The Next Nuclear Renaissance?
Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in building new nuclear power stations, particularly among policymakers. This comes some two decades after a previously forecast “nuclear renaissance” petered out, having produced few orders, all of which went badly wrong.
Nuclear power is failing, and AI can’t rescue it
Nuclear generation is expensive and slow to develop. Claims that past failures won’t recur have convinced politicians to socialize investments rejected by private capital markets.
A Nuclear Power Parable
Once upon a time in Michigan, there was an aged nuclear power plant called Palisades. Since it started operation in 1971 until it was permanently closed in 2022, it ran about 73% of the time, about three days out of every four. But the old nuclear plant could not financially compete against renewables, and after its electric subsidy from Michigan expired in 2022, Palisades was closed and sold for scrap metal.
PG&E is charging ratepayers $723 million to keep Diablo Canyon open. Should it?
Two anti-nuclear groups are fighting PG&E’s plan to charge ratepayers $723 million for the cost of operating the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant past its original closure dates.
Reflections on The UnHoly Trinity
The Nuclear Age Began With A Bang That Still Reverberates Today In Our Planetary Ecosystem and In Our Bodies and Genes.
Small nuclear reactors are no fix for California’s energy needs
On Monday, the Natural Resources Committee of the California Assembly will consider a bill to repeal a longstanding moratorium on nuclear plants in the state, which was meant to be in place until there is a sustainable plan for what to do with radioactive waste. Defeated multiple times in the past, this bill would carve out an exception for small modular reactors, or SMRs, the current pipe dream of nuclear advocates.
Nuclear Power Is a Dead End. We Must Abandon It Completely.
Amid a confluence of crises—the Ukraine war, an energy crisis, and climate breakdown—nuclear energy is experiencing a renaissance, at least in the rhetoric of politicians and pundits across Europe, North America, and beyond. After all, it’s tempting to propose these generators of low-carbon energy as a panacea to this daunting phalanx of calamities
France and Switzerland shut down nuclear power plants amid scorching heatwave
Due to a scorching heatwave which has spread across Europe in recent days, a number of nuclear power plants in Switzerland and France have been forced to either reduce activity or shut down completely as extreme temperatures have prevented sites from relying on water from local rivers.
To cool down, nuclear power plants pump water from local rivers or the sea, which they then release back into water bodies at a higher temperature.