Green World Blog
News, views & musings for our nuclear-free, carbon-free future
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Nuclear Newsreel, Friday, February 21, 2014
Nuclear Power Must-read in Forbes: Why the economics don’t favor nuclear power in America. Economist Mark Cooper makes compelling arguments that neither current reactor designs nor upcoming “small modular reactors” can be economically competitive with existing sources of electricity generation–even under scenarios that promote low-carbon technologies. Thus, while including nuclear power in our energy future…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Thursday, February 20, 2014
Nuclear Power New 100-ton radioactive water leak at Fukushima. Unfortunately, not likely to be the last such leak…We will be seeing headlines like this for decades. Traces of plutonium are detected outside WIPP transuranic radwaste site in New Mexico. This is the first time radiation leakage has been reported from WIPP, but the exact source…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Nuclear Power The Nuclear Energy Institute is still whining that since nuclear power can’t compete in the marketplace, it should get special treatment. As we predicted last week (Nuclear Newsreel, February 12, 2014), NEI CEO Marvin Fertel’s pitch to Wall Street focused heavily on the notion that the “current competitive market that power producers bid…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Friday, February 14, 2014
Nuclear Power The mindset over at the Tennessee Valley Authority is just impossible to fathom. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that TVA will spend $160 million for replacement steam generators at Watts Bar-2–before the reactor is even built! Construction at Watts bar-2 began more than a generation ago–back in the 1970s–and the reactor still…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Thursday, February 13, 2014
Nuclear Power Scientific American: Is radioactive hydrogen (i.e. tritium) in drinking water a cancer threat? Well, yes, but real data is surprisingly sparse. Because of large tritium releases from numerous U.S. reactors into water and groundwater in recent years, the Environmental Protection Agency is beginning to re-evaluate its tritium standards. Unfortunately, while SciAm does cover…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Nuclear Power Tom Henry’s (Toledo Blade) blog: The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) is pinning a lot of hopes on its upcoming Wall Street briefing tomorrow. Henry says NEI President Marvin Fertel will try to “regain some of the investor confidence it has lost in recent years.” That’s a tall order. Wall Street already has bailed…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Nuclear Power Argentina begins construction of world’s first SMR (Small Modular Reactor; in this case, VERY small reactor). It’s only 25 MW, and in fact is meant to be a pilot project to build an actual-size SMR. Notably, unlike the advanced SMR designs most industry boosters want to pretend are the wave of the future,…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Monday, February 10, 2014
Nuclear Power What those pro-nuke climate scientists just don’t understand: The unavoidable economics of nuclear power. Another on-target piece from economist Marc Cooper, who takes the small minority of climate scientists arguing for more nuclear power to task. A couple of excerpts that provide a sense of Cooper’s well-formed arguments: “But the evidence shows that…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Friday, February 7, 2014
Exelon says it may close nuclear reactors if it can’t get higher prices for their electricity. The problem for Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear utility, is that many of its reactors can no longer compete with lower-cost wind and natural gas. Exelon’s preferred solution is that its reactors get preferential treatment, especially over wind, which…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Thursday, February 6, 2014
Nuclear utilities cry that the market is stacked against them. Maybe it’s that nukes are just too expensive? What they want is a system that is stacked for nuclear power–that would be a system stacked against ratepayers. This is an issue that will grow in importance this year and next as some utilities fight to…
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