps to warm houses in the winter means that in the summer they can also be switched to run in reverse to work as a cooling system. Cities can be kept cooler with green roofs and more green spaces, which also make them better places to live.
The final task is future-proofing agriculture and the wider ecosystems we all ultimately rely on. Heat can cause havoc with crop production. In Bangladesh, just two days of hot air in April this year destroyed 68,000 hectares of rice, affecting over 300,000 farmers with losses of US$39m (£28m). New heat-tolerant varieties of crops need developing and deploying. The alternative is higher food costs and food price spikes with the increased poverty and civil unrest that typically accompanies them.
Given these immense challenges how are governments doing on climate adaptation? Very poorly. The Paris agreement on climate change obliged countries to submit their adaptation plans, but only 13 countries have done so. One of those is the UK, but government plans were judged by its own independent advisors to have “failed to keep pace with the worsening reality of climate risk”.
The Glasgow Cop26 climate talks will need to put the spotlight on adaptation planning and funding for vulnerable countries. To curtail the impacts of ever more ferocious heatwaves, reducing emissions will need to go hand in hand with adapting to the swelteringly hot world we are creating. Stabilising the climate by 2050 is well within the timeframe of one working lifetime, as is adapting to allow us all to prosper in this new world. There is no time to lose.
- Simon Lewis is professor of global change science at University College London and University of Leeds
Hundreds dead as record-breaking heat wave hits Canada and United States
Key Points
Record highs of 4.5 degrees Centrigrade are attributed to climate change.
233 deaths have been reported beteen Friday and Monday in British Columbia
Schools and Covid-19 vaccination centres have been forced to close
Hundreds dead as record-breaking heat wave hits Canada and United States, ABC, Scores of deaths in Canada’s Vancouver area and large wildfires are likely linked to a gruelling heat wave, authorities said Tuesday, as the country recorded its highest-ever temperature amid scorching conditions that extended to the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.
At least 134 people have died suddenly since Friday in the Vancouver area, according to figures released by the region’s city police department and the Royal Canadian Mounted police.
The Vancouver Police Department alone said it had responded to more than 65 sudden deaths since Friday, with the vast majority “related to the heat.”
The chief coroner for the province of British Columbia, which includes Vancouver, said that it had “experienced a significant increase in deaths reported where it is suspected that extreme heat has been contributory.”
The service said in a statement it recorded 233 deaths in the wider British Columbia area between Friday and Monday, compared with 130 on average.
The deaths came as Canada set a new all-time high temperature record for a third day in a row Tuesday, reaching 49.5 degrees Celsius in Lytton, British Columbia, about 250 kilometres east of Vancouver, the country’s weather service, Environment Canada, reported.
Vancouver has never experienced heat like this, and sadly dozens of people are dying because of it,” police sergeant Steve Addison said.
Climate change is causing record-setting temperatures to become more frequent.
Globally, the decade to 2019 was the hottest recorded, and the five hottest years have all occurred within the last five years.
The scorching heat stretching from the US state of Oregon to Canada’s Arctic territories has been blamed on a high-pressure ridge trapping warm air in the region.
Temperatures in the US Pacific Northwest cities of Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington reached levels not seen since record-keeping began in the 1940s.
Homes are being evacuated due to wildfires…………… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-30/heatwave-kills-dozens-in-canada-us/100255480
Government economists accept reality and slash coal export forecasts — RenewEconomy
The government’s resources forecaster has significantly revised downwards their predictions of thermal coal exports. Is this the beginning of the end? The post Government economists accept reality and slash coal export forecasts appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Government economists accept reality and slash coal export forecasts — RenewEconomy
Conservative group says Germany could reach 100% renewables by 2030 at low cost — RenewEconomy
Conservative group says Germany could reach 100 pct renewables by 2030, and save $100 billion a year on energy imports. The post Conservative group says Germany could reach 100% renewables by 2030 at low cost appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Conservative group says Germany could reach 100% renewables by 2030 at low cost — RenewEconomy
| The conservative climate group KlimaUnion (ClimateUnion), which is made up of party members of the governing CDU/CSU alliance, has released a position paper in which the members argue that Germany could become the world’s first industrialised country running on 100-percent renewable energy supply as early as 2030 and simultaneously reduce citizens’ expenses on transport, heating and power use. The group was founded in April with the aim of pushing the conservative bloc to adopt climate policy in line with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target. In the paper, KlimaUnion argues that Germany could save up to 63 billion euros ($A100 billion) in energy imports per year if it manages to achieve a complete transition to renewable energy, which could be turned into a “growth booster” in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Renew Economy 30th June 2021 https://reneweconomy.com.au/conservative-group-says-germany-could-reach-100-renewables-by-2030-at-low-cost/ |
Video: New electric motorcycle launched in Australia — RenewEconomy
Nigel Morris test rides the all-new electric Evoke, and talks to its distributors. The post Video: New electric motorcycle launched in Australia appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Video: New electric motorcycle launched in Australia — RenewEconomy
June 30 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Japan’s Nuclear Wastewater Plan Clouded By Politics” • The Japanese government’s approval of a plan to discharge treated radioactive water stored at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean stands out as a reversal of a decade of nuclear safety reform in Japan. Indeed, the issue suffers from an unfortunate lack […]
June 30 Energy News — geoharvey
Nuclear news – this last week of June
Pandemic. Daily Update: What you need to know about the coronavirus around the world right now. World Coronavirus Dispatch: Three studies hint at where pandemic is headed.
Oh dear – I promised myself that I would not digress off into the pandemic discussion. But – I’m finding it scary – to come across people who think that the pandemic is not real, or that vaccination is some plot to take over the world, or who’ve decided that they don’t need vaccination.. Dammit – vaccination is our best bet.……
Climate. As if anti-vacc isn’t enough to worry about, now we’ve got climate complacency – possibly more dangerous than climate denialism – as global heating moves on inexorably. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide at risk from rising sea levels. Canada sets all-time record-high temperature as North America’s north-west cooks under ‘heat dome‘.
Nuclear. Well it’s the drums of war beating. The one thing that Wester conservatives and progressives agree on – we’d better boost our nuclear weapons ready for a war on China. Meanwhile, the promotion of new small nuclear recators goes on. See below – excellent article by Victor Gilinsky, Henry Sokolski, (highlighted in yellow)
A bit of good news – Park it! Why the world is greener.
AUSTRALIA.
Australia’s collective voice should silence the ‘drums of war‘. Federal nuclear waste dump plan.
- The Senate’s nuclear waste dilemma. Nuclear waste Bill passed. This is what will happen next. Within weeks, Minister Keith Pitt is expected to declare Napandee, (Kimba, South Australia) as the site for the nuclear waste dump.
- Barngarla Aboriginals and Kimba farmers join forces to fight nuclear waste dump plan. Barngarla people hold Native Title land close to planned nuclear waste dump, but were denied a vote on this.
- Need to reveal full details of nomination forms for Kimba and Wallerberdina nuclear waste dump plans. South Australian Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan shuns Supreme Court Justice’s ruling to release Kimba nuclear documents.
- Australian Parliamentarians misled by Minister Pitt’s lies about nuclear medicine.
- Senator Hanson Young gave the clearest explanation of the issues around the government’s nuclear waste Bill. ‘ Senator Hanson-Young outlined the shambles that the nuclear waste siting process has been. Senator Rex Patrick explained why the Woomera prohibited area would be a more suitable site for a nuclear waste dump.
- OTHER
- Construction of ANSTO’s new intermediate waste facility at Lucas Heights –
- Australian government pushes to remove the ban on nuclear power. Morrison government bringing push for nuclear energy as an election issue.
- Lowy Institute polling shows that 91% of Australians want the federal government to support renewable energy development.
- ‘A new chapter’: NT town to be returned to traditional owners today Historic handback of Kakadu town to Mirarr traditional owners.
- Australian Local Government Association support Mount Isa nuclear weapons ban motion.
- Australia’s failed nuclear front group bites the dust.
INTERNATIONAL
Nuclear power is in the front line of climate change – and NOT in a good way. Ten reasons climate activists should not support nuclear. Rising sea levels might mean the end for many nuclear power stations. Increasing carbon emissions from uranium mining.
Increasing numbers of nuclear warheads globally.Nuclear fusion’s unlikely future, – too late for climate action.
Old cracked infrastructure – the Florida building collapse – a warning for old cracked nuclear reactors.
Australia’s failed nuclear front group bites the dust.
Ben Heard’s lobby group is closing down, June 2021: Heard’s ‘Bright New World’ group — which received secret corporate donations from the Nuclear Industry — is closing down.
Concerted efforts to have state and federal laws banning nuclear power have failed in recent years. At a guess, the corporate donors have given up and will no longer fund Bright New World.
A stocktake on Heard’s 10 years of pro-nuclear, anti-renewables campaigning: renewable capacity grew by an incredible 1500+ gigawatts worldwide and renewables now account for 30% of global electricity generation. Nuclear generation was stagnant and nuclear’s contribution to global electricity generation fell to 10%.In Heard’s home state of South Australia, renewables have grown to 60% of electricity generation and the conservative state government is enthusiastically committed to 100% net renewables by 2030.Heard’s efforts to turn South Australia into the world’s nuclear waste dump were equally unsuccessful.Good riddance to Bright New World. https://nuclear.foe.org.au/ben-heard-secret-corporate-donations/
Old cracked infrastructure – the Florida building collapse – a warning for old cracked nuclear reactors.
embrittlement, pipe cracking, component degradation, technical obsolescence, an aging workforce, rampant incompetence, and worse define the reality of virtually every operating atomic reactor, here and around the planet.
Collapsed Florida Condo Sends a Giant Nuke Warning https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/70146-rsn-collapsed-florida-condo-sends-a-giant-nuke-warning, By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News, 28 June 21 he horrifying collapse of a south Florida condo should alarm us all about the next reactor catastrophe.
The owners of that 13-story condo were warned years ago that it could implode. They were apparently getting ready for repairs, but in the interim did nothing.
The owners of America’s 93 licensed reactors have been warned for decades that they could both implode and explode. They have also done nothing.
More than 150 people may have died in this avoidable Florida disaster. The death toll from the next avoidable reactor disaster could stretch into the millions, with property damage in the trillions, a blow from which our economy and ecosystems might never recover.
South Florida authorities have now ordered inspections of large buildings over forty years old. Nearly all US reactors – including four on the ocean in South Florida – are also now around forty years old.
They all must be immediately shut for rigorous inspection. To wait is to invite a radioactive version of what just happened to that condo.
The argument is not about nuclear power. It’s about basic sanity.
The industry is currently pushing “new” designs based on fusion, thorium, breeder technologies, molten salt, small modular, and more. None have been proven safe or effective in fighting climate chaos. Nor can they compete with renewables. None have a reasonable prospect of coming online before being completely left in the radioactive dust by accelerating advances in wind, solar, batteries, and LED efficiency.
All are certain to consume huge quantities of public money, pouring into private pockets (like those of Bill Gates) before failing utterly.
But they pale in importance alongside the 93 US reactors (there are some 430 worldwide) now plummeting toward certain catastrophe.
None of these reactors can get private liability insurance against an apocalyptic disaster. Most were designed in the pre-digital 1950s and ‘60s. Many were built with inferior materials and understanding.
Critical welds at California’s Diablo Canyon, for example, contain metal components long since banned. But Unit One continues to operate.
Critical concrete at New Hampshire’s Seabrook and Ohio’s Davis-Besse is crumbling. Fort Calhoun in Nebraska was flooded. Intake pipes at South Texas froze. Reactors in Ohio and Virginia have been damaged by earthquakes. Diablo is surrounded by earthquake faults set to deliver seismic shocks which a Nuclear Regulatory Commission resident inspector has said it can’t withstand. The owners of San Onofre want to bury their high-level wastes ONE HUNDRED FEET from the tide line. Meaningful evacuation planning is nonexistent at sites where nearby population centers have exploded since the original siting approval.
All these old reactors contribute to climate chaos with emissions of heat, radiation, and carbon. They suck up billions of gallons of precious water, then dump it or evaporate it with chemical, radioactive, and thermal pollution. In every case, our planet would benefit from their shutdown.
Virtually all US reactors are almost certainly embrittled, meaning emergency cooling water poured into the core to quell a meltdown would shatter critical components, resulting in apocalyptic hydrogen and possibly fission explosions, as at Chernobyl and Fukushima.
To put it most simply: no embrittled reactor has a workable set of brakes. Yet states like California, and the NRC itself, refuse to conduct relatively cheap and simple open inspections.
Thus embrittlement, pipe cracking, component degradation, technical obsolescence, an aging workforce, rampant incompetence, and worse define the reality of virtually every operating atomic reactor, here and around the planet.
So when we look in horror at that collapsed south Florida condo, with all those innocent souls buried in the rubble, we must remember that later today, parallel pictures could show a mega-hot runaway reactor spewing Chernobyl/Fukushima levels of radiation throughout the ecosphere.
Thankfully, the Solartopian realities of fast-accelerating wind, solar, battery, and efficiency technologies give us the leeway to shut them all NOW.
Let’s do it before it’s too late!!
Harvey Wasserman co-convenes the weekly Election Protection 2024 ZOOM. His People’s Spiral of US History is at www.solartopia.org.
Australian Local Gov Association support Mount Isa nuclear weapons ban motion
Australian Local Gov Assoc pass Mount Isa nuclear weapons motion https://www.northweststar.com.au/story/7316487/australian-local-gov-assoc-pass-mount-isa-nuclear-weapons-motion/
Derek Barry ocal Government Association has supported Mount Isa City Council’s letter to the federal government looking for a nuclear weapons ban……..(subscribers only)
Portrait of a pro nuclear shill – Ben Heard
Ben Heard and the nuclear lobby group ‘Bright New World’ that accepts secret corporate donations
For factual rebuttals of the misinformation promulgated by other nuclear advocates, please visit: https://nuclear.foe.org.au/propaganda/
Ben Heard founded the South Australia-based ‘Bright New World’ nuclear advocacy group that accepts secret corporate donations from the nuclear industry.
Like so many other nuclear advocates, Heard very rarely or never says or does anything about the problems of the nuclear industry such as its systemic racism (abundantly evident in his home state, South Australia) or the inadequate nuclear safeguards system and the associated WMD proliferation risks.
A big part of Heard’s schtik is his conversion from a nuclear critic to a supporter. It is a back-story built on slender foundations. A mining industry magazine article said Heard was “once a fervent anti-nuclear campaigner” but in fact he never had any involvement whatsoever in anti-nuclear campaigning. Heard made no effort to correct the error in the magazine article — indeed he put the article, uncorrected, on his own website and only corrected it after the falsehood was publicly exposed. Likewise, Heard made no effort to correct an ABC article which described him as a “former anti-nuclear advocate”.
Heard has a recurring disclosure problem. He rarely disclosed his consulting work for uranium company Heathgate when spruiking for the nuclear industry. He said the reason he rarely disclosed his consulting work with Heathgate was that it was mentioned on his website. So any time you hear anyone speaking about anything in the media, it’s your responsibility to do a web-search to see if they have a financial interest! More recently, he rarely discloses corporate funding — indeed his lobby group has a policy of accepting secret corporate donations. Moreover, Heard rarely if ever discloses his connection to nuclear power company Energy. https://nuclear.foe.org.au/ben-heard-secret-corporate-donations/rrestrial Energy.
Serious questions about government funding Bill Gates’new confidence-trick, the NATRIUM nuclear reactor
Can we be sure that we will not end up with plutonium-fueled reactors coupled with reprocessing?
Dangerous Decisions about Advanced Nuclear Reactors Could Lead to New Threats https://portside.org/2021-06-27/dangerous-decisions-about-advanced-nuclear-reactors-could-lead-new-threats
Congress should have answers to tough questions before giving the Energy Department’s Advanced Reactor Development Program additional funding. June 27, 2021 Victor Gilinsky, Henry Sokolski
The Department of Energy’s recently launched Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) is slipping by without any close Congressional oversight, which is unfortunate as there are some serious questions that should be answered, including ones related to national security. The program was launched with an award of $160 million to TerraPower for its Natrium design and X-energy for its Xe-100. Each is to build a full-scale nuclear reactor within the next seven years, one that could be duplicated and sold commercially. While not a huge sum, it is intended to be the down payment on over $3 billion, a sum that is supposed to be cost-shared by the companies, with more for other projects.
At a March 25 Senate Energy Committee hearing on “advanced” reactors, executives of the two companies described a future with almost unlimited opportunities worldwide for their reactors, hundreds, maybe thousands. They got an enthusiastic reception from both sides of the aisle, summed up by Chairman Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) final observation that while wind and solar power were OK, “nuclear really does the job.” No one asked how the reactors will be fueled. Will they be fueled with nearly highly enriched uranium, or with plutonium? And what will be the security consequences of selling and encouraging reactors fueled with such fuels around the world?
Despite the enthusiasm for new technology, the “advanced” label is misplaced. These are re-engineered versions of old designs, some over fifty years old. “Advanced small modular reactors” trips off the tongues of people who think they are talking about the nuclear future, whereas in fact, they are talking about reviving the past.
“Small” is also an inaccurate label. Yes, there are lots of projects for small reactors, but they are a sideshow, for niche applications. The real action, the main ring, concerns larger units. TerraPower’s CEO, Chris Levesque, told the senators at the March 25 hearing that the company was pursuing a 300-megawatt (electric) unit because that was what today’s market would accept. But as it gained experience, TerraPower anticipated “growing Natrium output back up to gigawatt scale,” the size of current large light water reactors. The obvious conclusion is that TerraPower doesn’t think the smaller units would be economic, despite the current ballyhoo about the economic advantages of such units. Levesque thought there was a market for hundreds of the large units domestically and more abroad. As much of the talk was on competing with Russia and China, it is clear that the nuclear industry business plan centers on exporting the technology around the world.
Above – a different model – NuScale, but see the person indicated – this ”small” reactor is not small
The Natrium reactor TerraPower has promised to build with DOE funds is not, as many people think, the highly advertised “traveling wave” reactor design that TerraPower pursued when started by Bill Gates. That idea involved the active (fissioning) reactor region slowly “traveling” from the center of the reactor core over the life of the reactor, “breeding” plutonium from uranium and fissioning it in place, therefore with no need for reprocessing. That Bill Gates was assumed to be a shrewd investor boosted the company’s credibility. The traveling wave idea didn’t work, but TerraPower retained the label for a different design, apparently because it aids marketing.
The Natrium reactor is a scaled-up version of a General Electric design for a small sodium-cooled, plutonium-fueled fast breeder reactor (natrium is German for sodium, and “fast” means it relies on energetic neutrons). This is the reactor the nuclear enthusiasts have wanted to build since Congress canceled the Clinch River Fast Breeder Reactor in 1983. The Atomic Energy Commission, the DOE’s predecessor agency, pushed the liquid metal fast breeder (LMFBR) reactors in the 1970s as the energy solution in what was thought to be a uranium-poor world. But it turned out we live in a uranium-rich world so the expensive LMFBR made no economic sense.
It also made no sense to flood the world with untold tons of plutonium when a few kilograms is enough for a bomb. That’s why Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter made it U.S. policy to discourage commercializing of plutonium-fueled reactors. Enthusiasts tried but failed to revive fast reactors as part of the second Bush administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership program. It appears they are trying again.
TerraPower’s CEO told the senate hearing that the Natrium reactor would be fueled with uranium enriched to just short of 20 percent U-235 (a level that America is trying to prevent Iran from enriching to). It’s the borderline between low and highly enriched uranium. That choice seems to be related to DOE’s interest in developing a large enrichment market for the DOE-created Centrus Corporation, which is a story in itself.
Widespread use of reactors in this mode would dramatically increase demand for enriched uranium. Will 20 percent enriched uranium remain the preferred fuel for Natrium, or will it revert to plutonium with reprocessing to meet foreign customer interest? (The original GE design included an onsite reprocessing plant.) So configured, the reactor would make and reuse massive quantities of material that could be used to create a bomb. Recently, the Senate armed Services Committee raised this worry with regard to China’s fast reactor program. Congress should nail down the answer to this key question with regard to DoE’s programs.
There is a natural tendency to loosen the financial reins on projects that fall into the research and development category. But the two ARDP projects are prototypes for the commercial market. Congress should have answers to tough questions before giving the Energy Department’s ARDP additional funding. A good start would be to ask: Can we be sure that we will not end up with plutonium-fueled reactors coupled with reprocessing?
Taylor wants CCS in Emissions Reduction Fund to help fossil fuel hydrogen — RenewEconomy
Taylor seeks new avenue to fund controversial technology a week after Senate blocked his attempt to expand ARENA’s remit to include CCS. The post Taylor wants CCS in Emissions Reduction Fund to help fossil fuel hydrogen appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Taylor wants CCS in Emissions Reduction Fund to help fossil fuel hydrogen — RenewEconomy
Department refuses to disclose details of Collinsville coal study approval process — RenewEconomy
The Morrison government has refused to release details of approvals for a controversial $3.6 million grant for a coal plant feasibility study. The post Department refuses to disclose details of Collinsville coal study approval process appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Department refuses to disclose details of Collinsville coal study approval process — RenewEconomy
1 This month.
20 September –National Day of Action in Melbourne on the International Day of Peace
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 