295th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs

Atomic Insights is proud to be hosting the 295th weekly addition of the Carnival of Nuclear Blogs. Here are some of the highlight posts produced during the first full week of 2016.

From Yes Vermont Yankee:

Vermont Yankee was replaced by natural gas: Doing the numbers
By: Meredith Angwin

and

The replacement for Vermont Yankee was ….natural gas
Guest post by Mike Twomey, Vice President of External Affairs for Entergy

Vermont Yankee electricity was replaced by electricity from natural gas. Replacement was pretty much kWh by kWh. Neither conservation nor renewables made much dent in the natural gas kWh. The expanded use of gas led to increased carbon dioxide production: the Twomey post includes an estimate of this effect. Angwin and Twomey used two different data sources (EIA vs ISO-NE), but both led to the same conclusion.

Note: Would it be considered bad form to say, “We told you so,” to the politicians in Vermont that played a role in creating the situation that led to Entergy saying No Vermont Yankee?

From Jim Conca’s Forbes Blog:

Following The Paris Climate Conference, The Low-Carbon Mudslinging Starts

The COP21 climate meeting in Paris has ended with one certitude – limiting the rise in global mean temperatures will require all forms of low-carbon energy to expand dramatically, including hydro, wind, solar, biomass, efficiency and nuclear. But some anti-nuke activists, who also fashion themselves as climate activists, disagree and are attacking the top climate scientists like Dr. James Hansen as being climate denialists in their support of nuclear energy as a part of the solution. But then, they like Goldman Sachs better than Bill Gates as stewards of the planet. Go figure.

From Energy Reality Project:

Ocean Acidification: An Immediate Threat or Why all the Hubub About Climate Change?
Guest Author: Christopher C. Bergan

Description: In light of the recent COP21 summit it is important that people understand the impending dangers we face from the growing carbon dioxide problem. Christopher Bergan gives some history behind the science and reminds us of the often neglected “out-of-sight-out-of-mind” twin to climate change we call ocean acidity is perhaps the biggest emergency.

From Atomic Insights:

Why James Hansen might be underestimating nuclear energy’s growth potential and why Joe Romm is wrong

Joe Romm, an energy industry and climate change pundit who was once mentored by Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute, recently sat down at his keyboard to produce a piece providing the basis for his opinion that James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, Tom Wigley and Kerry Emanuel — and hundreds to thousands of other nuclear energy proponents — are wrong about nuclear power and overestimating its potential contributions to our future clean energy needs and wants.

This piece is designed to respond to some of Joe’s interpretations of atomic energy history and to provide the basis for my opinion that Joe is seriously underestimating nuclear energy’s potential to grow to become a much larger source of clean, reliable electricity, heat and motive force for transportation.