Green World Blog
News, views & musings for our nuclear-free, carbon-free future
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Still more ratepayer bailouts needed, says Entergy exec
“I’ve made it clear FitzPatrick [pictured here, from NRC] has been a marginal unit for a while,” he said. “We’re really counting on some positive changes in market design to be able to continue to run it,” says Entergy exec William Mohl.The nuclear power industry increasingly reminds one of nothing so much as the spoiled…
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Don’t Nuke the Climate! The launch of a new campaign.
Today, seven international clean energy organizations launched a major new campaign aimed at keeping nuclear power out–as in completely out–of all negotiations at the upcoming COP 21 climate talks in Paris in December. The seven initiating groups are NIRS, WISE, Sortir du Nucleaire, Ecodefense, Global 2000, WECF, and Germany’s Burgerinitiative Umweltschutz. The logos of each…
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UBS: Solar will be the default technology, and will replace nukes and coal
Global solar growth as projected by UBS. Solar has barely even begun its growth spurt… A key factor in our belief that a nuclear-free, carbon-free energy system is not only inevitable but will be here sooner than nearly everyone currently believes, is not just the factual evidence of its mind-boggling, rocketing growth. Renewables are growing…
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Keeping up with the polls…
Graphic from Yale Project on Climate Change Communications. We’ve pointed it out here before, but it bears saying again: Americans love renewable energy. There’s just no ifs, ands or buts about it. The map above from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communications, which breaks down support for renewable energy at the county level, shows…
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New EIA analysis shows nukes don’t help reduce carbon emissions under EPA’s Clean Power Plan
The Environmental Protection Agency has not yet released the final version of its Clean Power Plan (CPP), but reportedly has sent it to the White House for final review and the public release is expected in August. But the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), which typically has vastly underestimated and under-projected the growth…
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Checking in on the energy transition–in the U.S.
In Germany it’s called the Energiewende–the energy transition. It’s a deliberate decision to move away from nuclear power and fossil fuels in favor of renewables and energy efficiency. And it’s working. Renewables are skyrocketing, nuclear reactors have closed and more shutdowns are on the way, and coal use is declining too, despite the misleading claims…
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NRC caves on foreign ownership (and why you shouldn’t expect it to value human life like other federal agencies)
The NRC Commissioners voted unanimously earlier this month to adopt its staff recommendation that the agency’s rules be changed to allow a “graded approach” on meeting the Atomic Energy Act’s prohibition on foreign ownership, control, or domination of U.S. nuclear reactors. This cave-in to the nuclear power wasn’t entirely unexpected (I wrote about it months…
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Electric rate fantasies: who subsidizes who?
Scott Sklar, former head of the Solar Electric Industries Association and now the principal of The Stella Group, is one of America’s most knowledgeable and outspoken proponents of solar power, and has been for decades. In this piece, first posted (but with a somewhat garbled ending) on RenewableEnergyWorld.com, he takes on the false notion that…
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The accelerating decline of French nuclear power
The containment dome at Flamanville-3 has been installed. It would be exceedingly difficult and costly to replace the bottom head of the reactor pressure vessel installed here. For most people with any interest in energy issues, France is synonymous with nuclear power. With 78% of its electricity generated by the atom, it is by far…
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Redacted DOE report gives details on MOX boondoogle
The Savannah River Site, with the unfinished MOX facility in the right foreground. In the background is Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear complex, where two reactors are operating and two new reactors are under construction. With the likely demise of the MOX project, their power won’t be needed at SRS. Photo by High Flyer, special to SRS…
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