The organization that represents the European Union’s major interests in the giant international fusion energy research and engineering project ITER, located in Caderache, France, has seen the firing of a long-time, key manager and upset among the technical and support staff of the multi-billion-dollar project. Fusion for Energy (F4E) has fired its long-time director, Johannes … More Troubled times for big fusion

The giant federal government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority faces its greatest threat in decades, as its largest electric distribution system, the city of Memphis, is looking an outsider, possibly the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, based in Carmel, Ind., to take over and oust TVA. Memphis Light Gas and Water (MLGW) has long chafed at TVA’s iron … More MISO goes after Memphis, TVA’s largest distribution muni

Despite going public a month ago, NuScale Power may have a tough time meeting its planned 2029 target for generating power from its nuclear project in Idaho, according to analysts looking at the company that is now traded on the New York Stock Exchange. NuScale, headquartered in Oregon, had been largely financed by Fluor Corp., … More NuScale goes public, but will that generate success for its small modular reactors?

Small nuclear reactors, should they become a major contributor to electricity production, will add to the problem of what to do about nuclear waste. According to a new study, scheduled to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science’s May 31 issue, SMRs will produce from twice to 30 times as much … More Do small reactors have large waste problems?

EV owners should stop gloating about how they are reducing vehicle pollution, as opposed to the dinosaurs driving cars with internal combustion engines. A new study from British global testing firm Emissions Analytics, updating a 2020 study, finds that when it comes to small particulate emissions, battery electric vehicles’ emissions are “1,850 times greater” than … More EV pollution: it’s not the tailpipe, it’s the tires

Serhii Plokhy W.W. Norton & Company What do the six most significant nuclear accidents since the dawn of the age of atomic energy have in common? Ukrainian and American scholar Serhii Plokhy is his riveting and at times terrifying new book, “Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters,” makes a compelling case that … More Book Review: Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters

On May 9, 2021 at 11:21 central time near Odessa in West Texas, a combined-cycle gas-fired generating plant tripped off line, due to what a reliability expert described as “a small, ordinary line-to-ground fault.” The result was entirely unexpected: solar photovoltaic generation over a 200-mile section of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas grid also … More Inverter woes: Where AC meets DC

The vaunted, but aging, French government-owned nuclear program is facing big problems, which are spreading to the rest of Europe. Bloomberg reported last week (May 19), “French electricity prices climbed after the region’s biggest producer cut its nuclear output target for a third time this year, the latest sign that the region’s power crisis is … More France’s nuclear program in trouble

Vaclav Smil Penguin ISBN 978-0-241-45439-8   Vaclav Smil’s latest, How the World Really Works, is a summary of the case he’s been making in more than 40 books since 1976 that solving the world’s energy problems is harder, more complex, and more unpredictable than much of the breezy rhetoric from advocates of particular policies, politics, and … More Book Review: How the World Really Works, The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going

For some energy gurus, and they tend to be enthusiastic, hydrogen is the key to a carbon-free future for the world. Some businesses and institutions are, at least potentially, putting big money behind their enthusiasm. For hydrogen enthusiasts, the fundamental element (first of the periodic table of the elements), has a lot going for it. … More Elon Musk makes the case against hydrogen, as investors back H2