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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 Finnish. […]
Filed under: Emissions, Renewables | 112 Comments »
China is looking seriously at a range of nuclear options. From the commercial side of things, the country is building over 25 light water reactors, including four of the new US-designed AP1000. The Chinese are also pursuing a range of advanced reactor programmes, including gas-cooled pebble-bed modular reactors (the 210 MWe HTR-PM), a thorium-focused research […]
Filed under: Hot News, Nuclear | 56 Comments »
Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and most other long-lived greenhouse gases (i.e., barring short-lived water vapour), are considered ‘trace gases’ because their concentration in the atmosphere is so low. For instance, at a current level of 389 parts per million, CO2 represents just 0.0389% of the air, by volume. Tiny isn’t it? How could such […]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Sceptics | 53 Comments »
Guest Post by Geoff Russell. Geoff is a mathematician and computer programmer and is a member of Animal Liberation SA. His recently published book is CSIRO Perfidy. His previous article on BNC was: The Swiss army nuclear knife —————— During the past few years, all the world’s major science journals have had a steady stream of papers on the challenge […]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Impacts | 41 Comments »
With regards to Generation IV nuclear fission technology, most of the attention on BNC has been on the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), for reasons explained in this post, which I quote: The focus of this series (IFR FaD) is aimed squarely at the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) rather than other Gen IV designs, such as the […]
Filed under: IFR FaD, Nuclear | 134 Comments »
Debate over large-scale energy storage is a regular theme in the comments on this blog. The post is intended to be a place to centralise this discussion. Some questions that might be considered in the comment thread: 1. What is the cost (per Watt hour, kWh, MWh, GWh — how does this cost scale up, […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Renewables | 214 Comments »
Today I was in Melbourne, joining a panel of five who are the chapter authors of a new policy monograph called “Australia’s Nuclear Options“. This event was to formally launch the 61-page report, which was commissioned and published by CEDA (Committee for Economic Development of Australia), edited by CEDA Chief Economist Nathan Taylor (who also […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy | 88 Comments »
I have a new paper out in the peer-reviewed journal Biological Conservation that will be of interest to BNC readers. It is called “Strange bedfellows? Techno-fixes to solve the big conservation issues in southern Asia“, by Barry W. Brook & Corey J.A. Bradshaw. Here are some details: Abstract The conservation challenges facing mega-biodiverse South and Southeast […]
Filed under: Future, Hot News, Impacts, Policy | 9 Comments »
I saw two particularly depressing trend lines this week. Both were confronting enough to make me stop, sit back and just contemplate. It was not as though these came as a great surprise — I’d been following these data for years. But for some reason, the seriousness of them really struck home like never before. […]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Emissions, Future, Hot News, Nuclear | 121 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 range of energy […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy, Renewables | 262 Comments »
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