nuclear-news

Opinion:

¶ “Why Used Electric Car Batteries Could Be Crucial To A Clean Energy Future” • Major EV makers are examining the values of used EV batteries when they no longer meet the strict standards for powering cars. This potential second life for EV batteries is a clean energy game changer. [ThinkProgress]

Used Chevy Volt batteries help a new GM IT building
use solar and wind power. Via GM

¶ “Physicist claims Hinkley Point deal means UK taxpayer could get £53 billion bill to supply cheap nuclear energy to France” • Professor Barnham, of Imperial College London, claims the Hinkley Point deal means UK taxpayer could get £53 billion bill to supply cheap power to France. [The Independent]

Science and Technology:

¶ A group of scientists led by the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the University of Colorado-Boulder has developed a new…

From Hanford.gov with our comments in brackets:

“Transuranic Waste Retrieval and Certification
Transuranic waste consists of waste that is contaminated with man-made radioactive elements which are heavier than uranium (meaning the elements have higher atomic numbers than uranium on the Periodic Table of the Elements)” [i.e. plutonium, americium, etc.] “Because they come after uranium on the periodic table, they are referred to as “transuranic”. The concentration of these transuranic elements in the waste determines whether it is transuranic (TRU) waste or low-level waste“. [Note that it is concentration rather than how long-lived and dangerous.]

“More than 70,000 containers of this waste (sometimes referred to as suspect TRU waste) were stored under a layer of dirt in the in the 1970s and 1980s, in the 200 Area Low-Level Burial Grounds of the Hanford Site. The intention was to retrieve the waste (which is why sometimes…

Many thanks to Sam for this eyeopening Guest Blog…..

Map Reading and Madness at the Drigg Nuclear Waste Dump

Guest Blog by Sam – the newest member of Radiation Free Lakeland

When you get off the train at Drigg you can’t miss the waste dump.   The fence runs right along by the platform and then on for another 1.7 km alongside the railway line. At intervals there are signs on the fence that say it is a nuclear licenced facility. The fence is green as I remember and has that spiralling wire rolled along the top. There is another fence inside this fence and a roadway in between them that a patrolling vehicle drives around. There are some scrabbling holes where rabbits have tried to dig their way in but have not succeeded as the fence goes down into the ground. However there are some specially made small gaps in…

Science and Technology:

¶ “After the Pacific Ocean swallows villages and five Solomon Islands, a study blames climate change” • In a recent paper in the journal Environmental Research Letters, scientists link destructive sea level rise to anthropogenic, meaning human-caused, climate change. [Washington Post]

Village in the Solomon Islands. Photo taken by Irene Scott for AusAID. CC BY-SA 2.0 generic. Wikimedia Commons.

Opinion:

¶ “Does nuclear help the integration of renewables?” • French nuclear power does not facilitate the integration of wind and solar in neighboring countries. Rather, it clogs the grid and reduces flexibility. By contrast, Germany typically exports power just as demand peaks. [Renewables International]

World:

¶ Wildfires raging through Alberta are set to move away from the main oil-sands facilities north of Fort McMurray after knocking out an estimated 1 million barrels of production. A cold front scheduled to pass through the…