Search Results for: nuclear

Aging nuclear power plants should be shut down

Preface. Below are my notes from the Greenpeace 146-page “Lifetime extension of ageing nuclear power plants”.  Even if you don’t understand all the terms, read on anyhow, since it certainly conveys why nuclear plants grow more dangerous with age.  Imagine … Continue reading

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How safe and cheap are Gen IV Advanced Nuclear Reactors?

Preface. Peak conventional oil, which supplies over 95% of our oil, may have peaked in 2008 (IEA 2018) or 2018 (EIA 2020). We are running out of time. And is it really worth building these small modular reactors (SMR) given … Continue reading

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Disposal of nuclear waste in municipal landfills

Preface. The pandemic is probably going to enable a lot of bad legislation to be snuck in while attention is focused elsewhere. This proposal is for low-level waste in landfills. But the big problem is that nothing at all is … Continue reading

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Nuclear winter could kill 2 to 5 billion people

Preface. Carl Sagan introduced the idea of a “nuclear winter”, which helped to end the cold war.  The smoke from fires started by bombs would absorb so much sun the earth wold grow cold, dry, and dark, killing plants on … Continue reading

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Nuclear powered airplanes, cars, and tanks

Preface. If trucks, tractors, ships, locomotives, and airplanes can’t run on electricity or the electric grid stay up without natural gas to balance wind & solar (see When Trucks Stop Running), if cement and steel and other products requiring the … Continue reading

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The U.S. May Soon Have the World’s Oldest Nuclear Power Plants

Preface. This is nuts. Sea level rise threatens many nuclear power plants and drought has shut plants down since they need cooling to operate. As nuclear reactor age, they require more intensive monitoring and preventive maintenance to operate safely. But … Continue reading

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High-level nuclear waste storage degrades faster than thought

Preface. Burying nuclear waste ought to be a top priority, now that it appears peak oil may have happened in November of 2018 (Patterson 2019) and perhaps even sooner if covid-19 crashes the world economy (Tverberg 2020). It won’t happen … Continue reading

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Nuclear waste will last a lot longer than climate change

Preface. One of the most tragic aspects of peak oil is that it is very unlikely once energy descent begins that oil will be expended to clean up our nuclear mess. No one wants the spent fuel! New Mexico is … Continue reading

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Nuclear Power problems

Preface.  There are half a dozen articles below. Although safety and disposal of nuclear waste ought to be the main reasons why no more plants should be built, what actually stops them today are the high costs: it can take … Continue reading

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Wind, solar, and natural gas are driving nuclear power out of business

Preface. I’m no fan of nuclear power because we may already be at peak uranium, there’s nowhere to store nuclear waste, and a spent nuclear pool fire could harm millions of people. But renewable wind and solar and natural gas … Continue reading

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