Free Republic

The Australian Government, the Labor Party, has recently decided to change Australian legislation to approve the sale of Australian mined Uranium to India for use in Nuclear power plants. That decision was based on the fact that India needs to lower its emissions of CO2. However, the more important decision, whether or not to use that same Uranium for Nuclear power plants here in Australia was not even discussed. The same reason, lowering emissions of CO2 should also apply here in Australia, if we have to lower our emissions by moving away from coal fired power generation. This analysis compares...

TOKYO — After 34 years, the United States is expected to resume construction of nuclear reactors by the end of the year, and Toshiba will export turbine equipment for the reactors to the U.S. early next month, it was learned Saturday. According to sources, construction will begin by year-end on the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors of the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia and the Nos. 2 and 3 reactors of the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station in South Carolina. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to shortly approve the construction and operation of the...

Kazakhstan’s international energy image is now that of one of the world’s rising oil exporters, an extraordinary feat given that, two decades ago its hydrocarbon output was beyond insignificant when the USSR collapsed. The vast Central Asian nation, larger than Western Europe, has now quietly passed another energy milestone. Kazakhstan produces 33 percent of world’s mined uranium, followed by Canada at 18 percent and Australia, with 11 percent of global output. Kazakhstan contains the world's second-largest uranium reserves, estimated at 1.5 million tons. Until two years ago Kazakhstan was the world's No. 3 uranium miner, following Australia and Canada. Together...

The good news is that on 8 November the International Energy Agency released its 2011 “World Energy Outlook.” While it will cheer nuclear advocates, overall the report makes for grim reading. Pulling no punches, the report states at the outset, “There are few signs that the urgently needed change in direction in global energy trends is underway.” Stripped of its cautious language, the IEA report essentially noted that should present trends continue, the world’s governments through a lack of progressive initiative embracing alternative energy sources would continue to rely on ‘tried and true” fossil fuels, resulting in increased pollution, more...

Berlin, Germany—For years, environmentalists in America have looked longingly to Germany. There, across the Atlantic, lay a small, cold, gray country whose solar energy production dwarfed big, sunny America’s, a nation that last year pledged to get 80 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by mid-century while Americans proved unable to agree on energy legislation even a fraction as ambitious. Yet in bowing to the country’s strong anti-nuclear movement, Germany appears to have suddenly gone off track: Within the last year the country has gone from a net exporter of energy to a net importer, and the carbon intensity...

After listening to all the responses last night to the Gentleman from Nevada asking the Candidates what they would do with Yucca Mountain, they all got it wrong IMHO.If my memory is correct, Pres. Carter signed an agreement with the Soviets in regards to Nuclear Proliferation and one of the concessions he made was not to reprocess our spent fuel from Nuclear Power Plants. This would allow to recapture unspent fuel and make pellets of it again for refueling. France does, and it maybe folklore, but I have seen it claimed all their spent fuel would fit in a closet.If...

Forty-one years ago on Sesame Street, Kermit the frog sang a plaintive song, “It’s not easy being green.” In a gesture of solidarity, perhaps he should fax the lyrics to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government is suddenly discovering the costs of weaning itself off nuclear energy. In the wake of Fukushima, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on 30 May that Germany, the world's fourth-largest economy and Europe's biggest, would become the first industrialized nation to shut down all of its 17 nuclear power plants (NPPs) between 2015 and 2022, an extraordinary commitment, given that Germany’s 17 NPPS Germany produce...

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's nuclear chief on Monday proposed to allow the U.N. nuclear watchdog "full supervision" of its nuclear activities for five years provided that sanctions against Tehran are lifted, but the official did not give details of his offer. The United Nations has imposed four rounds of Security Council sanctions over Tehran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel or materials for an atomic bomb. Iran's nuclear program is already subject to routine IAEA inspections. IAEA cameras monitor Iran's nuclear activities. including its contentious uranium enrichment sites. Vice President Fereidoun...

Solyndra, the first recipient of a loan from the Department of Energy, told us that it thinks it will produce solar panels at a price that's competitive with standard sources of energy in the next 2-3 years. "We see a clear path," says Kelly Truman, the VP of marketing, sales and business development, "and in 2-3 years we'll hit grid parity." We spoke with Truman yesterday who said the $535 million loan from the DOE will finance 73% of a new factory, though he declined to say how the company would pay for the remainder of the project. The current...

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake centered just northwest of Richmond, Va., shook much of Washington, D.C., and was felt throughout the Eastern seaboard and iron belt region of the United States. In the wake of the much more powerful Japanese earthquake of earlier this year, and its effect on the nearby Fukushima nuclear plant, this is certain to bring attention to the Virginian nuclear plant that may have been effected as well. While there are no reports yet on the integrity of the local plant, reports of the epicenter being based in Mineral, Virgina suggest that the North Anna nuclear plant...

Connecticut’s electric utilities and the state’s largest power generator cheered a federal panel’s report urging the U.S. Department of Energy to do what the state advocated for years — remove nuclear waste from Connecticut, rapidly. The federal Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future issued its draftThe dry casks storing 412 metric tons of spent uranium at the former site of Connecticut Yankee in Haddam. report on July 29, addressing the problem of storing uranium once nuclear reactors finish with it. The report is a precursor to a final report in January, and the commission is accepting comments through October....

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- A pair of gunmen firing from motorcycles killed an Iranian physicist involved in the country's disputed nuclear program on Saturday in an attack similar to other recent assassinations of scientists that Tehran blamed on the U.S. and Israel. The slaying is sure to add to tension with the West, as Iran moves ahead with an atomic program that four rounds of U.N. sanctions have failed to slow.

A federal judge said Monday he would not order that Vermont's only nuclear plant be allowed to remain open while a lawsuit to determine its long-term future plays out. The state is moving to close the Vermont Yankee plant, with both the governor and the state Senate on record as wanting it to close when its initial 40-year license expires next March. The plant's owner, New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., got a 20-year license extension for Vermont Yankee from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and filed a lawsuit arguing that the federal action pre-empts the state's effort to close the plant....

A nuclear power station in eastern Scotland had to shut down its reactors after "high volumes" of jellyfish were found on its seawater filter screens, the operating company said Thursday. "Both units at Torness power station were manually shut down on 28 June, due to the high volumes of jelly fish fouling the cooling water screens," said a statement from EDF Energy, which runs the power station near Dunbar. It explained that the shutdown was purely a precautionary measure and insisted that "at no time was there a danger to the public", nor had there been any impact on the...

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. — Attorneys and witnesses have wrapped up the first day of a two-day hearing before a federal judge in Vermont over whether the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant can continue to operate while a protracted legal fight plays out over its future. Entergy witnesses told lawyers that if the plant is forced to shut temporarily, it will lose about $20 million a month in revenue and may shut down permanently rather than wait for the legal fight to be resolved. Entergy lawyer Kathleen Sullivan said Vermont lawmakers tried to hide that they had nuclear safety in mind when they...

Fukushima nuclear crisis pushing up prices of liquefied natural gas The crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has created a domino effect that is fueling price rises for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and causing friction between importers and exporters. The rapid economic growth of China and India had already been pushing up LNG prices on the international market. But moves in Europe away from nuclear power in light of the Fukushima disaster are lifting the prices even higher. The short-term trading price of LNG imported by Japan has more than tripled over the past two years. The...

A good piece on what Fukushima means for the global-warming crowd Published: Wednesday, June 22, 2011, 1:32 PM Updated: Wednesday, June 22, 2011, 1:55 PM By Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger It's here on the freakonomics blog. What I like about this crowd is that they follow the data wherever it leads them. In this forum on the aftermath of Fukushima, it leads to the conclusion by most of the experts that the abandonment of nuclear power will mean a lot more carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere. The first comment gives a good analysis: /snip These guys don't proceed to...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As record floodwaters along the Missouri River drench homes and businesses, concerns have grown about keeping a couple of notable structures dry: two riverside nuclear power plants in Nebraska. Though the plants have declared “unusual events,” the lowest level in the emergency taxonomy used by federal nuclear regulators, both were designed to withstand this level of flooding, and neither is viewed as being at risk for a disaster, said a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “We think they’ve taken all the necessary precautions and made the appropriate arrangements to deal with the flooding conditions,” said...

LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. – Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. ***[Snip 12 paras]*** Commercial nuclear reactors in the United States were designed and licensed for 40 years. When the first ones were being built in the 1960s and 1970s, it was expected that they would be replaced with improved models long before those licenses expired. But that never happened. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island,...

Officials at the Omaha Public Power District say there have been no releases of radioactive material since flooding from the Missouri River caused them to declare a low-level emergency June 6 at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant. The emergency level, declared as "a notification of an unusual event," is the lowest possible of four standard emergency classifications set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and, as of now, there has been no risk to the public. Officials say they have sandbagged the area surrounding the plant to a level greater than what the projected water levels will reach, and...