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Guest Post by Jani-Petri Martikainen. Jani-Petri is a theoretical physicist doing fundamental research in the field of ultracold quantum gases. Most of his current research activities are computational and involve bosonic or fermionic atoms in optical lattices. He has a lively interest on environmental, climate, and energy issues. He runs the blog PassiiviIdentiteetti, which is mostly written in […]
Filed under: Emissions, Renewables | 101 Comments »
In one of the entries on my series of posts on the Integral Fast Reactor, I pointed out that a next-generation nuclear-power-plus-full-fuel-recycling plant would require only 1 tonne of natural uranium fuel (or thorium, or nuclear waste, or depleted uranium) per year, for a 1,000 MWe plant. However, I recently got asked this related question: […]
Filed under: Hot News, Nuclear | 47 Comments »
How can we compare the cost, performance and value-for-money of alternative large-scale clean energy projects? Actually, it’s pretty tough to try and avoid apples-and-oranges comparisons. Still, some adjustments can be made, such as for capacity factor, to partially levelise comparisons. Below is a simplified comparison of four recent real-world projects. All can be considered first-of-a-kind […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Renewables, TCASE | 150 Comments »
In early September 2011, I attended the Brisbane Writer’s Festival and participated in a number of events. One was an excellent discussion with Ian Lowe, my co-author on the book “Why vs Why: Nuclear Power“, which unfortunately wasn’t recorded, but was a terrific exchange. The other was a joint session I did with Prof Bryan […]
Filed under: Hot News, Policy | 8 Comments »
The previous Open Thread has gone past 650 comments, so it’s time for a fresh palette. 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 soap box! The standard commenting rules of courtesy apply, and at the very least […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Open Thread | 448 Comments »
Guest Post by Martin Nicholson. Martin studied mathematics, engineering and electrical sciences at Cambridge University in the UK and graduated with a Masters degree in 1974. He has spent most of his working life as business owner and chief executive of a number of information technology companies in Australia. He has a strong interest in business […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy | 110 Comments »
Guest post by John 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 9-page printable PDF version of this post can be downloaded here. ———————————- Crazy talk […]
Filed under: Future, Impacts | 103 Comments »
I’ve long argued on this blog that that fossil fuel replacement this century could, on technical grounds, be achieved via a mix of nuclear fission, renewables and perhaps also fossil fuels with carbon sequestration, with a high degree of electrification; nuclear would probably end up supplying over half of final energy. A key component of this […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear | 123 Comments »
In response to Steve Kirsch’s open letter recently posted here, BNC reader Gary Kahanak initiated the creation of an online petition to the White House calling for restarting the IFR program. He collaborated with Steve Kirsch, Tom Blees, Suzanne Hobbs and Tom Wigley to do this. The petition is now live. This is in response […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 48 Comments »
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