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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 breeder, nuclear
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
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
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
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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
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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
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 fuel from seawater, navy
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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
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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
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