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Friends of the Earth are right about the prohibitive costs of building nuclear reacrtors

Nuclear developers stumble over technology and financing  Project delays and the Fukushima disaster have dented the appeal of atomic power, FT.COM  by: Andrew Ward, Energy Editor, 23 May 17,

Olkiluoto island on the west coast of Finland is a showcase for the best and the worst of nuclear power…..

Construction started in 2005 on a third reactor at Olkiluoto which was supposed to come on line in 2009 at a cost of €3.2bn. More than a decade later, the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) being built by Areva of France is still at least a year from completion and almost three times over-budget at €8.5bn. The project has become an emblem of the technical and financial difficulties involved in building nuclear reactors — particularly since the 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima power plant laid bare the unique risks of the technology. Increasing safety requirements since Fukushima have been pushing up the cost of nuclear power as rapidly as those of alternative technologies, such as wind and solar, have been falling. Simon Bullock of the environmental group Friends of the Earth says nuclear power is a “stumbling, inflexible dinosaur” being overtaken by “fleet-footed mammals” in the forms of renewable energy and battery storage.

There is no shortage of evidence to support Mr Bullock’s view. Project delays such as the one at Olkiluoto have forced the French government to engineer a €5bn bailout of Areva, while Japan’s Toshiba has been plunged into financial crisis by heavy losses at its Westinghouse nuclear division. Some of the world’s biggest economies, meanwhile, are shifting decisively away from nuclear. Germany has been closing its reactors since Fukushima and most of those in Japan remain shut six years after the disaster.

With more than half the 450 operational reactors around the world over 30 years old and nearing the end of their planned lifespans, the industry faces a battle to persuade countries either to renew reactor fleets or adopt nuclear for the first time……

……..the economic case for investment in nuclear risks being undercut by rising imports of subsidised wind power from Sweden and Denmark. This has reduced the price of electricity in the Nordic market to a typical range of €25-€30 per megawatt hour, compared with €55 in 2010……https://www.ft.com/content/a4402d18-3567-11e7-99bd-13beb0903fa3

May 24, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Timed to end subsidies to money-losing nuclear power plants

Why nuclear power subsidies must end http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/22/nuclear-power-subsidies-must-end/  Government bailouts stick consumers with the bill  By William F. Shughart II – May 22, 2017  Should utility bills and taxes be used to subsidize money-losing nuclear power plants so they can compete with renewable energy and low-cost natural gas?

New York and Illinois, bowing to pressure from a powerful nuclear utility, believe the answer is yes. Several other states, including Connecticut, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania, may follow suit, arguing that the subsidies will save nuclear power-plant jobs and help electric utilities meet environmental mandates to reduce carbon emissions.

That’s just one side of the story. The other side is this: The bailouts (subsidies by another name) reward poor management and bad judgment and would cost homeowners and businesses billions.

 New York and Illinois already have bought into the dubious bailout scheme, which is being pushed by Chicago-based Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear utility. Exelon’s plants have been losing money owing to competition from cheap natural gas and wind power. Without the financial aid, Exelon says, the plants won’t be able to operate at a profit and will have to be closed.

So close them; rather than shelling out as much as $10 billion in subsidies, close the plants and shift to natural gas.

I can’t help seeing the similarity between the Exelon bailout and what happened following the deregulation of electricity in the 1990s, when states allowed utilities to charge higher rates to cover some of the costs of “stranded assets” — capital investments made in a regulated environment that were no longer worthwhile in a competitive environment.

Propping up the utilities was wrong then and it’s wrong now.

There’s no point in preventing the shutdown of nuclear plants, since the claim that they’re needed for carbon mitigation is dubious at best. Thanks to the shale revolution, which has produced an abundance of low-cost, clean-burning natural gas, carbon emissions from electric power plants have been plummeting as gas-fired plants replace coal-burning facilities.

Moreover, while gas prices are likely to stay low, the operating costs of nuclear plants are almost certain to rise in the years ahead. Southern California Edison closed its San Onofre nuclear plant after deciding it would not be worthwhile replacing steam generators that cost more than $600 million. Duke Power shuttered its Crystal River plant in Florida for much the same reason.

Since 2015, six nuclear plants have been closed, utilities have announced plans to shut down another eight, and still others may face early retirement. We should allow that to happen in an orderly, businesslike fashion.

May 24, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

President of an energy firm named as new nuclear commissioner in USA

Former Midlands mayor named to federal nuclear boar  http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article152085072.html  BY BRISTOW MARCHANT, bmarchant@thestate.com, 23 may 17 A South Carolinian has been asked to serve on the federal body that oversees America’s nuclear power plants.

President Donald Trump has reportedly named David Wright of Columbia to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to a report by WIS TV.

Wright will serve the remainder of an open five-year term, until 2020. He is a a former member of the S.C. State House and served as the mayor of Irmo.

He is currently the president of an energy sector consulting firm, Wright Directions LLC. Wright was previously chairman of South Carolina’s Public Service Commission. He also served as president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and as national chairman of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition.

He was awarded the Order of the Palmetto in 1996 Bristow Marchant: 803-771-8405, @BristowatHome, @BuzzAtTheState

May 24, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

UK’s nuclear weapons in Scottish waters – a controversial question

The nuclear question on the Clyde, By Nick Eardley, BBC Scotland political correspondent, 23 May 2017 

On the banks of the Clyde, some of the most powerful weapons mankind has ever known are based at Faslane Naval Base.

The UK Parliament has backed renewing the Trident missile system. Ministers in London have said they have no alternative to Faslane – the weapons are staying in Scotland.

But that’s controversial. The Scottish government wants nuclear weapons moved from Scottish waters. And when the House of Commons voted on renewal, all but one of the MPs representing Scottish seats opposed……http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-40012838#

May 24, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Call to Amazon boss: don’t be sucked in by the nuclear industry

Open Letter to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos About Ohio’s Dead Nukes http://progressive.org/dispatches/open-letter-to-amazon%E2%80%99s-jeff-bezos-about-ohio%E2%80%99s-dead-nukes/ by Harvey Wasserman

Dear Mr. Bezos, ear Mr. Bezos,

You have recently received some radioactive junk mail promoting the idea that your company, Amazon, should financially support Perry and Davis-Besse, the two financially dead atomic reactors in northern Ohio. It was a letter from “pro-nuke environmentalists,” the ultimate oxymoron in a world moving toward safe renewables, a transition embraced by your company’s wise commitment to go 100 percent renewable.

The nuclear advocates want you and your high-tech cohorts at Google, Apple, and Tesla to buy reactor-generated electricity at above-market prices so uninsured, competitively dead reactors at Perry and Davis-Besse can still dangerously operate.

Asking you to subsidize nukes is like asking you to bet your company on rotary dial telephones and new landline networks; to build more Edsels, Corvairs, and Pintos; to embrace thalidomide for pregnant women; to mass-produce buggy whips; and to convert your Internet business to a stand-alone fleet of small brick-and-mortar five and dimes.

As a long-time Ohioan, I’ve watched our “mistakes-by-the-lake” nuclear power plants spew unmitigated financial, ecological, and safety disaster. They’ve crippled Ohio’s economy and now could totally bury it.

Their owner, FirstEnergy, is on the brink of bankruptcy. In an obscene 1999 campaign, the company’s ancestors hustled Ohio legislators and regulators for a $9 billion bailout so these even-then-obsolete reactors could “compete” in a deregulated market. Now FirstEnergy wants another $300 million per year to subsidize nukes that still can’t compete with wind, solar, or gas.

The nuclear industry whines about renewables subsidies but hides its own, including public liability for reactors that can’t get private coverage. The public—including you and Amazon—will pay for the next reactor disaster.

Meanwhile, Germany (with the world’s fourth-largest economy) enjoys an “energiewende” that’s shutting all its nukes and converting to renewables. By leaping into the Solartopian Revolution, Germany is moving rapidly toward a stabilized energy supply based entirely on sustainable, Earth-based sources. So will Amazon as it converts to 100 percent actual renewables while totally avoiding any involvement with nuke power.

Switzerland has just voted to go a parallel route, with a referendum confirming its transition to a post-nuclear, 100 percent renewable economy.

California (with the world’s sixth-largest economy) is shutting its last two nukes at Diablo Canyon. State, utility, union, and actual environmental negotiators agreed to a “retain and retrain” program for plant workers and support for communities losing tax revenues. Many of us want Diablo to shut NOW, but all green advocates agree 100 percent of its output can be replaced with renewables.

The same is true for the Perry and Davis-Besse reactors. The winds in Lake Erie are uniquely powerful. Northern Ohio’s flat, breezy terrain hosts a fine transmission network, good access to urban markets, and communities that want the jobs and income turbines can provide. In response, FirstEnergy has worked to stop green energy wherever possible.

eanwhile, Germany (with the world’s fourth-largest economy) enjoys an “energiewende” that’s shutting all its nukes and converting to renewables. By leaping into the Solartopian Revolution, Germany is moving rapidly toward a stabilized energy supply based entirely on sustainable, Earth-based sources. So will Amazon as it converts to 100 percent actual renewables while totally avoiding any involvement with nuke power.

Switzerland has just voted to go a parallel route, with a referendum confirming its transition to a post-nuclear, 100 percent renewable economy.

California (with the world’s sixth-largest economy) is shutting its last two nukes at Diablo Canyon. State, utility, union, and actual environmental negotiators agreed to a “retain and retrain” program for plant workers and support for communities losing tax revenues. Many of us want Diablo to shut NOW, but all green advocates agree 100 percent of its output can be replaced with renewables.

The same is true for the Perry and Davis-Besse reactors. The winds in Lake Erie are uniquely powerful. Northern Ohio’s flat, breezy terrain hosts a fine transmission network, good access to urban markets, and communities that want the jobs and income turbines can provide. In response, FirstEnergy has worked to stop green energy wherever possible.

erry was damaged by an earthquake in 1986, prior to its opening. A top-level state commission concluded that the region cannot be evacuated in a nuclear disaster, prompting then-Governor Richard Celeste to withdraw state approval of Perry’s evacuation plans.

Davis-Besse is a Three Mile Island clone infamous worldwide for a boric acid leak that nearly caused Chernobyl/Fukushima-scale devastation to our precious Great Lakes.

Now thirty-nine years old, Davis-Besse’s shield building is crumbling and its innards are embrittled.

The idea that these reactors are “zero-carbon” is fiction. All spew radioactive hot water and steam into the ecosphere. Nuke fuel production emits carbon.

The latest Hanford nuke tunnel collapse, and the 2014 explosion at New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Project, confirm the impossibility of radwaste management. The price tag for Nevada’s proposed Yucca Mountain dump was estimated at $96 billion in 2008. Based on decades of industry experience, that number could end up being much larger.

Thus the hugely radioactive fuel rods and other radwaste produced at Perry and Davis-Besse are likely to sit on site forever—-certainly long after FirstEnergy disappears into bankruptcy protection.

But if you continue Amazon’s path to 100 percent real renewables, and don’t buy above-market electricity from competitively dead reactors, you’ll do fine.

Good luck on your Solartopian conversion, and No Nukes in Ohio, or anywhere on this Earth.

Harvey Wasserman’s Solartopia! Our Green Powered Earth is available at www.solartopia.org.

May 24, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Chinese nuclear company keen to rescue troubled Cumbrian NuGen nuclear plant

NuGen takeover: Chinese power giant heads to London to discuss nuclear rescue package,  http://www.cityam.com/265098/nugen-takeover-chinese-power-giant-heads-london-discuss Oliver Gill, 21 May 17, A Chinese state-backed suitor is circling Toshiba’s troubled Cumbrian NuGen nuclear plant, according to reports.

A delegation of executives from State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) is due in London this week. They will meet with representatives from NuGen and the Nuclear Industry Association on Tuesday, the Sunday Times reported.

Interest from China could test Prime Minister Theresa May‘s resolve over concerns about foreign takeovers of Britain’s energy, defence and telecoms firms.

Another state-backed operator, China General Nuclear, has 33 per cent stake in the £18bn Hinkley Point nuclear project. Last year, May demanded the government be given a “golden share” in the project. This would give them a right of veto over any future sale.

One of May’s key political advisers, Nick Timothy, has previously said Chinese investment into nuclear power was a threat to UK national security.

The NuGen plant was put up for sale after Toshiba took huge losses from overruns and delays in its reactor business Westinghouse. Although the division’s key problems were in the US and Japan, Toshiba has mothballed its NuGen operations until a new owner can be found.

May 22, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

India’s nuclear power plans – obsolete, dangerous and ultra-costly

Don’t go for pricey foreign N-power plants when solar’s going dirt-cheap, Times of India, May 21, 2017,  SA Aiyar in Swaminomics | India, World | TOI Forget the Bush-Manmohan Singh vision of a nuclear power renaissance. Recent developments — cheap solar power plus the bankruptcy of Westinghouse — call for a total overhaul of nuclear plans that now look obsolete, dangerous and ultra-costly.

I say this as one who solidly supported the Bush-Manmohan deal in 2005. That deal lifted sanctions against India, and provided access to imported uranium and nuclear technology. In return, the US, France, Japan and Russia were to build six nuclear plants each in India, reviving their flagging equipment industries.

In 2005, the nuclear industry expected a boom following global concerns on greenhouse gases. Nuclear power then was costlier than coal-based power but much cheaper than solar. With many nations going big on nuclear, scale economies plus third-generation technology promised to make nuclear power as cheap as thermal power, minus the carbon.

Then came the Fukushima disaster in Japan. This highlighted the nuclear power risks. It led to the closure of old nuclear plants and cancellation of new ones across the world. The disappearance of mass orders killed scale economies for equipment, while new safety concerns led to expensive re-design…….

the price of solar power keeps falling, and could halve again. New N-plants could take 8-10 years to build, by which time solar power may cost just Rs 1.50/unit, and storage costs may fall below Rs 1/unit. It is crazy to build nuclear plants producing power several times costlier. The solar revolution means that, a decade hence, other forms of power will be needed mainly for peak evening demand. Nuclear power is totally unsuitable for peaking.

Now, the nuclear deal implicitly obliged India to buy nuclear plants from the four foreign powers. But at the time, these were supposed to be competitive with thermal power. That’s now a pipedream.

To avoid gargantuan financial losses, India needs to exit these foreign deals if at all possible. Diplomacy mandates that India cannot renege simply because solar power has become cheap. But India can demand that suppliers stick to the original idea of thermal price parity. If they cannot — as is the case — India should politely excuse itself, saying it can live up to its side of the implicit deal only if foreign suppliers live up to theirs.

General Electric of the US has anyway opted out of Indian nuclear plants, saying Indian liability limits for accidents are insufficient. If Westinghouse finds no buyer, or a non-Japanese buyer, India can scrap that deal. For Areva and future Russian plants, India should insist on thermal price equivalence, even if it sinks those deals………. http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Swaminomics/dont-go-for-pricey-foreign-n-power-plants-when-solars-going-dirt-cheap/

May 22, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Renewable energy has become unstoppable

FT 18th May 2017, After years of hype and false starts, the shift to clean power has begun to accelerate at a pace that hastaken the most experienced experts by surprise. Even leaders in the oil and gas sector have been forced to confront an existential question: will the 21st century be the last one for fossil fuels?

It is early, but the evidence is mounting. Wind and solar parks are being built at unprecedented rates, threatening the business models of established power companies. Electric cars that were hard to even buy eight years ago are selling at an exponential rate, in the process driving down the price of batteries that hold the key to unleashing new levels of green growth.

There is another reason some energy industry watchers expect the green power sector to accelerate: the more costs fall and technologies improve, the less it needs conventional subsidies.  https://www.ft.com/content/44ed7e90-3960-11e7-ac89-b01cc67cfeec

May 20, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

The hypocrisy of owning nuclear weapons

 Jordan Times, Jonathan Power, May 18,2017 During the French presidential election, no candidate talked about France’s nuclear weapons.

In Britain, the subject has been raised in its election in an attempt to undermine the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn.But the long-time anti-bomb activist compromised his views, saying in effect he was against them but Labour Party policy was for them.

Meanwhile, the Western nations worry and rage about North Korea’s nuclear weapons development.

There is a lack of principle and honesty as well as an overdose of self-delusion as to their effectiveness as a deterrent in this whole bomb game.

We were standing in Hiroshima looking at a stone wall. All there was to see was the shadow of a man. It had been etched into the wall at the moment of his obliteration by the blinding light of the first atomic bomb.

Olof Palme, then prime minister of Sweden, stared hard at it. An hour later he had to give a speech as head of the Independent Commission on Disarmament of which I was a member.  “My fear,” he remarked, “is that mankind itself will end up as nothing more than a shadow on a wall.”

Charles de Gaulle once observed: “After a nuclear war the two sides would have neither powers, nor laws, nor cities, nor cultures, nor cradles, nor tombs.”

Nikita Khrushchev, who presided over the Soviet Union in the days of the Cuban missile crisis, later wrote: “When I learned all the facts about nuclear power I couldn’t sleep for several days.” And one of his successors, Mikhail Gorbachev, once recounted how during training to use his “nuclear suitcase”, he never pretended to give the order to fire.

Yet, against this sense and sensibility is arrayed popular inertia on one side and an extraordinarily deeply embedded culture of nuclear deterrence on the other.

As former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt analysed it, “there is an enormous body of vested interests not only through lobbying in Washington and Moscow but through influence on intellectuals, on people who write books and articles in newspapers and do features on television”.

And, in a shrewd afterthought, he added: “It’s very difficult as a reader or as a consumer of TV to distinguish by one’s own judgment what is led by these interests and what is led by rational conclusion.”

There are two main issues — moral and political — in any discussion on nuclear weapons………..

The title of Herman Kahn’s book on Cold War nuclear strategy, “Thinking the unthinkable”, captured the dilemma perfectly: that it is unthinkable to imagine the wholesale slaughter of societies, yet at the same time it appears necessary to do so, in the hope that you hit upon some formulation of deterrence that will preclude the act.

But then, in the process, you may wind up amassing forces that engender the very outcome you hope to avoid.

It is time not just to rant about North Korea’s bomb but to get on with disarmament in the West and Russia, even taking unilateral moves.

After all, that was the pledge they made in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. http://www.jordantimes.com/opinion/jonathan-power/hypocrisy-owning-nuclear-weapons

May 19, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Next generation nuclear power is unlikely to save the industry from bankruptcy

“The story the nuclear industry tries to offer, is that while old reactors may have been afflicted with problems, the new generation is going to be immune. But while they will get around some, they will also have a new set of problems,” says Ramana. “If it were up to me, I would say it’s not worth spending more money on these things, throwing good money after bad.”

“The nuclear industry is sort of riding into the sunset,” he says. “The question is how fast is it going to ride into it.”

For those who see a nuclear sunset on the horizon, the clearest solution to the problem of both energy production and climate change is renewables.

What the end of the atomic renaissance means for nuclear power, New Scientist,  The next generation of nuclear reactors was meant to bring cheaper, safer power. Where are they, and can they save the industry from bankruptcy and closure? By Lisa Grossman,7 May 2017

IT’S not a great time to be a nuclear reactor engineer. Plants are closing all over the world, even before the end of their usable lives. The most recently shut was a £15 billion power station in Cumbria, UK.

In the US, the only four reactors being built are years late and billions over budget. Should the four Westinghouse models under construction in South Carolina and Georgia ever be finished, it’s hard to say who will service them. Westinghouse Electric, their manufacturer and one of the last private companies building nuclear reactors, filed for bankruptcy on 29 March.

What happened? Just four years ago, we were supposed to be entering a nuclear renaissance. The US had started building its first reactors in 30 years to much fanfare. The Bush and Obama administrations increased spending on nuclear energy R&D by billions of dollars. Radical new designs for the next generation of reactors were supposed to spread safer, cleaner, sustainable energy around the globe.

 Instead, we seem to be stuck with a dwindling supply of mid-20th century models. “Even if they finish those [Westinghouse] reactors, they will not be monuments to the nuclear renaissance,” says economic analyst Mark Cooper at Vermont Law School. “They will be mausoleums to the end of nuclear power.” Can the next generation of reactors still save the day?

“New reactors will not be monuments to the nuclear renaissance – they will be mausoleums”

Between 1996 and 2016, the share of global electricity generated by nuclear power dropped from 17.6 to 10.7 per cent. The downturn is perhaps surprising given nuclear’s green credentials. The typical nuclear power plant splits uranium atoms in a process called fission, and uses the heat from that reaction to produce steam, drive a turbine and generate electricity. This offers cheap, clean energy – nuclear power plants produce no greenhouse gases or air pollution, they run day and night, and are relatively inexpensive to operate………

The designers of these “Generation IV” reactors tried to take innovative approaches to safety, moving away from standard ways of making power from uranium – which accounts for most of the safety measures – to less dangerous ways like depleted uranium and other materials that don’t require enrichment or reprocessing, reducing proliferation risks. Other safety measures included burying the reactor or simply making them small and modular.

These reactors were moving steadily through the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval process, but there has been no sign of them.

 Some think the stall is permanent. “The story the nuclear industry tries to offer, is that while old reactors may have been afflicted with problems, the new generation is going to be immune. But while they will get around some, they will also have a new set of problems,” says Ramana. “If it were up to me, I would say it’s not worth spending more money on these things, throwing good money after bad.”

“The nuclear industry is sort of riding into the sunset,” he says. “The question is how fast is it going to ride into it.”……..

Some places will keep building the old models. Adoption is up in Russia and Asia, particularly South Korea. Other places will keep their ageing fleet on life support as long as they can. Three plants in New York, each more than 40 years old, will remain operating for another 12 years.

Even if new models do come online, it leaves a long time between the decline of the ageing fleet of nuclear reactors and the emergence of the first credible alternatives.

In the meantime, something will be needed to provide electricity. If municipalities build capacity with ever improving wind and solar devices, which have much lower set-up costs, it could render new nuclear plants unnecessary….

For those who see a nuclear sunset on the horizon, the clearest solution to the problem of both energy production and climate change is renewables. Nuclear energy might be sustainable, in the sense that it will last a long time, but ultimately Earth’s uranium supplies will run out. Not so wind and sun, says Cooper.

“Anyone who wants to buy that small modular reactor can look up in the sky and feel the breeze blowing and know they don’t have to go that route,” Cooper says. “Nuclear is never going to catch up.”…https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431262-800-what-the-end-of-the-atomic-renaissance-means-for-nuclear-power/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=physics&campaign_id=RSS%7CNSNS-physics

 

May 19, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Desperate nuclear industry is lobbying State Governments

Struggling Nuclear Industry Lobbies State Governments For Help, NPR,  May 16, 2017, MARIE CUSICK Just like coal companies, America’s nuclear power industry is having a tough time. It faces slowing demand for electricity, and competition from cheaper natural gas and renewables. And now, touting itself as a form of clean energy, the nuclear industry is lobbying state legislatures with a controversial pitch for help.”Nobody’s in the mood for a bailout,” says anti-nuclear activist Eric Epstein, as he considers where to put up a poster in the Amtrak station in Harrisburg, Pa. It has the iconic image of Uncle Sam pointing at the viewer, and saying, “I want you to stop the bailout of nuclear power in Pennsylvania.”

Epstein has been a nuclear watchdog since 1979, when one of the reactors at the nearby Three Mile Island plant partially melted down, bringing the industry’s growth in the U.S. to a standstill. Four decades later, Epstein says nuclear power is just too expensive, and he doesn’t want his state to do what New York and Illinois already have.

Both states recently agreed to give billions in subsidies to the nuclear industry by essentially broadening the definition of clean power. Supporters say the move will help combat climate change, since nuclear plants don’t emit carbon………Around the country, five nuclear plants have retired in the past five years, and another five are scheduled to close within a decade. In Pennsylvania, the Three Mile Island plant — which still has one functioning reactor — is having trouble selling its power because it’s more expensive than other sources, like natural gas.

But the bailouts are facing opposition from those competing power producers, especially the booming natural gas industry…….

The nuclear industry has ramped up lobbying efforts in several states, including Ohio. There, after hours of testimony, lawmakers put off a vote, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, saying the proposal to charge customers more to help nuclear plants did not seem likely to pass…….

May 19, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Scottish Renewables publishes manifesto for 2017 UK General Election

Scottish Energy News 15th May 2017, Scottish Renewables has published its ‘manifesto’ for the 2017 UK General Election, which outlines seven key recommendations. A spokesman said: “Advances in technology and rapid cost reductions mean that our industry can generate further economic and environmental benefit to Scotland and the UK, providing affordable energy for households and business and driving clean growth across the country.

“Much of that growth has been powered by Scotland, which accounts for a quarter of the UK’s renewable electricity generation – a sector which now supports some 26,000 jobs north of the Border. Maintain commitment to climate change
targets; Unlock investment in lowest-cost forms of energy; Continue the growth of less-established technologies; Accelerate the decarbonisation of heat and transport within an integrated energy system; Enable local communities to benefit from clean growth; Support research and innovation to deliver a smarter energy system; Back our world-leading low-carbon energy sector…….. http://www.scottishenergynews.com/

May 17, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

USA could make a colossal blunder – bailing out nuclear power stations

Why a multibillion-dollar bailout for nuclear plants would be a colossal blunder, Examiner by Mark J. Perry, contributor | May 16, 2017 What could push up energy costs and stall the growth of manufacturing in the United States? Dangers abound, but what’s most ominous is a deliberate effort to increase the cost of electricity to support uncompetitive power plants.

Subsidizing money-losing nuclear reactors is the latest misstep in the long history of overzealous government intervention in the energy marketplace. State legislatures in New York and Illinois have approved as much as $10 billion in subsidies through zero-emission credit programs to keep aging nuclear plants open for the next decade. Lawmakers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Jersey are considering the same.

But in an era in which “no new taxes” is a sacred cow, New York and Illinois have invented another, creative way to raise the funds they need for subsidies, at the expense of the public.

This time, the consumer will not be victimized as a taxpayer, but as utility ratepayer, to keep money-losing nuclear plants operating. The two states have launched virtually identical programs that would reward nuclear plants with zero-emission credits tied to the plants’ clean-air attributes. The credits would be purchased by electric utilities and passed along as higher rates for households, businesses, and industries – and priced based on the social cost of carbon.

Propping up nuclear plants, some of which have been losing money for years, is counterproductive and wrong. While guaranteeing a market for nuclear power might enable a distressed plant to continue operating for a few years, it won’t bring about needed improvements in nuclear technology that would allow nuclear power to compete with low-carbon shale gas. And it will distort energy markets by favoring nuclear power over other options, saddling ratepayers with higher electricity costs.

The subsidies are being challenged in federal court by “merchant” power producers who are arguing that they intrude on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s jurisdiction over wholesale markets.

The cost of subsidies adds up. If every reactor across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States winds up with subsidies at the same level as those in New York and Illinois, ratepayers would need to pay an additional $3.9 billion annually, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Hardest hit will be industries that use large amounts of electricity.

The company behind this grand plan is Exelon, a Chicago-based utility that owns the largest number of nuclear plants in the U.S. Exelon threatened to shutter three nuclear plants in Illinois after the company said it had lost $700 million in the last few years from operating the plants. Exelon also threatened to close money-losing nuclear plants it owns in New York. In both states, Exelon maintains that since carbon-free nuclear power doesn’t contribute to global warming, nuclear plants should receive a premium to help level the playing field with natural gas and wind power.

But using a specious environmental argument to subsidize money-losing nuclear plants is indefensible. There seems to have been no particular logic to the bailouts of virtually-useless and technologically-backward nuclear plants in New York and Illinois – except the urge to save the jobs of nuclear plant workers. It would make more sense to retire the nuclear plants and instead use cheap natural gas to meet energy needs, while providing assistance to the workers and communities near the nuclear plants.

Electricity users are best served through market competition. If aging nuclear power plants cannot compete, handing out cash to utilities is not the answer. The plants will never get back on their feet. And the utilities aren’t going to use bailouts to innovate or improve operations.

The cost of operating aging plants will only increase in the years ahead. While the cost of other low-emissions technologies continues to decline, as is the case with natural gas and renewables, nuclear-generated electricity is getting more expensive….. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/why-a-multibillion-dollar-bailout-for-nuclear-plants-would-be-a-colossal-blunder/article/2623212

May 17, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Twin toxic technologies: Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons

Proliferation of Toxic Technologies: Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons http://www.globalresearch.ca/proliferation-of-toxic-technologies-nuclear-power-and-nuclear-weapons/5589608 By Ray Acheson Global Research, May 13, 2017  Reaching Critical Will 10 May 2017 Speaking a few months after the disaster at Fukushima, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami said, “Nuclear power plants, which were supposed to be efficient, offer us a vision of hell.” He spoke about how the nuclear power industry insisted that this was an efficient, clean, and safe source of energy—even though it isn’t. And he connected nuclear power to nuclear weapons, arguing that the experience of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki should have motivated the development of non-nuclear, renewable sources of energy after World War Two.

Murakami was right to link nuclear power and nuclear weapons. They are connected through their effects, through their creation, and through their proliferation.

Both are characterised by their inherent risks and capacity to unleash uniquely horrifying forms of devastation upon human bodies, the environment, and our socioeconomic infrastructure.

The immediate effects of even a single nuclear weapon detonation are horrifying and overwhelming. One detonation will cause tens of thousands of casualties and inflict immediate and irreversible damage to infrastructure, industry, livelihoods, and human lives. The effects will persist over time, devastating human health, the environment, and our economies for years to come. These impacts will wreak havoc on food production, natural disasters, and displace entire populations.

Meanwhile, nuclear power is the most expensive and dangerous way to boil water to turn a turbine. Nuclear power contains the inherent potential for catastrophe. There is no such thing as a safe nuclear reactor. All aspects of the nuclear fuel chain, from mining uranium ore to storing radioactive waste, are devastating for the earth and all species living upon it. Radiation is long lasting and has inter-generational effects.

Furthermore, the spread of nuclear energy around the world since 1953 has enabled the development of nuclear weapons in several countries, as well as to the proliferation of nuclear materials and technology that are becoming increasingly susceptible to terrorist attack or accidents. The continued existence of nuclear fuel chain facilities, technology, and material makes it more difficult to reach a world free of nuclear weapons. Eliminating all nuclear materials and technology, whatever its designated purpose, is the only way to ensure that it is does not result in catastrophe, by accident or design.

Within the NPT context, nuclear energy is upheld by most states as an “inalienable right”. This means that most states laud its perceived benefits and promote its expansion, regardless of the risks to humanity, the environment, and proliferation. A few states parties recognise these inherent risks and have chosen not to pursue or to phase out nuclear power as part of their energy mixes. The more states parties that follow this path, the better for us all.

Many of the states supporting nuclear power are the same that support nuclear weapons. In both cases this is because they benefit from these technologies—in terms of power or economy. But whereas most developing states demand nuclear disarmament, some simultaneously seek to develop nuclear energy for various applications. But nuclear energy is not a solution to development or to the climate crisis. It continues being promoted as such—this has everything to do with capitalism and nothing to do with protecting the planet or its people.

For the nuclear energy industry, the primary motive for operation is profit. History shows us that increasing profit is often best achieved in ways that are not consistent with designing or operating the relevant equipment for the lowest risk to humanity or the planet. Scientists and activists alike have noted that nuclear power, which produces energy “in large, expensive, centralized facilities” is not useful “for solving the energy needs of the vast majority of [the world’s] population, much less so in a way that offers any net environmental gains.” Profit is less likely to be achieved by honestly exploring alternative sources of energy that might necessitate initial investments, or that might not be eligible for the same government (i.e. taxpayer-funded) subsidies as nuclear is in many countries.

“Nuclear weapons still exist today in thousands, a disturbing and sinister reality which the founders of the NPT would not have possibly anticipated, that 49 years after concluding the Treaty, the world continues to be threatened from the most destructive weapons ever created,” said Egypt during Monday’s discussion on non-proliferation.

Part of the reason these weapons still exist is that nothing has yet been done to stop the production or possession of fissile materials or nuclear technologies.

Nuclear—whether for energy or weapons—is about destruction but its proponents sell it as security, as safety, and even as life itself. Yet just now, on 9 May 2017, there was an accident at the Hanford nuclear site in the United States. An evacuation was ordered after a tunnel at the plutonium finishing plant collapsed. This is the site where the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki was made. It is currently the largest radioactive waste dump in the United States. The tunnel affected by the collapse was reportedly full of highly contaminated materials, including radioactive trains that transport fuel rods.

The bottom line for safety, security, environmental sustainability, and human well-being is that the production, spread, and use of these toxic technologies and materials, whether for weapons or energy, must end.  The original source of this article is Reaching Critical Will

May 15, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

“Stupid idea” to think that Russia could, or would use nuclear weapon to trigger tsunamis

A physicist says blowing up nuclear weapons in the ocean to trigger tsunamis ‘would be completely stupid’, Business Insider , DAVE MOSHER, MAY 15, 2017 

  • British tabloids recently reported that Russia could trigger tsunamis with nuclear “mole” missiles buried near US coasts.
  • The claim was rejected by both nuclear weapons experts and the alleged source of the idea.
  • Underwater nuclear detonations can trigger large waves, but they’d be nothing compared to natural tsunamis.

Nuclear weapons are as awesome as they are terrifying. In an instant, their explosions can vaporise people, level cities, and obliterate military forces.

But could this fearsome power be harnessed by Russia or other nuclear nations to lob deadly tsunamis against an enemy coastline, as British tabloids recently reported?

If you ask a nuclear physicist, you’re likely to be laughed out of the room.

“It would be a stupid waste of a perfectly good nuclear weapon,” Greg Spriggs, a nuclear-weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told Business Insider in an email.

Here’s why it doesn’t make sense and where the myth came from.

The science of nuclear wave-making A nuclear weapon detonated below the ocean’s surface can cause great devastation.One need not look further than the underwater US nuclear weapons tests of the 1940s and 1950s, including operations “Crossroads Baker” and “Hardtack I Wahoo” to see why. These underwater fireballs — roughly as energetic as the bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki in August 1945 — burst through the surface, ejecting pillars of seawater more than a mile high while rippling out powerful shockwaves.

Some warships staged near the explosions were vaporized. Others were tossed like toys in a bathtub, sinking them. Others sustained crushed or cracked hulls, crippled engines, and other damage from the shockwaves. And — notably — the explosions roughly doubled the height of waves to nearby atoll islands, flooding inland areas there.

Yet Spriggs says it’s unlikely that even the most powerful nuclear bombs could come close to unleashing a significant tsunami.

“[T]he energy in a large nuclear weapon is but a drop in the bucket compared to the energy of a [naturally]-occurring tsunami,” he said. “So, any tsunami created by a nuclear weapon couldn’t be very large.”…….. https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-mole-missile-nukes-science-debunked-2017-5#fpIqZtOJ2Hes3kQ4.99

May 15, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

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