Skip to main content

Some Monday Morning Nuclear Blog Clips to Read

The two big posts everyone was raving about over the weekend come from Depleted Cranium’s Steve Packard and Brave New Climate’s Barry Brook. Steve clearly spent a great deal of man-hours providing a number of reasons Why You Can’t Build a Bomb From Spent Fuel. As well, Barry Brook always gets a heavy conversation going, this time by asking if climate sceptics and anti-nukes matter.

There’s also been quite the discussion lately among many of the nuclear bloggers about natural gas. Depleted Cranium came out with another great piece that refreshes everyone's memories about gas prices by using a colorful graph. Rod Adams, as always, has something to say about gas – his latest on the gas industry’s advertisements and comparing tritium leaks to a methane leak were revealing. And Kirk Sorenson jabs at Climate Progress, the Sierra Club and a little bit at Greenpeace for their lack of acknowledgement of “a catastrophic explosion [two weeks ago] at a natural-gas-fired powerplant under construction in Connecticut.”

It is quite interesting (for lack of a better word) that many of those who are in favor of renewables to reduce emissions have become willing to accept natural gas to achieve that goal (even forgetting that gas still emits). Not only that, they cry foul over any miniscule event about nuclear yet have amnesia when something major happens to their favorite energies as Kirk points out. Well, the nuclear industry is clearly held to higher standards. But I guess that’s a good thing, though, since we definitely work with superior technology.

Hope you enjoy everyone’s posts!

Comments

Bill said…
Meanwhile, there's this: "Lawmakers mull nuclear power as renewable source" (Phoenix Business Journal)
"A bill introduced in the Arizona Legislature would establish nuclear power as a renewable or carbon-free energy source, angering solar advocates and sparking the ire of the Arizona Corporation Commission."
Anonymous said…
Best part of that article Bill posted:

“The short of it is, it’s disastrous for renewable energy and it would surely be the death knell for advancing solar energy in the state,” [Arizona Corporation Commission Chairwoman] Mayes said.

As in, if utilities aren't required to buy wind and solar, and instead can choose to rely on hydro or nuclear, that'll be the end for solar in Arizona. And I'd expect Arizona's solar energy resources to be about as good at it gets.
Sterling Archer said…
Solar is a great way to power your vacation cabin, if it's no where near the grid.
david lewis said…
The Marcellus Shale, where they are "fracking" natural gas, is uranium ore. A similar deposit was mined for uranium in Sweden from 1950 to the 1970s.

The waste water that comes up out of the gas wells couldn't meet EPA standards for radioactivity if anyone cared, if someone was going to inject it back underground, but they just dump it into public waterways because no one looks at the gas industry for radiation hazards.

"13 samples of wastewater brought to the surface... from drilling... contain levels of radium...267 times the limit safe to discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink"

http://www.propublica.org/feature/is-the-marcellus-shale-too-hot-to-handle-1109

Gas emits at least 22 times the amount of CO2 nuclear does, and just using regular average US gas to cook with causes 15 times the additional exposure to radiation than living right next to a nuke plant.

I haven't been able to find out how much additional radiation "fracked" gas taken out of a uranium ore formation would expose a typical cookstove user to because the environmental groups have all bought in to the line that gas is better than nukes.

Gas is great, the Sierra Club tells me. I'm so glad The Club is there to safeguard whatever they are safeguarding as the planet is killed. I feel so much better.

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should