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When I visited California earlier this month, Tom Blees and I paid a visit to Prof Per Peterson and Prof Jasmina Vujic at the Nuclear Engineering Department of UC Berkeley. After chatting over lunch, Per took us on a personal tour of his lab, which was quite an experience. Per’s research focuses on development of [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy | 83 Comments »
On Friday night, 13th August, I was awarded the 2010 Community Science Educator of the Year. On September 8, 2010, I will be speaking on nuclear and solar energy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. The BraveNewClimate.com blog is 2 years old! Details below… —————————- I got back from China at midday [...]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 18 Comments »
So now I’m about to fly out to China for 5 days – probably the last of my international trips for 2010. I may not see you here on BNC until I get back to Australia, because WordPress blogs are blocked by the ‘Great Firewall of China’. It is possible, though difficult, to punch through [...]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Nuclear Energy | 62 Comments »
Hi BNC folks. I’m currently sitting in Los Angeles airport waiting to board a flight to Sydney in a few hours time — it’s my first time on the internet for a few days. It’s been a fabulous trip to the US, and I intend to post up a couple of ‘diary’ entries in which [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
I’m about to hit the road once again, this time to take the great American road trip for 13 hours, from Sacremento to Idaho Falls, with Tom Blees, leaving bright and early tomorrow morning. Today I had a fantastic visit to UC Berkeley and the lab of Prof Per Peterson, and will have lots more [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Future shock, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 24 Comments »
Here is my side of the ABC Environment ‘debate’ I’ve had with Ian Lowe, based around my book ‘Why vs Why: Nuclear Power“. ————————- In part two of a two-part debate on the prospect of nuclear power in Australia, Barry Brook argues that the arguments against nuclear are hackneyed and wrong. Part 1, “Nuclear Power [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy | 81 Comments »
Guest Post by Rob Parker. Rob is a civil engineer with over 30 years experience in both design and engineering construction of dams, freeways, water treatment and general infrastructure. More recently, when confronted by the environmental impacts of our patterns of consumption and growth, he decided to look at ways to influence our political policies. [...]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Nuclear Energy | 79 Comments »
I’m about to fly out for a 3-week trip to the US and China (24 July to 15 Aug). But fear not! The BNC blog will remain active over that time. Indeed, there are quite a number of new posts in the pipeline for this period, including guest pieces by Rob Parker (this Sunday), Geoff [...]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Nuclear Energy | 11 Comments »
Guest post by John D. Morgan. John runs R&D programmes at a Sydney startup company. He has a PhD in physical chemistry, and research experience in chemical engineering in the US and at CSIRO. He is a regular commenter on BNC. A 10-page printable PDF version of this post can be downloaded here. ———————————– Beyond [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 106 Comments »
Guest post by DV82XL. He is a Canadian chemist and materials scientist. For his previous article on the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit, see here, and on why an informed public is key to acceptance of nuclear energy, see here. Unless you intend to design a nuclear reactor from scratch, you are going to have to accept whatever [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy, TCASE Series | 28 Comments »
Open Thread 4 is about to spool off the BNC front page, after 700+ comments, so it’s time to kick off a new one. The Open Thread is a general discussion forum, where you can talk about whatever you like — there is nothing ‘off topic’ here — within reason. So get up on your [...]
Filed under: Non-greenhouse theorists ('sceptics'), Nuclear Energy, Open Thread | 240 Comments »
In chapter 7 of his book “The Nuclear Energy Option“, Prof Bernard Cohen wrote the following provocative statement: It is very difficult to predict the future of scientific developments, and few would even dare to make predictions extending beyond the next 50 years. However, based on everything we know now, one can make a strong [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy | 167 Comments »
In the Thinking Critically About Sustainable Energy (TCASE) series — currently up to 10 parts on the BNC blog — I consider the challenges we face in scaling up renewable or nuclear energy technologies to replace fossil fuels. The blog serialisation of TCASE will continue on BNC, but the format is now also moving into a [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 22 Comments »
This post follows on directly from part 1, which you can read here. Here, a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) on climate change and nuclear energy are answered. These are quite deliberately not technical – you won’t find explanations of adiabatic lapse rates, actinide isotopes or Brayton cycle efficiency here! Nope… these are ‘big [...]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 281 Comments »
A recent BNC guest post, Public advocacy on nuclear power and climate change, stirred up some really useful ideas. In that post’s comments thread, it was discussed how we, as a concerned and engaged internet community (the BNC crowd, and similar groups like Energy from Thorium), could engage more effectively with the broader public domain on the [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 174 Comments »
Despite what some may like you to believe, the nuclear renaissance is upon us. Don’t let anyone get away with telling you otherwise — they are badly misleading you. Indeed, given that the the real-world facts are so readily available, one really does have to wonder how long these ideologues imagine they can pull the [...]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Nuclear Energy | 249 Comments »
So far in the IFR Facts and Discussion series, I’ve discussed Gen III and Gen IV fuel cycles and energy densities. In later IFR FaD posts, I aim to explore some possible scenarios for future deployment of the IFR and related technologies. But before I can do this, I need to explain (and justify!), some [...]
Filed under: IFR Facts and Discussion, Nuclear Energy | 36 Comments »
Guest Post by Rob Parker. Rob is a civil engineer with over 30 years experience in both design and engineering construction of dams, freeways, water treatment and general infrastructure. More recently, when confronted by the environmental impacts of our patterns of consumption and growth, he decided to look at ways to influence our political policies. [...]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Nuclear Energy | 231 Comments »
Guest Post by Peter Lang. Peter is a retired geologist and engineer with 40 years experience on a wide range of energy projects throughout the world, including managing energy R&D and providing policy advice for government and opposition. His experience includes: coal, oil, gas, hydro, geothermal, nuclear power plants, nuclear waste disposal, and a wide [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 100 Comments »
The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) has now broadcast my debate with Ian Lowe over nuclear power, on Radio National’s Counterpoint program. The discussion lasts 50 minutes, and includes various questions and answers from the Why vs Why: Nuclear Power book, moderated by Paul Comrie-Thompson. We cover issues of waste management, weapons proliferation, adequacy of renewable energy alternatives, [...]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy | 67 Comments »
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![[1/5] Fitting the Steam Engine](http://static.flickr.com/4134/4947531347_120a565eaa_t.jpg "[1/5] Fitting the Steam Engine")
