Alternative energy Archives

Atomic Show #203 – Globally distributed atomic conversation

Rod Adams · May 9, 2013 · 11 Comments

Attempting to transition away from fossil fuels to an “all renewable” energy system is fraught with cost and reliability challenges. Germany is running into substantial challenges and is burned 5% more lignite – brown coal – in 2012 than it did in 2011. Recently completed studies that including a range of scenarios in Australia and California indicate the magnitude of the challenge of trying to do without both nuclear energy and fossil fuel.

Not surprisingly, we agreed that future energy systems that include a large dose of nuclear energy are more achievable and will also result in increasing human creative capabilities rather than restricting our development potential.

Additional topics included the recent final shutdown of the Kewaunee nuclear power station, nuclear tourism, growing interest in Small Modular Reactors (SMR) around the world, including Australia, and the positive responses that Robert Stone is getting at college campuses as he holds screenings for Pandora’s Promise. That well-received documentary that tells the story of people who have made a personal journey from nuclear opposition to nuclear energy support will be released in theaters around the US (and perhaps the rest of the world) in June 2013.

Guests on this episode of the Atomic Show:
Gwyneth Cravens, author of Power to Save the World: The Truth about Nuclear Energy
Ben Heard, director of Think Climate Consulting and a principal author of Zero Carbon Options
Margaret Harding, principal at 4 Factor Consulting
Steve Aplin, who blogs at Canadian Energy Issues
Paul Lorenzini, who was the CEO at NuScale Power from 2008-2012

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Nukes kill more birds than wind?

Guest Author · April 30, 2013 · 65 Comments

By Paul Lorenzini In the yin and yang of energy policy debates, we know some can get carried away. Normally we ignore the radical fringe, but sometimes their claims take on a life of their own and need to be addressed. One such charge has found its way as an authoritative reference on Wipikedia, alleging [...]

Atomic Show #202 – Atomic Earth Day 2013

Rod Adams · April 22, 2013 · 3 Comments

Many nuclear professionals have been attracted to the technology because of its inherently light footprint when compared to all other alternative power sources. It uses less land, less metal, less concrete, and a tiny volume of fuel when compared to producing a similar quantity of energy from other sources of reliable power, especially when the [...]

Call them unreliable

Rod Adams · April 21, 2013 · 13 Comments

Rick Maltese is a creative artist who spent this afternoon creating an amusing parody of the diffuse, weather dependent, unreliable power sources that some think can beat both fossil fuel and nuclear energy. Share Call Them Unreliable widely! PS – Just in case you would like to have a sing along at your next pronuclear [...]

Switch II Fission, the Sequel

Rod Adams · March 20, 2013 · 6 Comments

Last night I drove to Lexington, VA where the sustainability program was hosting a screening of Switch (to a smarter future). There was a decent crowd; perhaps 100 or more students, faculty and townspeople. It is an impressive documentary, with inside views of facilities that people rarely see. It also does a good job of [...]

Switch Energy Project – faint praise for nuclear energy

Rod Adams · March 12, 2013 · 21 Comments

A colleagues who used to work in the oil and gas industry pointed me to an article from the November 2012 issue of the Journal of Petroleum Technology titled Switch: The New Documentary on Energy’s Future. The article describes a video research project undertaken by Scott Tinker, a former oil and gas company geologist who [...]

Hard reality – biofuels are a loser, despite all the hope and hype

Rod Adams · February 20, 2013 · 39 Comments

I’ve been spending the past hour or so reading an excellent paper written by a US Naval aviator titled Twenty-First Century Snake Oil: Why the United States Should Reject Biofuels as Part of a Rational National Energy Security Strategy. (Note: The link for the original paper is broken, but CAPT Kiefer has published another version [...]

Atomic Show #196 – Atomic Optimists

Rod Adams · February 18, 2013 · 50 Comments

On Sunday, February 17, 2013, a group of five nuclear energy professionals gathered to share their thoughts about the current state of the atomic energy business. Participants included: Margaret Harding (@M2harding), 4 Factor Consulting Meredith Angwin (@yes_VY), Yes Vermont Yankee Andrea Jennetta (@NuclearBuzz), Fuel Cycle Week and I Dig Uranium Cal Abel (@cal_abel), PhD candidate [...]

Prediction: Some wind developers will defraud the government in 2013

Rod Adams · January 5, 2013 · 8 Comments

When the Congress decided to extend the Production Tax Credit for wind energy projects, they made a couple of changes to the law that provide a substantial temptation for unscrupulous developers to take the money and run. While many sources describe the PTC as a $22 per megawatt-hour (indexed for inflation) tax credit provided to [...]

Power cheaper than coal – thorium AND uranium make it possible

Rod Adams · December 12, 2012 · 60 Comments

Bob Hargraves, the author of Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal, recently traveled to Shanghai to present a 30 minute talk summarizing the main points of discussion that he covered in his book. The occasion of the trip was Thorium Energy Conference 2012. Bob is a professor with a good facility for numbers and a talent [...]

On the Atomic Insights Radar – November 19, 2012

Rod Adams · November 19, 2012 · 7 Comments

On Friday, Nov 16, I wrote about the potential impact of applying a “peanut butter spread” sequestration algorithm to the NRC budget. (I spent a few years as a government budget analyst, so I sometimes speak the lingo.) If the accountants at the Office of Management and Budget continue on their proposed path, the NRC [...]

Germany learning difficulty of self-imposed nuclear energy abandonment

Rod Adams · November 12, 2012 · 41 Comments

One of my sources posted a link to this brief video clip from Russia Today titled Fukushima Legacy: Nuclear phase-out hits Germans with high energy prices regarding Germany’s Energiewende, a well-publicized effort sold to the German public as a replacement of nuclear energy with renewable energy. According to this and many other stories, the reality [...]