As it becomes clear that the nation’s needs for power are far underserved, and will certainly be in the future with the adoption of AI, one company, currently the “top US manufacturer of storage equipment for nuclear waste”, is advocating for restarting cold reactors across the country.

Lately, the company’s ambitions have soared. Since 2019, it’s acquired four retired nuclear plants originally intending to decommission them: Indian Point (NY), Oyster Creek (NJ), Pilgrim (MA), and Palisades (MI), according to Bloomberg.

Tearing down old reactors promised good returns due to the hefty trust funds tied to cleanup costs. Holtec quickly became the nation’s leading nuclear decommissioner.

And, as the report notes, despite initially purchasing Palisades to dismantle it, Holtec is now planning to restart the reactor with a $1.5 billion loan from the DOE, marking the first time a cold reactor would be revived in the U.S. However, Holtec lacks experience in running nuclear plants.

While concerns have been raised due to Holtec’s safety violations in the past four years of decommissioning, others consider such infractions normal in this tightly regulated industry. Nevertheless, nuclear power is increasingly seen as key to curbing greenhouse gas emissions, and Holtec aims to have Palisades online again soon and launch its own small modular reactors (SMRs) by the end of the decade.

SMRs, factory-built reactors that can be assembled onsite, represent a highly complex and largely unproven endeavor for Holtec and the industry – yet one we have written about extensively as the obvious next step for the industry. Just yesterday we highlighted Sam Altman’s now-greenlighted nuclear SPAC, trading under ALCC before switching to OKLO at the end of this week.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Net-Zero Is Pulling the Plug on America’s Electrical ‘Life Support System,’ New Documentary Says

February 13, 2024

Net-Zero Is Pulling the Plug on America’s Electrical ‘Life Support System,’ New Documentary Says

‘We are seeing the grid’s reliability, resilience and affordability all declining,’ filmmaker Robert Bryce said.

Electricity is among the most essential sources of America’s unparalleled prosperity and productivity; it is also the greatest vulnerability.

The United States has become so utterly dependent upon an uninterrupted supply of affordable electricity that, as our grid becomes ever more fragile American society has become fragile along with it.

Former CIA director James Woolsey testified before the U.S. Senate in 2015 that, if America’s electric grid were to go down for an extended period, such as one year, “there are essentially two estimates on how many people would die from hunger, from starvation, from lack of water, and from social disruption.

“One estimate is that within a year or so, two-thirds of the United States population would die,” Mr. Woolsey said. “The other estimate is that within a year or so, 90 percent of the U.S. population would die.”

Chris Keefer, president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, concurred.

“The energy grid is a civilizational life support system, and without it, modern society collapses very quickly,” he said.

Mr. Keefer is one of the experts featured in energy analyst, author, and documentarian Robert Bryce’s new film, “Juice: Power, Politics and the Grid.” This five-part docuseries looks at how and why America is now “fragilizing” and destabilizing the engineering marvel that is the central pillar of our society.

“We are seeing the grid’s reliability, resilience, and affordability all declining,” Mr. Bryce told The Epoch Times. “We wanted to get people and policy makers to understand that our most important energy network is being fragilized, and we ignore this danger at our peril,” Mr. Bryce said.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Visualizing All The Nuclear Waste In The World

January 26, 2024

Visualizing All The Nuclear Waste In The World

Nuclear power is among the safest and cleanest sources of electricity, making it a critical part of the clean energy transition.

However, nuclear waste, an inevitable byproduct, is often misunderstood.

In collaboration with the National Public Utilities Council, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti created the following graphic to show the volume of all existing nuclear waste, categorized by its level of hazardousness and disposal requirements, based on data from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)..

Storage and Disposal

Nuclear provides about 10% of global electricity generation.

Nuclear waste, produced as a result of this, can be divided into four different types:

Very low-level waste: Waste suitable for near-surface landfills, requiring lower containment and isolation.
Low-level waste: Waste needing robust containment for up to a few hundred years, suitable for disposal in engineered near-surface facilities.
Intermediate-level waste: Waste that requires a greater degree of containment and isolation than that provided by near-surface disposal.
High-level waste: Waste is disposed of in deep, stable geological formations, typically several hundred meters below the surface.

Despite safety concerns, high-level radioactive waste constitutes less than 0.25% of total radioactive waste reported to the IAEA.

Stored and disposed radioactive waste reported to the IAEA under the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. Data is from the last reporting year which varies by reporting country, 2019-2023.

The amount of waste produced by the nuclear power industry is small compared to other industrial activities.

While flammable liquids comprise 82% of the hazardous materials shipped annually in the U.S., radioactive waste accounts for only 0.01%.

Europe’s Energy Troubles Continue: Hydro And Nuclear Output Declining

April 23, 2023

Europe’s Energy Troubles Continue: Hydro And Nuclear Output Declining

Europe’s hydro and nuclear output is declining, leading to mopre energy troubles.
Renewables are struggling to fill the gap as wind and solar output increase.
The EU may require increased LNG imports from the US to meet energy demands.

Last year, Europe was on the brink of an energy breakdown as Russian gas flows dried up and most of Europe doubled down on renewable energy.

The renewable energy bet paid off, in a way. Solar and wind electricity generation in Europe hit a record in 2022. In fact, for the first time in history, wind and solar together produced more electricity than natural gas-fired power plants.

There was just one problem with that. Lower hydro and nuclear output more than wiped out the significance of that record output.

Droughts were severe in Europe last year. They threatened major trade routes such as the Rhein in Germany and the Po in Italy. And they also caused severe declines in hydropower electricity output. For example, in Spain, hydropower output dropped by almost half because of the droughts. All this might repeat this year as well.

Meanwhile, nuclear wasn’t doing so swell, either. France suddenly found that years of underinvestment in maintenance would have consequences: emergency reactor shutdowns for repairs and maintenance.

The problems cost EDF a massive annual loss of $19 billion as half of its reactors had to be shut down for maintenance. Most blamed the pandemic, but nuclear experts such as Mark Nelson saw the roots of the problem much further into the past when France decided to bet on renewables over nuclear.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

MIT Study: Nuclear Power Shutdown Could Lead To Increased Deaths

April 23, 2023

MIT Study: Nuclear Power Shutdown Could Lead To Increased Deaths

A new MIT study indicates that retiring U.S. nuclear power plants could lead to an increase in burning fossil fuels to fill the energy gap, resulting in over 5,000 premature deaths due to increased air pollution.
Nearly 20 percent of current electricity in the U.S. comes from nuclear power, with a fleet of 92 reactors scattered around the country.
If more renewable energy sources become available to supply the grid by 2030, air pollution could be curtailed, but there may still be a slight increase in pollution-related deaths.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology new study shows that if U.S. nuclear power plants are retired, the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas to fill the energy gap could cause more than 5,000 premature deaths.

The MIT team took on the questions in the text following in a new study appearing in Nature Energy.

Nearly 20 percent of today’s electricity in the United States comes from nuclear power. The U.S. has the largest nuclear fleet in the world, with 92 reactors scattered around the country. Many of these power plants have run for more than half a century and are approaching the end of their expected lifetimes.

Policymakers are debating whether to retire the aging reactors or reinforce their structures to continue producing nuclear energy, which many consider a low-carbon alternative to climate-warming coal, oil, and natural gas.

Now, MIT researchers say there’s another factor to consider in weighing the future of nuclear power: air quality. In addition to being a low carbon-emitting source, nuclear power is relatively clean in terms of the air pollution it generates. Without nuclear power, how would the pattern of air pollution shift, and who would feel its effects?

…click on the above link to read the rest…

US Nuclear Reactors Among The Oldest In The World

November 27, 2022

US Nuclear Reactors Among The Oldest In The World

The United States’ 92 nuclear reactors currently in operation have a mean age of 41.6 years, the third oldest in the world.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, the only nuclear fleets that are older are those of Switzerland (46.3 years) and Belgium (42.3 years). Also older are the singular reactors in use in Armenia and the Netherlands.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The U.S. was among the first commercial adopters of nuclear energy in the 1950s, explaining the number of aging reactors today. A building boom between the 1960s and 1970s created today’s nuclear power plants in the United States. The five reactors completed in the 1990s and the one finished in 2016 were all holdovers of delayed construction projects from the 1970s experiencing roadblocks due to regulatory problems and mounting opposition to nuclear energy. The most recent construction start date of a completed U.S. reactor today is 1978 – one year before the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, which further cemented the public’s rejection of nuclear energy and the challenges of updating nuclear reactor infrastructure today. However, two reactors started at Vogtle power plant in Georgia in 2013 will join the grid soon as the newest additions to the U.S. fleet. They too experienced many regulatory and other delays, culminating in the bankruptcy of the reactor construction company. The U.S. government stepped in with a loan so that the project can now be finished almost 17 years after its initial proposal.

The U.S. today is one of only 15 countries which the World Nuclear Industry Status Report lists as actively pursuing nuclear energy. This includes new nuclear programs in the United Arab Emirates, Belarus and Iran that were started in the past decade only, as well as a younger program in China that started producing power in 1991 and today has a mean reactor fleet age of just nine years…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

11 years later, fate of Fukushima reactor cleanup uncertain

November 17, 2022

11 years later, fate of Fukushima reactor cleanup uncertain

Tanks storing treated radioactive water after it was used to cool the melted fuel are seen at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), in Okuma town, northeastern Japan, Thursday, March 3, 2022. The government has announced plans to release the water after treatment and dilution to well below the legally releasable levels through a planned undersea tunnel at a site about 1 kilometer offshore. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

OKUMA, Japan (AP) — Eleven years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was ravaged by a meltdown following a massive earthquake and tsunami, the plant now looks like a sprawling construction site. Most of the radioactive debris blasted by the hydrogen explosions has been cleared and the torn buildings have been fixed.

During a recent visit by journalists from The Associated Press to see firsthand the cleanup of one of the world’s worst nuclear meltdowns, helmeted men wore regular work clothes and surgical masks, instead of previously required hazmat coveralls and full-face masks, as they dug near a recently reinforced oceanside seawall.

Workers were preparing for the planned construction of an Olympic pool-sized shaft for use in a highly controversial plan set to begin in the spring of 2023 to gradually get rid of treated radioactive water — now exceeding 1.3 million tons stored in 1,000 tanks — so officials can make room for other facilities needed for the plant’s decommissioning.

Despite the progress, massive amounts of radioactive melted fuel remain inside of the reactors. There’s worry about the fuel because so much about its condition is still unknown, even to officials in charge of the cleanup.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

‘Serious’ incident at Finnish nuclear power plant under control

November 2, 2022

‘Serious’ incident at Finnish nuclear power plant under control

The nuclear power plants in Olkiluoto are located in south-western Finland. – Copyright JACQUES DEMARTHON / AFP

Authorities have stated there is no danger after a “serious” incident was reported at a nuclear power station in Finland.

The incident occurred in reactor 2 of the Olkiluoto power station, in the southwest of the country at 12.22 local time (11:22 CET).

But the Finnish nuclear safety authority (STUK) later confirmed that the situation was stable and the reactor had been shut down.

“A severe abnormal disturbance occurred at the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant unit 2,” STUK said in a statement.

“The disturbance was possibly caused by a fault in the purification system for the reactor water… there was no radioactive release to the environment.

STUK added there was no need for protective measures and they did not expect any danger outside the unit. No workers or personnel had been exposed to radiation or injured in the incident.

“STUK started the emergency activities immediately in full force due to exceptionally high radiation levels inside the unit,” said director general Petteri Tiippana.

“There are about 80 persons following the situation, but we do not see an acute threat.”

About a third of Finland’s electricity comes from nuclear power, with four reactors in operation and two under construction.

Europe’s Nuclear & Hydropower Falter With Droughts

August 16, 2022

Europe’s Nuclear & Hydropower Falter With Droughts

As Europe looks to secure alternative energy sources to Russian gas in light of the war in Ukraine, Statista’s Anna Fleck warns, a new threat to energy security is stirring, this time from droughts.

The droughts hitting Europe are impacting everything from food to transportation to the environment.

In Italy, the River Po has fallen two meters below its normal levels, seeing rice paddy fields dry out. Meanwhile, Germany’s River Rhine has become so shallow that cargo vessels can’t pass through it fully loaded, pushing up shipping costs, and France’s Tille River, in the Burgundy region, is now a dried up bed covered in thousands of dead fish.

But Europe’s energy production has also been impacted. As Statista’s chart below shows, hydroelectric power has fallen some 20 percent since 2021. This partly comes down to the fact reservoirs have been drying up in countries such as Italy, Serbia, Montenegro and Norway. The latter, according to Bloomberg, usually a major hydroproducer, is even taking the steps to reduce exports in order to prioritize refilling its reservoir’s low water levels so the country can maintain domestic production.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Nuclear power too has fallen since 2021. One reason for this is that France has had to shut down several of its nuclear power plants because the rivers Rhone and the Garonne have been too warm to be able to cool down its reactors. France is 70 percent dependent on nuclear energy and is a key exporter of electricity, usually supplying Italy, Germany and the UK. It’s important to note here however, that other problems are troubling France’s nuclear fleet too. A significant number of the country’s power plants have had to be powered down recently due to malfunctions and maintenance issues, which had been delayed because of the pandemic. These combined reasons mean, according to Wired, that the country’s hydropower output is down nearly 50 percent.

Green technocracy’s dirty secret

August 6, 2022

Green technocracy’s dirty secret

Germany is in trouble. The IMF has revised its projected growth figures down to just 1.2 percent for 2022. Even this may prove to be optimistic now that gas imports from Russia have dropped to just 20 percent of what was anticipated prior to the EU sanctions. With autumn approaching, German industry is anticipating power outages while the population looks forward to food and energy shortages.

The cuts in gas supplies – resulting, apparently, from Canada refusing to return essential turbines following repair – mean that Germany has no chance of building up its gas storage before winter arrives. And, of course, it is possible that the Russian state will use this moment of weakness to cut supplies even further. After all, most of the future gas which would have gone to Europe has since been sold to Asian states instead.

Inevitably then, German – and western – media outlets will spend much of the winter talking about “Putin’s energy cuts.” In reality, it is the European technocracy and its puppet politicians who bear the greater responsibility. After all, it is they who have spent the last three decades leaving Europe vulnerable to precisely this kind of supply shock. As Lea Booth at Quillette argues:

“The truth is that the Energiewende was doomed to fail from the start. Germany bet big on solar and wind and shut down their nuclear plants when they should have forgone renewables and expanded their nuclear energy program instead. Germany’s anti-nuclear ideology is so rigid that they closed three nuclear plants in December 2021, despite the global energy crisis, and plan to close their last three nuclear plants this December, despite Russia’s energy extortion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bill Gates’ dumbest idea ever

August 2, 2022

Bill Gates’ dumbest idea ever

A legendary nuclear whistleblower’s open letter to Bill Gates over his new love of nuclear power.

Dear Mr. Gates,

I am writing this letter to you because I believe you have crossed the line by leveraging your fortune to maneuver state governments and, indeed, the U.S. Government to siphon precious taxpayer funds supporting your latest atomic contrivance in Wyoming. Of course, how you spend your fortune is your decision.

Recently, the media and governors in western states have become enthralled by you and your team at Natrium to build a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor with a so-called molten salt-based energy storage system. As a result, you are now asking state and national governments for billions of dollars to bankroll a “fast reactor” concept cooled by liquid sodium.

Your latest “brainchild” ignores 70 years of liquid-sodium-based nuclear failure.

I question your zeal to leverage that fortune by securing additional public funds for an unproductive techno-solution that claims to solve the climate crisis! Your latest technofix will not mitigate the climate crisis.

The fuel is made only in Russia

On the contrary, Mr. Gates, the marketing hype associated with your latest “brainchild” ignores more than 70 years of failures using liquid-sodium-based atomic reactor coolant. It may also unleash a new era of unproductive nuclear spending, increase the risk of nuclear proliferation and put America at risk of becoming dependent on Russia to fuel the reactor. Currently, Russia is the only country in the world that can fabricate this odd high-enrichment fuel. Therefore, your design, if ever built, would make these reactors beholding to Russia for their peculiar fuel unless taxpayers subsidize another massive investment in fuel fabrication facilities. More significantly, the special fuel the Natrium reactor uses is only one-half of one percent below bomb-grade and is called High-Assay Low-Enrichment Uranium, or HALEU…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

France Sees Nuclear Energy Output Plummet At The Worst Possible Moment

July 3, 2022

France Sees Nuclear Energy Output Plummet At The Worst Possible Moment

France, the European Union’s leader in nuclear energy, is seeing a massive decline in output.
Though it has been relatively unfazed by the bloc’s ongoing energy crisis, declining nuclear production could pose a significant problem in the coming months.
The collapse of French nuclear power generation and Putin’s retaliatory cutback on energy exports to Europe could be disastrous for the continent.

France has long been one of the world’s greatest champions of nuclear energy. France leads the European Union in nuclear production, with the most productive reactors in the bloc, and relies on nuclear power for a larger share of its energy mix than any other country in the world. It makes sense that France should lead the charge for nuclear energy development as they have long been the global poster child for safe and reliable nuclear energy – until now.

A recent flurry of unexpected issues at the Électricité de France (EDF), the state nuclear power operator representing the largest nuclear fleet in Europe, has caused French nuclear energy output to tumble to its lowest levels in 30 years. Around half of the EDF’s massive nuclear fleet has been taken offline, delivering a massive blow to the EU’s energy independence and security in the midst of a worldwide energy crisis.

France has become increasingly reliant on nuclear power in recent years. French President Emmanuel Macron has given nuclear energy an even bigger boost in his time in office. Indeed, in February, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he announced a €52 billion plan to revitalize the country’s “nuclear adventure.” He has also fought for the inclusion of the emissions-free power source as a “green investment” in the nomenclature of the European Union as the continent moves toward establishing its green energy budget for the coming years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Nuclear waste from small modular reactors

June 4, 2022

Nuclear waste from small modular reactors

Significance

Small modular reactors (SMRs), proposed as the future of nuclear energy, have purported cost and safety advantages over existing gigawatt-scale light water reactors (LWRs). However, few studies have assessed the implications of SMRs for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The low-, intermediate-, and high-level waste stream characterization presented here reveals that SMRs will produce more voluminous and chemically/physically reactive waste than LWRs, which will impact options for the management and disposal of this waste. Although the analysis focuses on only three of dozens of proposed SMR designs, the intrinsically higher neutron leakage associated with SMRs suggests that most designs are inferior to LWRs with respect to the generation, management, and final disposal of key radionuclides in nuclear waste.

Abstract

Small modular reactors (SMRs; i.e., nuclear reactors that produce <300 MW_elec each) have garnered attention because of claims of inherent safety features and reduced cost. However, remarkably few studies have analyzed the management and disposal of their nuclear waste streams. Here, we compare three distinct SMR designs to an 1,100-MW_elec pressurized water reactor in terms of the energy-equivalent volume, (radio-)chemistry, decay heat, and fissile isotope composition of (notional) high-, intermediate-, and low-level waste streams. Results reveal that water-, molten salt–, and sodium-cooled SMR designs will increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal by factors of 2 to 30. The excess waste volume is attributed to the use of neutron reflectors and/or of chemically reactive fuels and coolants in SMR designs. That said, volume is not the most important evaluation metric; rather, geologic repository performance is driven by the decay heat power and the (radio-)chemistry of spent nuclear fuel, for which SMRs provide no benefit…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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