Molten salt reactors appear to be the new big thing in civilian nuclear power. The hype over reactors that feature combining the coolant and the neutron moderator in one salty liquid to produce very high temperatures, and also lend itself to small packages, is everywhere. They will be cheap. They can run on nuclear waste. … More Molten salt reactors: where’s the beef?
By Henry Sokolski With the current crisis in Ukraine, it’s tempting to view Chinese compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as an academic indulgence. Giving in to this inclination, however, would be wrong. As dangerous as Russia currently is, China will be more threatening in the long run. As we are learning with Russia’s … More Commentary: arresting Chinese nuclear adventurism
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s newest nuclear power plant is also one of its oldest, and it’s showing its age. TVA’s Watts Bar 2, which came on line six years ago, after construction was mothballed in 1985 during TVA’s nuclear power crisis that shut down the entire fleet, is getting new steam generators. TVA starting building … More TVA replaces steam generators on newest, older plant
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