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Last week, the influential weekly news and international affairs publication, The Economist, ran an essay on the future of nuclear energy – The dream that failed: Nuclear power will not go away, but its role may never be more than marginal. As you might have guessed from the title, it was decidedly cool towards nuclear’s future prospects. […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy | 61 Comments »
This is the second of a four-part series of extracts from the book Plentiful Energy — The story of the Integral Fast Reactor by Chuck Till and Yoon Chang. Reproduced with permission of the authors, these sections describe and justify some of the key design choices that went into the making the IFR a different — and highly […]
Filed under: IFR FaD, Nuclear | 43 Comments »
Before I write a scientific paper, I always try to identify: (1) my main message [MM], in 25 words or less, and (2) my target audience [TA]. Doing this helps focus the ‘story’ of the manuscript on a key point. Papers that try to present multiple messages are typically confusing and/or too long for busy […]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Nuclear, Policy, Renewables | 37 Comments »
I think The Breakthrough Institute guys, led by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, are doing great working in environmental policy and thought leadership, which is why I was delighted to become a 2012 Senior Fellow. Below I reproduce an important article published today in Slate.com, on Fukushima and its ensuing hyperventilation. Much of the post-accident […]
Filed under: Hot News, Nuclear | 57 Comments »
Over the next month or two, I will publish four extracts from the book Plentiful Energy — The story of the Integral Fast Reactor by Chuck Till and Yoon Chang. Reproduced with permission of the authors, these sections describe and justify some of the key design choices that went into the making the IFR a different […]
Filed under: IFR FaD, Nuclear | 53 Comments »
The previous Open Thread has gone past is off the BNC front page, 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 […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Open Thread | 520 Comments »
Guest Post by Elaine Hirsch. Elaine is kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education to technology to public policy, so she is currently working as a writer for various education-related sites. Currently, she writes for an online school resource. Black Swan Theory, as explained by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007/2010 book, The Black Swan, describes an […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 30 Comments »
Ben Heard of DecarboniseSA asked if I’d like to reproduce his recent post, to give it exposure to the BNC audience. Given that I’m still in Spain and will be for a while, I’m happy to oblige. I think it’s an excellent piece — as I’ve come to expect from Ben — and I hope […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 28 Comments »
Late last year, Tom Blees, I and a few other people from the International Award Committee of the Global Energy Prize answered reader’s energy questions on The Guardian’s Facebook page. The questions and answers were reproduced on BNC here. Now we’re at it again, this time for the website Eco-Business.com (tagline: Asia Pacific’s sustainable business community). My section […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Renewables | 27 Comments »
I have published a new paper in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Policy with the title “Could nuclear fission energy,etc., solve the greenhouse problem? The affirmative case” (currently online first, DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2011.11.041 — it will appear in the print version, with volume/page details, later this year). If you would like a PDF copy of the article, email me […]
Filed under: Hot News, Nuclear, Policy | 54 Comments »
Below is the foreword I wrote, on invitation of Chuck Till and Yoon Chang, for the book “Plentiful Energy” (I included a shorter version in my review of the book on Amazon). In this short essay, I draw an analogy between the IFR and the Wright brothers’ 1903 ‘ ‘Flyer’. The idea is that successful […]
Filed under: IFR FaD, Nuclear | 25 Comments »
Yesterday the hard copy of the book “Plentiful Energy — The story of the Integral Fast Reactor” (CreateSpace, Dec 2011, 404 pages) arrived in the post. It is wonderful to see it in print, and now available for all to enjoy and absorb. I was honoured to play a small part in its realisation. The […]
Filed under: Hot News, IFR FaD, Nuclear | 52 Comments »
The Christmas to New Year period is traditionally ‘hibernation mode’ for blogs, when page views and comment counts plummet (my hits have dropped about 70% compared to early December!). I suppose this is a time when people find better things to do than sit in front of a computer screen (family time, good food, beach/snow […]
Filed under: Hot News, Nuclear, Policy, Renewables | 33 Comments »
As many BNC readers already know, I was invited to write an opinion essay for ABC Environment and The Drum: Unleashed on the Fukushima situation as we approach the end of 2011. On the latter site, the essay was entitled “Fukushima, nuclear and the rational approach to energy” and drew >300 comments (many rather heated) […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 87 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. Energy minister Martin Ferguson has today released the Draft Energy White Paper 2011 (The Australian, ABC). The […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy, Renewables | 82 Comments »
The Guardian newspaper’s Environment Facebook page recently put the following to their readers: Ask the Global Energy Prize‘s expert panel your toughest energy questions and they’ll be back here on Friday with their answers. What should power our cities, homes and industry in the future — renewable energy, nuclear power, or fossil fuels? How significant […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Renewables | 34 Comments »
The previous Open Thread has gone past is running of the recent posts lists and getting tough to find, 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 […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Open Thread | 436 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 »
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 »
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