Looking at the Future
(The future looks upbeat for nuclear energy.)
Another WISE Summer
At Nuke Power Talk, Gail Marcus describes how engineering societies have co-sponsored an internship program in Washington, DC. This program introduces engineering majors to public policy considerations. Some of the past participants have found that the program profoundly influenced their career directions. This blog post describes some of the topics in this year's program. The program has been running since 1980, and Marcus has been involved with it, one way or another, since the beginning. Though next summer may seem far away, engineering students might make a note of this internship program as a possibility for next summer.
At Neutron Bytes, Dan Yurman describes an innovative partnership. Tiny X-Energy, a start-up, has teamed with one of America’s biggest nuclear utilities, Southern Co., to collaborate on the development and commercialization of the design of a high temperature gas-cooled reactor.
Russia's sodium lead cooled fast nuclear reactors
At Next Big Future, Brian Wang describes how Russia has reached two more milestones in its endeavor to close the nuclear fuel cycle. First, Mashinostroitelny Zavod (MSZ) - part of Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer TVEL - has completed acceptance tests of components for its ETVS-14 and ETVS-15 experimental fuel assemblies for one type of reactor. In the second milestone, the company has begun work on the "absorbent element" of the core of the another type of reactor.Russia's sodium lead cooled fast nuclear reactors
Until coal, oil and natural gas are eliminated from power and transportation usage any argument about solar versus nuclear is meaningless
At Next Big Future, Brian Wang describes how coal and oil continue to dominate world energy use. Therefore, plans and arguments about replacing nuclear with solar are--not very relevant.
At Yes Vermont Yankee, Meredith Angwin compares the costs of New York State's Clean Energy Standard program with Vermont's Efficiency Vermont program. Clean energy standards are cheaper per capita and more important than efficiency improvements. New York's surcharges are smaller and protect everyone's air. Vermont's surcharges are bigger, and help only a few.
At Northwest Clean Energy, John Dobken announces that Energy Northwest will receive Washington State funding for an innovative solar project, including a technician training facility in Richland, WA.
Energy Northwest is home to only clean-energy resources, the largest of which is Columbia Generating Station. The company also has hydro, wind and solar projects.
Looking at Other Strategies, World-Wide
(Trigger warning. Some of this is unpleasant.)
At Forbes, James Conca usually writes about energy issues. In this post, he notes that the Obama Administration is thinking about adopting a No First Use policy for nuclear weapons, in which the U.S. would declare that we will never be the first to use nuclear weapons in any conflict, under any circumstances. Our current, less restrictive policy, is known as calculated ambiguity. This has worked for 60 years, and no one knows if changing this would be good or bad.
At Forbes, Rod Adams writes about recent articles and documentaries from Al Jazeera. The documentary basically attempts to convince its audience that fear of nuclear energy is well-justified, and that keeping reactors closed is a proper response to the Japanese events of five years ago. Adams notes that Al Jazeera is a media empire that is owned by the government of Qatar, one of the world’s largest LNG exporters. During the five years since the Fukushima accident, Japan has been the world’s largest and most lucrative market for LNG. Japan has burning LNG to produce electricity, instead of operating the 50 nuclear power plants that were not damaged by the accident.
