Category Archives: Nuclear Power Energy

Why Nuclear Power can’t replace fossil fuels

Last updated August 2022. Preface. Economic reasons are the main hurdle to new nuclear plants now, with capital costs so high it’s almost impossible to get a loan, especially when natural gas is so much cheaper and less risky. But … Continue reading

Posted in Alternative Energy, Energy, Nuclear Power Energy, Renewable Integration | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Admiral Rickover 1957: Energy Resources & Our Future

Preface. I’ve shortened and reworded this speech. All of Admiral Rickover’s speech is prescient and important, a few paragraphs: “We live in what historians may some day call the Fossil Fuel Age. Today coal, oil, and natural gas supply 93% … Continue reading

Posted in An Overview, By People, Dependence on Oil, Energy Slaves, Limits To Growth, Military, Nuclear Waste, Other Experts, Overpopulation, Overshoot, Peak Oil | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

A third of Nuclear Reactors are going to die of old age in the next 10-20 years

70% of reactors are over 25 years old, 23% are over 35 years old, so within 10 to 20 years about a third will have to be decommissioned, far more than the 63 under construction.  Some are bound to fail … Continue reading

Posted in ! PEAK EVERYTHING, Nuclear Power Energy | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Peter Dykstra: Last Tango for Nuclear?

Dykstra, Peter.  Feb 4, 2015. Last Tango for Nuclear? energycollective. There is some promise for nuclear: Projects in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee may yield the first new nuclear plants in decades.  But these new nukes are falling behind schedule … Continue reading

Posted in Nuclear Power Energy | Comments Off on Peter Dykstra: Last Tango for Nuclear?

Renewable incentives destabilize, harm electric grid

Wald, Matthew L.   7 Oct 2014. How Grid Efficiency Went South. New York times. Summary: 1) society would be better off if homeowners faced their rooftop solar panels westward, the peak time more energy is needed, but they won’t because … Continue reading

Posted in Alternative Energy, Natural Gas, Nuclear Power Energy, Photovoltaic Solar | Comments Off on Renewable incentives destabilize, harm electric grid

Thorium in the news

[ When trucks stop running, civilization as we know it ends.  Nuclear electricity — or anything that generates electricity — doesn’t matter a rat’s ass if trucks can’t be electrified to run on batteries or overhead wires — especially tractors … Continue reading

Posted in Thorium | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Navy claims that fuel can be made from seawater

It must take more energy to break the bonds of water, extract CO2, and recombine into usable fuel than you will ever get out of fuel so produced.  We’ve known for a long time how to split hydrogen from water. … Continue reading

Posted in Far Out, Nuclear Power Energy | Tagged , | Comments Off on Navy claims that fuel can be made from seawater

David Fleming. 2007. The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy. A Life-Cycle in Trouble

This is an easy to read 56-page primer on how nuclear reactors work, how ore is mined, nuclear fuel created, why there’s likely to be a supply crunch, and much more. I’ve extracted a small part of this article  and … Continue reading

Posted in Nuclear Power Energy | 2 Comments

Michael Dittmar, Institute of Particle Physics: Peak Uranium 2015

The End of Cheap Uranium June 17, 2011. Michael Dittmar, Institute of Particle Physics,   Zurich, Switzerland Journal: Science of the Total Environment This paper concludes that “the end of the cheap uranium supply will result in a chaotic phase-out … Continue reading

Posted in Nuclear Power Energy, Peak Uranium | Comments Off on Michael Dittmar, Institute of Particle Physics: Peak Uranium 2015

Thorium: the wonder fuel that wasn’t. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Thorium: the wonder fuel that wasn’t May 11, 2014. Robert Alvarez. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “Thorium-Fueled Automobile Engine Needs Refueling Once a Century,” reads the headline of an October 2013 story in an online trade publication. This fantastic promise … Continue reading

Posted in Thorium | Comments Off on Thorium: the wonder fuel that wasn’t. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists