Alternative Energy / Nuclear Power

• Fire Onboard Russian Nuclear Submarine

  First, the good news. A fire aboard the Russian Federation’s Ekaterinburg nuclear submarine has apparently been extinguished. The bad news - that’s about all that is certain about the incident. The fire broke out on the Project 667BDRM Delfin-class Ekaterinburg Delta-IV nuclear submarine, undergoing planned repairs, at a ship repair plant in the town of Roslyakovo in the Murmansk region at around 4 p.m. Moscow Time. Russian Federation Severnoflot (Northern Navy) spokesman Vadim Serga remarked as the incident was underway, "Wooden scaffolding around the submarine's hull caught fire during planned repairs. The flame spread to the submarine's outer hull. The possibility of the blaze…

• U.S. Fukushima Medical Study Estimates 14,000 Dead U.S. Infants from Fallout

  Almost nothing to see here, move along. Eight months after Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s six reactor Daichi Fuskuhima complex was rocked by an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale and subsequent tsunami, both Tokyo and TEPCO maintain that the effects of the disaster have been contained. Not so, according to a just published peer reviewed medical paper appearing in the U.S., which indicates that Fukushima’s pernicious consequences have traveled across the Pacific. The figures come from a recently published article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services, a peer reviewed scientific journal, authored by Joseph J.…

• Fukushima, What Crisis? Russia’s Rosatom’s Banner Year

  Russian state-run Rosatom, has had a successful year, despite worldwide concerns about nuclear energy following the 11 March nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Diachi nuclear power plant. Rosatom’s massive nuclear empire includes the otkrytnoe aktsionernoe obshchestvo “Atomnyi energopromyshlennyi kompleks” Atomenergoprom, a 100 percent state-owned holding company that oversees Russia’s civil nuclear industry, nuclear weapons companies, research institutes and nuclear and radiation safety agencies as well as representing the Russian Federation globally on issues of the peaceful use of nuclear energy and nonproliferation as well as managing Russia’s fleet of nuclear icebreakers through FGUP Atomflot. Rosatom has just released its 2010 annual report…

• Another Asian Fukushima Imminent?

  Taiwan imports 99 percent of its energy, which is vital to its rapidly industrializing economy. The island nation’s electricity demand was recently growing at almost 5 percent per year, but this is slowing to about 3.3 percent per annum to 2013.  Nuclear power has been a significant part of the electricity supply for two decades and now provides 17 percent of the country’s overall energy needs. But this has come at a potential cost. The country’s three nuclear power plants (NPPs) comprise four General Electric boiling water reactors and two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors.  Taiwan launched its nuclear power project in…

• South Korean Nuclear Power Glitches Unsettle Government

  South Korea currently has 21 nuclear power plants (NPPs). According to government statistics, atomic power produces about 40 percent of the country’s total electricity supply, roughly 18.5 gigawatts. South Korea’s first NPP in Kori, South Gyeongsang province, came online in 1972 and the government is proud of announcing that its NPPs have not had any “major” accidents in the past four decades. Recently however South Korea’s NPPs have had more than a few “hiccups,” as the Korea Herald recently put it. On the morning of 14 December the Kori NPP suffered a ‘hiccup” when a temporary surge of electricity caused…

• Small Modular Nuclear Reactors to be Mass Produced in US?

  New studies from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) conclude that small modular reactors may hold the key to the future of U.S. nuclear power generation. The reports assess the economic feasibility of classical, gigawatt-scale reactors and the possible new generation of modular reactors. The smaller modular reactors as considered would have generating capacities of 600 megawatts or less, would be factory-built as modular components, and then shipped to their desired location for assembly. As a beginning point on other news this week, the reports followed up a 2004 University of Chicago study on the economic…

• France's Nuclear Giant's Areva Stock Meltdown

  Call it a post-Fukushima hangover. On 12 December French nuclear energy giant Areva SA, the world’s biggest supplier of nuclear fuel and services, asked that trading in its shares be suspended shortly before the opening of the Paris Stock Exchange, the company said. Areva SA shares subsequently fell 5 percent before modestly rebounding 1 percent on 13 December. Since the beginning of the year Areva SA shares have lost 47 percent of their value.  This will hit Jean Sixpack directly in the pocketbook, as Areva SA is majority owned by the French state. Why the reversal of fortune? Areva SA acknowledges a 2011…

• Nuclear Energy at a Crossroads

  For years the nuclear power lobby has muscled its way into international climate negotiations and asserted itself as a critical part of any serious effort to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions. Not so much during climate talks in Durban, South Africa, these past two weeks. There were some media mentions and the occasional sound bite from industry officials, but the nuclear lobby — still suffering from a Fukushima hangover — stayed relatively quiet this time around. Even Patrick Moore, Greenpeace [alleged?] co-founder turned nuclear booster, seems to have moved on. His gig these days is defending the oil sands, part of…

• Imminent EU Report to Back Construction of 40 New Nuclear Power Plants by 2030

  Japan’s 11 March Fukushima nuclear power disaster? No problem. Germany’s subsequent decision on 30 May, announced by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, that Germany would close all of its 18 nuclear power plants between 2015 and 2022? Big deal. On 13 December the European Union Energy Commission will release its “'Energy Roadmap 2050,” confidential details of which have been leaked, in which EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger labels nuclear energy an “important factor” in the EU’s future energy matrix. The startling statistic to emerge from the report is that EU Energy Commission supports…

• Bill Gates to Build Nuclear Reactors in China?

  Since the 11 March disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daichi nuclear power complex, when an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale was followed by a tsunami that destroyed the facility, the nuclear industry worldwide has been fighting back, arguing that new, improved reactor designs mean that nuclear power is still a valid option. Surging economic incipient superpowers India and China remain committed to generating electricity with the atom as one of their best options to provide power to their populations’ surging demand. And now Bill Gates is getting into the act in China, promoting a newer and reportedly safer reactor…