Nuclear utilities cry that the market is stacked against them. Maybe it’s that nukes are just too expensive? What they want is a system that is stacked for nuclear power–that would be a system stacked against ratepayers. This is an issue that will grow in importance this year and next as some utilities fight to…
Nuclear News Civil Society Institute adds to nukes/climate debate at Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: The renewable energy transition has begun. Dr. James Hansen’s et.al. November 3 letter to environmentalists urging us to support “safer” nuclear power as a climate strategy, and the NIRS/Civil Society Institute January 8 reply is beginning to get attention from broader…
Important new post on GreenWorld. Japanese scientists/diplomat respond to Dr. Hansen et al: Nuclear power is not the answer to climate change mitigation.
Civil Society Institute (CSI): The Renewable Energy Transition Has Begun. Reply in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to an article in support of nuclear as a climate change strategy, which itself was a response to Hansen et al letter and NIRS/CSI grassroots statement in opposition to nuclear.
The National Journal claims, without much in the way of evidence, that former NRC Chair Greg Jaczko is “persona non grata” on Capitol Hill and to the nuclear industry. On one level, that’s what happens when one speaks the truth. It might have been better if Jaczko had been even more aggressive when he was…
Missed this last week, sorry I did. Excellent op-ed from veteran energy journalist Ken Maize: Let the Vogtle DOE Loan Vanish. Completely dismantles, from a free-market perspective, any argument that the proposed $8.3 Billion taxpayer loan for construction of the two Vogtle reactors in Georgia makes any sense at all. Also correctly notes that this…
The question of exactly why South Carolina’s largest utility SCANA has embarked on building two new reactors at its Summer site has been rather hazy from the beginning, and SCANA partially covered itself by corralling partners like the Santee-Cooper co-op to take large shares of the second reactor. But Santee saw construction prices rise and…
Can clean energy replace the shuttered San Onofre reactors in California? Why yes, it can. But it won’t happen automatically: the utilities that owned the reactors may not like the idea of so much rooftop solar they don’t control; they’d rather have new natural gas plants. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) once again plays…
This article is pretty skimpy on information, but this can’t possibly go well: it seems that Iran, France & Argentina are teaming up to encourage construction of a new reactor in Bolivia. If true, we guess France isn’t really all that worried about Iran’s nuclear programs…. EcoWatch: Japanese cooperatives collaborate to help monitor Fukushima radiation…
Nuclear “renaissance” in Indiana lasts less than 2 weeks; Senator withdraws bill to encourage new nukes. The chair of the state’s Senate Utilities Committee, James Merritt (R-Indianapolis), introduced a bill that would have put Indiana on par with Georgia and South Carolina by requiring ratepayers to pay in advance for any nuclear reactor a utility…