Green World Blog
News, views & musings for our nuclear-free, carbon-free future
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Three Exelon nuke sites fail to clear PJM auction….bye, bye Quad Cities?
Bye, bye, Quad Cities. The site’s failure to clear the PJM capacity auction is likely to presage its permanent shutdown. And that can’t come too soon for these aging Fukushima-clone reactors. Exelon’s troubled nuclear fleet ran into still more trouble Friday, when three of its nuclear sites–totaling four reactors–failed to clear the PJM capacity auction…
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The archaic nature of baseload power–or why electricity will become like long-distance.
The old grid, beholden to massive, polluting baseload power plants, is being replaced by a nimbler, high-tech 21st century system oriented toward variable renewable energy. There are no shortage of skeptics out there, even some among environmentalists and clean energy advocates, who are unconvinced that renewable energy can ever be the dominant–perhaps even sole–source of…
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EPA took nuclear out of the Clean Power Plan
Thousands joined the nuclear-free, carbon-free contingent at last September’s People’s Climate March in New York City. The unexpectedly large turnout–followed by tens of thousands of comments and petitions to the EPA–helped open the agency’s eyes to first understand our position and then realize it made a lot of sense. Yesterday, an amazing thing happened. Yes,…
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Vogtle: at $65 billion and counting, it’s a case study of nuclear power’s staggeringly awful economics
Vogtle Units 3 (left) and 4, July 30, 2015. After 41 months of construction, the project is 39 months behind schedule. Photo by High Flyer, special to Savannah River Site Watch. Georgia is one state that you would think would be wary of nuclear power economics. The first two reactors at Georgia Power’s Vogtle site,…
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Former Exelon CEO says Exelon should shut those reactors
Current Exelon executives put their fingers in their ears when former Exelon CEO John Rowe (above) speaks. Exelon executives must feel like former Exelon CEO John Rowe is kind of like the crazy uncle who has to be invited to the party even though whenever he opens his mouth to speak the entire room will…
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80 years? Not very likely.
The bathtub curve for aging reactors, developed by David Lochbaum of Union of Concerned Scientists. Most U.S. reactors are already in the right side of the tub, with both costs and safety risks increasing. Last week, CNBC ran a story sure to elevate the blood pressure of clean energy activists everywhere: No more nukes? How…
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Obama nominates former Exelon official/DOE safety advocate to NRC
The NRC’s logo. Some might question the agency’s commitment to its tag line. President Obama has nominated a Bush-era DOE official, Jessie Roberson, to fill the final seat on the five member Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Roberson also worked for Exelon, the largest nuclear utility in the U.S., from 2004-2006, as Director of Nuclear Regulatory Programs.…
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There’s a trend here.
This trend is clear: Solar and wind are already cheaper than coal and will become more so; and will beat out natural gas as well. Nuclear is so expensive it’s off the chart. Chart from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Every day I take an hour or two to scan dozens of articles from across the…
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The nuclear industry is still lobbying for a bailout in EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Maybe you should be lobbying too.
As we reported in June, the EIA found that nuclear power wouldn’t help reduce carbon emissions at all under the Clean Power Plan. Instead, it would just inhibit solar deployment. So there’s no rational reason for the EPA to support it. The final language of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) is supposed to be…
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Too cheap to meter? Not nuclear–solar!
The nuclear power industry certainly rues the day the concept that atomic electricity would be “too cheap to meter” entered the public’s mind. The phrase has become inextricably linked with nuclear power, but not in the way its creators envisioned: instead of as a success story, it has become a symbol of nuclear power’s economic…
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