Keulenae's Favorite Links on nuclear from Diigo

Is nuclear power essential to addressing climate change and energy independence? - NewTalk

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:34:16 -0000

Calling climate change one of the greatest challenges ever faced by the human race, some former opponents of nuclear power have recently become its advocates, if cautious advocates. Our purpose here is not to debate climate change, but rather "Is nuclear power essential to addressing climate change and energy independence?"

Tags: nuclear debate carbon climate

Posted by: keulenae

jimharding382007.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:43:19 -0000

Tags: nuclear myths

Posted by: keulenae

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Nuclear Option: It's Not Verboten Anymore

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:48:22 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

A lot of politicians seem to love nuclear power—from John McCain to Angela Merkel and Silvio Berlusconi. But more importantly, public opinion everywhere is getting behind them.

Tags: Germany policy nuclear wsj.com

Posted by: keulenae

Will nuclear-produced electricity be low carbon? - AutoblogGreen

Sun, 25 May 2008 08:07:48 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Nuclear energy is often touted by its supporters as being cheap, clean and plentiful. It's often stated in articles on the subject that Patrick Moore, purported co-founder of Greenpeace, is in favor of increased nuclear plants. In fact, there are about 30 new American nuclear plants currently on the drawing board. So, does nuclear live up to the claims of its supporters? Well, for one, it might not be as cheap as we've been told. Two reactors planned for Levy County, Florida may clock in at more than twice their original estimate at $10 billion. You can install a lot of distributed solar capacity for that kind of money. In fact Moody's Investor Services gave an estimate in October of $6,000 per kilowatt that Jim Hempstead (a senior credit officer at Moody's) stated in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal has been "blown by" after reviewing recent estimates from a handful of "experienced different nuclear operators".

Tags: nuclear economics ev transport

Posted by: keulenae

Technology Review: Invest In Green France

Wed, 07 May 2008 20:05:04 -0000

Tags: france green nuclear fuel.cell wind

Posted by: keulenae

Nanomaterial turns radiation directly into electricity - energy-fuels - 27 March 2008 - New Scientist Environment

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:30:47 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Electricity is usually made using nuclear power by heating steam to rotate turbines that generate electricity.

But beginning in the 1960s, the US and Soviet Union used thermoelectric materials that convert heat into electricity to power spacecraft using nuclear fission or decaying radioactive material. The Pioneer missions were among those using the latter, "nuclear battery" approach.

Tags: electricity nuclear heat technology

Posted by: keulenae

The Oil Drum: Europe | Why wind needs feed-in tariffs (and why it is not the enemy of nuclear)

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:38:15 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

An argument often heard against wind is that it costs a lot in public subsidies for a solution that will always have a limited impact (because it still produces only a small fraction of overall needs, and because of its unreliability linked to its intermitten nature). This is an argument worth addressing in detail, especially when it is pointed out, as the graph shows, that wind is already almost competitive with the other main sources of electricity, which suggests that it might not even need the subsidies then (and the increase in commodity prices since that graph was prepared using 2004 data, only reinforces that argument).

Tags: costs europe feedin nuclear tariffs

Posted by: keulenae

IEEE Spectrum: Does Fusion Have a Future?

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:29:15 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

U.S. funding reversal for ITER suggests that fusion energy—"always just a few decades away from reality" as the joke goes—may have finally run out of decades

Tags: fusion nuclear spectrum

Posted by: keulenae

Endesa world's top sustainable electricity company | EnerPub - Energy Publisher

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:27:57 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

PricewaterhouseCoopers and the SAM Group chose Endesa as the most sustainable electricity company in their Sustainability Yearbook, based on the company's economic, environmental and social responsibility. Endesa scored 78%, compared to an average for the sector of 60%.

Tags: csr electricity endesa nuclear

Posted by: keulenae

Iran's nuclear programme | As the enrichment machines spin on | Economist.com

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:05:42 -0000

IF YOU are locked eyeball to eyeball with an adversary as wily as Iran, it does not make much sense to do something that emboldens your opponent and sows defeatism among your friends. But that, it is now clear, is precisely what America's spies achieved when they said in December that, contrary to their own previous assessments, Iran stopped its secret nuclear-weapons programme in 2003.

Tags: economist.com iran nuclear

Posted by: keulenae

Ecological Economics: Exclusively Renewable Energy by 2050: Germany Says Yes!

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 14:50:17 -0000

Comments:

The problem is at least recognised, instead of declaring it a myth. But the video remains a concept. The numbers are not worked out, nor the economics. And while variability can be reduced by combining different renewables, nobody knows whether we will get it right 95, 99 or the current 99.9% of the time. 30 minutes of outage per year does not leave much margin for error. posted by keulenae

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Germany is looking to integrate wind, solar, and biofuel natural gas to supply 100% of its power generation needs by 2050 (40% by 2020). Germany plans to phase out both Nuclear and Coal-fired power generation.

Tags: 2050 ecological economics germany intermittency

Posted by: keulenae

Energy Quotations

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:44:31 -0000

Tags: action energy energy efficiency leadership nuclear

Posted by: keulenae

The Oil Drum: Europe | New Nuclear Reactors For The UK: Is This Really A Good Idea?

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:00:28 -0000

This is a guest article by Dr. David Fleming. Fleming is the Founder Director of the Lean Economy Connection, and an independent writer in the fields of energy, environment, economics, society and culture. The article is based on Fleming’s recent 56-page booklet, The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy, which expands and references the arguments presented. The booklet is available to download here: The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy

Tags: nuclear

Posted by: keulenae

Britain Could Get 60% of its Electricity until 2060 from... Nuclear Waste : TreeHugger

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:09:41 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

"We can bury our reactor waste or we can treat it and then use it as free fuel for life. It's a no-brainer." - Sir David King, Chief Science Adviser

Tags: nuclear reprocessing waste United Kingdom

Posted by: keulenae

Cravens - Home

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 02:13:30 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

In this timely book, Gwyneth Cravens takes an informed and clarifying look at the myths, the fears, and the truth about nuclear energy.

Tags: global warming nuclear

Posted by: keulenae

The world of energy in 2007

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:03:43 -0000

Highlights of the energy year 2007

Tags: batteries carbon climate energy efficiency greenwash

Posted by: keulenae

Nuclear Power Worldwide: Status and Outlook

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 03:47:21 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

The IAEA makes two annual projections concerning the growth of nuclear power, a low and a high. The low projection assumes that all nuclear capacity that is currently under construction or firmly in the development pipeline gets completed and attached to the grid, but no other capacity is added. In this low projection, there would be growth in capacity from 370 GW(e) at the end of 2006 to 447 GW(e) in 2030. (A gigawatt = 1000 megawatts = 1 billion watts).

In the IAEA´s high projection - which adds in additional reasonable and promising projects and plans - global nuclear capacity is estimated to rise to 679 GW(e) in 2030. That would be an average growth rate of about 2.5%/yr.

Tags: electricity future nuclear roadmap

Posted by: keulenae

The Oil Drum: Europe | Energy: the fundamental unseriousness of Gordon Brown

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:48:22 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

The Guardian reports this morning on a private report to Gordon Brown that suggests that Britain should oppose binding target for renewable energies in Europe (20% of all energy by 2020, as agreed earlier this year at this spring's EU Summit). The Guardian flags the juicy political bits ("work with Poland and other governments sceptical about climate change to "help persuade" German chancellor Angela Merkel and others to set lower renewable targets", "a potentially significant cost in terms of reduced climate change leadership"), but also provides some of the apparent underlying reasons provided, which are worth commenting upon:

it undermines the carbon-trading scheme which "allows wealthy governments to pay others to reduce emissions";
it costs too much money (£4 billion a year to get to 9% by 2020);
it does not help push for new nuclear plants as it "reduces the incentives to invest in other carbon technologies like nuclear power";

Let's say it plainly: each of these arguments is stupid, short-sighted and, quite simply, false. Let me take you through them in turn (under the fold).

Tags: costs nuclear policy renewable.energy United

Posted by: keulenae

EUROPA - Rapid - Press Releases

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:25:10 -0000

Tags: europe nuclear technology.platform

Posted by: keulenae

Energy Outlook

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:50:22 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Any answers to these questions would be purely speculative, but if the industry had continued expanding at its previous rate, then instead of the current 104 reactors, we might easily have 200, contributing 40% of our total electricity supplies. Coal-fired power plants would supply only 32% of our power needs, instead of 50%, and we'd emit roughly 650 million tons less CO2 per year.

Tags: climate future kyoto nuclear scenario

Posted by: keulenae