Archived Articles

International Energy Agency

June 16, 2010

Almost one quarter of global electricity could be generated from nuclear power by 2050, making a major contribution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This is the central finding of the Nuclear Energy Technology Roadmap, published today by the International Energy

Why no love for cost-effective, low-emissions nuclear power?

By John H. Richardson

You better believe it, tree huggers. On the hunt for next-gen nuclear power, Esquire.com's political columnist talks with the southern senator who wants a green Manhattan Project and — dare he say it? — even a cap or two.

Read More about Lamar Alexander and nuclear power

The Australian Newspaper, 9 June 2009:

If climate change is the “inconvenient truth” facing our fossil fuel dependent society, then advanced nuclear power is the inconvenient solution starting right back at the environmental movement.

Since the 1970s, when the Sierra Club and other prominent environmental

Apple joined Nike, PG&E, EXELON and PNM Resources in resigning from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, citing lack of urgency of action on climate change.

Catherine A. Novelli, Vice President of Apple's worldwide government affairs, in a letter to the President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Thomas J.

by Ted Rockwell

April, 2010

This is the latest edition of the Nuclear Energy Facts Report.  The Facts Report itself contains only facts that manifest in the physical world; no opinions, conclusions, recommendations, or attempts at consensus-building.  But we have found it helpful to precede the Facts Report

One of the new initiatives I’ll be trying in 2011 is an audio podcast series (I use the term ‘series’ loosely, as there’ll be no fixed schedule). This is now fairly straightforward to do, via my iPhone 4 and the Audioboo app.

This type of media/blogging is quick and

by Bernard L.Cohen

Department of Physics

University of Pittsburgh

Since Energy sources derived from the sun are called "renewable," that adjective apparently means that they will be available in undiminished quantity at present costs for as long as the relationship between the sun and the Earth persists,

I’d like to present a detailed guest post which provides a well-argued perspective on the energy future of another developed nation — Great Britain.   Barry Brook

"A huge advantage of the proposed solution is that it is the most affordable and sustainable one for addressing peak oil and energy security. The

I’d like to present a detailed guest post which provides a well-argued perspective on the energy future of another developed nation — Great Britain.   Barry Brook

"A huge advantage of the proposed solution is that it is the most affordable and sustainable one for addressing peak oil and energy security. The

11/11/09

The British have approved the accelerated construction of ten new nuclear power plants. In order to minimize the construction time, "local authorities have been stripped of the right of veto over new nuclear plants and other key energy projects" as reported by TimesOnLine.  This puts England in

Burning energy questions – ERoEI, desert solar, oil replacements, realistic renewables and tropical islands

Late last year, Tom Blees, I and a few other people from the International Award Committee of the Global Energy Prize answered reader’s energy questions on The

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, chaired a hearing of the conference recently to receive testimony on the importance of building 100 new nuclear plants in the United States over the next 20 years. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) co-chaired the hearing.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held a symposium on February 15 addressing the question of whether greenhouse gas emissions from global energy production can be cut by 80% by 2050. Dr. Richard Lester, chairman of MIT's Department of Nuclear Engineering, delivered an insightful

http://www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/CO2-calculator-EFN.xls

December 1, 2009

Here in Australia, there’s currently a political storm over a proposed cap-and-trade system for putting a price on carbon pollution. In brief, the federal Labor (left wing) government has passed the legislation for an emissions trading scheme in the house of representatives (where they have a

The November 2009 issue of Scientific American has a cover story by Mark Z. Jacobson (Professor, Stanford) and Mark A. Delucchi (researcher, UC Davis). It’s entitled “A path to sustainable energy by 2030” (p 58 – 65; they call it WWS: wind, water or sunlight). This popular article is supported by a

Critique developed by the Science Council for Global Initiatives
Contact: Tom Blees  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

1. The Study recommendations on actions to deal with spent nuclear fuel and waste do not recognize the importance of the

Barry Brook - Advanced Nuclear Power Systems for Long-term Energy and Climate Security

Leonard Huxley Lecture Theatre

Professor Barry Brook
University of Adelaide

Fossil fuels currently supply about 80% of modern society’s primary energy. Given the imperatives of climate change,

Posted by Barry Brook on 8 August 2009

If renewable or nuclear energy is going to be successful in decarbonising our electricity supply (and, ultimately, all energy use), it needs to hit a couple of fundamental benchmarks:

(i) its life cycle energy inputs must be low compared to its ‘clean energy’ output;

A generous supporter has offered to match any donations to SCGI up to $10,000.

We've managed to keep our expenses minimal up to now, but we'd like to organize an international IFR conference that we hope will grow out of our work with Russia, the UK, and the World Energy Forum's October energy conference in

While many still claim that conservation together with wind and solar will solve the world’s energy problems, they are dead wrong. Nuclear power is the only proven alternative source of carbon-free energy that can be developed rapidly enough and to sufficient scale to meet the world’s growing need for

The 2016 Paris Climate Accord goals will likely fail and will never be achieved, a new study reports.

Epidemiology Without Biology: False Paradigms, Unfounded Assumptions, and Specious Statistics in Radiation Science.

Long accepted but inaccurate claims about the danger of low level radiation are crippling us. These fears fuel needless evacuations, inspire avoidance of life-saving medical procedures, and

By Staffan A. Qvist, et al.

A number of analyses, meta-analyses, and assessments, including those performed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the International Energy Agency, have concluded

The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News

Richard M. Jones
Number 12 - January 29, 2010

“ The Administration is committed to promoting nuclear power in the United States and developing a safe, long-term solution for the management of used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. The work of the Blue Ribbon Commission

Peter W. Davidson, Executive Director of the Loan Programs Office (LPO)

Today, the Energy Department is announcing a significant step to help meet America’s future low-carbon goals with the release of a draft $12.6 billion loan guarantee solicitation for advanced nuclear energy projects.

If finalized, the Advanced

French study on nuclear deployment

A 2006 study from the International Journal of Nuclear Governance looked at various types of reactor systems and how they might best be combined to meet our future energy needs. The conclusion may surprise those who see the different nuclear power systems as either/or

NEWS RELEASE
Companies to pursue potential development of GEH’s Generation IV PRISM Reactor

AIKEN, SC (Oct. 27, 2010) – GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC, (SRNS) today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to explore the potential of deploying a prototype of

GE (General Electric) Hitachi is proposing the Advanced Recycling Center (ARC).It is an ectrometallurgical separation process that would make a new form of fuel from spent fuel rods without separating plutonium. This would be used in the Fourth Generation PRISM sodium-cooled fast reactors. This proposed

The 29 people killed last week in the West Virginia coal-mine explosion will soon be as forgotten by the nation as are the 362 miners who were killed in a 1907 explosion in that state, the worst mining disaster in American history. The costs of producing the coal that generates approximately half of

by Tom Blees, 7 November, 2009

Following up on Barry’s article the other day about Spain’s drastic turnabout in solar subsidization and the ripple effects it’s having on the solar industry worldwide, I thought I’d mention some similar news from Germany. I ran across an article from Die Zeit, a prominent German

We're thrilled to announce the release of Mark Lynas' book, Nuclear 2.0: Why A Green Future Needs Nuclear Power. Mark Lynas contributed his considerable expertise in climate change to Pandora's Promise, which then inspired him to write this new book.

In Nuclear 2.0, Lynas, the former Climate Advisor to the

by Martin Nicholson, Tom Biegler and Barry Brook

28 November,2010

Climate change professor supports nuclear in newly published analysis

When a carbon price that is high enough to drive a technology switch eventually kicks in, only nuclear power will keep the lights on, keep electricity costs down, and meet

How fire can be tamed

Graham R.L. Cowan

105, 1144 Division St., Cobourg, Ontario K9A 4J9, Canada

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract: Combustion dies at the interface between breathable air and

macroscopic pieces of certain

A recent article in Engineering News argued that wind and solar could provide the bulk of South Africa’s power at the least cost. Dr Tobias Bischof-Niemz argued that building 22 GW of wind and solar capacity and 8 GW of “backup” (in the form of coal and/or gas) was the sensible solution to supplying a

Environmentalist and author, Mark Lynas gave a presentation this week for students at the World Nuclear University in Oxford, UK. The subject was the IFR and why nuclear is essential for poverty eradication and tackling climate change. A PDF of the presentation is attached.

View the presentation as a PDF

From an interview with George Stanford in National Policy Analysis, Dec. 2001

What is the IFR?

You mean, "What was the IFR?"

O.K., what was the IFR?

IFR stands for Integral Fast Reactor. It was a power-reactor-development program, built around a revolutionary concept for generating nuclear power - not only a

In February, 2010 John Shanahan wrote an letter to the President of the Office of Science and Technology, Dr. John Holdren, detailing a comprehensive policy on nuclear energy that was co-signed by many scientists, politicians and activists.

Read letter to John Holdren here.

IFR FaD 3 – the LWR versus IFR fuel cycle

16 February 2010 on BraveNewClimate.com

Yoon Chang and Barry Brook discuss the IFR over a good wine, June 2009

The following post in the Integral Fast Reactor Facts and Discussion series centres around two important diagrams prepared by Dr Yoon I. Chang – ...

Robert Stone

November 11, 2010

Have you ever wondered why so many former opponents of nuclear power are switching sides and are now advocating for nuclear power plant construction with the same passion they once devoted to fully abandoning this controversial technology? Why is Dr. Jim Hansen, the godfather of

Nuclear power — dangerous, right? And there's nowhere to put the nuclear waste, right? Eric Loewen is the evangelist of the sodium fast reactor, which burns nuclear waste, emits no CO2, and might just save the world.

By John H. Richardson

Thomas Porostocky

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT HOW NUCLEAR WASTE BECOMES

Mid-October’s Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis included the premier of a new pro-nuclear documentary entitled The New Fire. The movie focuses on the rise of reactor startups, particularly Transatomic and Oklo, illustrating how young inventor/entrepreneurs are striving to bring advanced nuclear power

The Independent, Friday 28 October 2011,(in the Environment | Green Living section)  by Steve Connor

A nuclear programme that was abandoned two decades ago has emerged as a possible 11th-hour solution to Britain's plutonium-waste headache, which the Government has to decide on within weeks.

Government

WASHINGTON — President Obama, speaking in Lanham, MD, on Tuesday, announcd that the Energy Department had approved financial help for the construction of two nuclear reactors in Georgia.

Read more about new nuclear plants in Georgia

Expect to see nuclear energy back in the media this year. It's an issue that raises its head periodically, only to be beaten back by the strong public sentiment against nuclear power.

Read more about the resurgence of talk about nuclear power

The climate changes because it is forced to do so. That may sound a little strange, but 'forcing' is a real technical term for any pressure that causes the 'average weather' to shift. Positive forcings (e.g. increased solar activity, more greenhouse gases) induce global warming, whereas negative forcings

Nuclear power is is a zero emmision source of energy. It doesn't damage the environment. It is time for the green movement to accept its safety.

Friends of the Earth, The Sierra Club and Greenpeace need to drop their opposition to nucleaar power.

by Brian Westenhaus  
Thursday, 14 October 2010

If you’re a large electrical user and concerned about just what all the alternative power generation ideas will do to your stockholders, management and labor interests, knowing just what the choices will most likely mean is paramount to the business and the

Remedy for Radiation Fear: Discard the Politicized Science

Linear No-Theshold (LNT), a theory that sets arbitrary "safe limits" to radiation exposure is incorrect. It has been known to be incorrect for over 100 years.

Uranium supplies will not limit the expansion of nuclear power in the U.S. or around the world for the foreseeable future, according to a major new interdisciplinary study produced under the auspices of the MIT Energy Initiative.

The study challenges conventional assumptions about nuclear energy. It

Once upon a time...we all wanted to understand renewables. What were the promising technologies? Are they available now? Could they produce enough power? How would the variability be managed? How reliable would a high-grid-penetration renewable energy system be? How much would it cost?

While markets and

How do we continue to power modern civilization without destroying it?

Pandora's Promise, a documentary by director Robert Stone, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19th. It features several of a growing number of environmentalists who are renouncing decades of antinuclear orthodoxy and

Listen to me on ABC Radio, talking about nuclear power, fast breeder reactors, renewables, and the inevitability of growing societal energy demand. This also features an interview with Dr Jim Green, and my response. It runs for about 16 minutes in total: http://tr.im/vXE2

-----------------

Published in the

February, 2007

Abstract

In 2002, as part of the MIT study on The Future of Nuclear Power, the first MIT Energy survey investigated public attitudes toward nuclear power in light of other sources of electric power. The survey found cost and environmental harm to be key drivers behind public preferences

Articles published in the press:

http://www.oilandgasinquirer.com/profiler.asp?article=%5Cmagazine%5Ccolumns%5C070226%5Cmag_col2007_fq0000.html
http://www.ecolo.org/media/articles/articles.in.english/Benefits-nuclear-energy.htm
...

August 31, 2010

Benita Dodd

Support for nuclear energy has increased steadily since Gallup began polling Americans in 1994 on the issue. Then, 57 percent supported using nuclear power to generate electricity. This year, it was 62 percent. Even as support inches forward, however, innovation is at risk of being

Posted by Barry Brook on 19 September 2009

I note a recent article in Opinion Online by Dr Helen Caldicott was linked to in the Is Our Future Nuclear? comments thread, and this subsequently generated a fair amount of heated discussion. The focal claim from Caldicott in this piece is that it is dangerous to

A 50 minute talk on the world's current energy situation.

October 7, 2009

Any solution to the world’s ever increasing energy requirements must be climate change friendly.

While many activists and scientists insist that renewable energies such as wind, solar and hydro electric can solve the world’s energy needs

By This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

A smaller scale, exportable, lifelong proliferation-resistant “right-sized reactor” may be coming soon to a town or military base near you thanks to the efforts of a Sandia research team led by Tom Sanders

Those who grew up during the years of the Cold War will probably never forget the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, a time when two superpowers came perilously close to unleashing all-out nuclear war. Several of John Kennedy's generals were purportedly advising an attack at least on Cuba, if not on Russia

By Lyubov Pronina and Yuriy Humber

September 27, 2010

(Bloomberg) -- Rosatom Corp., Russia’s nuclear holding company, plans to at least triple sales to $50 billion by 2030, as China and India order more reactors and fuel and opportunities emerge in the Middle East, said Chief Executive Officer Sergei

by David MacKay

When it comes to saving the planet, "every little bit helps!" Or does it?

Maybe if we all do a little, we'll achieve only a little. Newspapers and television programmes are full of suggestions on how we can be more green. But how can we tell what works?

Can we cut fossil fuel consumption

March 23, 2010

America is on the cusp of reviving its nuclear power industry. Last month President Obama pledged more than $8 billion in conditional loan guarantees for what will be the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in nearly three decades. And with the new authority granted by the

This summer, Pandora's Promise will be hitting the big screen in 25 cities across the country. The SCGI can't wait to share this amazing story.To find a showing at a theater near you, click here for details.
Read the Forbes article

by Jon Boone, MD. Posted on baltimoresun.com, March 8, 2010

"I've not been able to substantiate a single claim that wind developers make for their enterprise, including claims about the jobs, local revenues and taxes, and especially the ability of the wind industry to mitigate our dependence on fossil

Reporting from Stockholm - For nearly 30 years, no nukes were good nukes in this Scandinavian nation. Spooked by the meltdown at Three Mile Island, Swedes voted decisively in 1980 to ban expansion of nuclear power, and lawmakers pledged to close down all of Sweden's reactors by 2010.

Many here were

Nuclear power is being most actively pursued today in China (23) reactors currently under construction), India (4), South Korea (6) and Russia (8), and in terms of forward projections through to 2020, China plans to expand its nuclear generation capacity to 70 GW (up from 8.6 GW in 2010), South Korea to

 Staffan Qvist, PhD
Uppsala University, Sweden

Based on the empirical data from the Swedish light water reactor program of 1962-1986, the; potential for global nuclear power expansion to replace fossil fuel electricity production was estimated.

The data shows that if the  world built nuclear power at the per

The Center on Global Energy Policy hosted a panel discussion on the future of nuclear power. This event focused on important questions including: how can the lessons from the Fukushima disaster be used to contribute to convincingly safer construction and operation of nuclear reactors? Can new technology -

James Hansen discussing environmental tipping points with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, 12/22/09

"In the case of the ice sheets and sea level, we began in 2002 to get this spectacular data from the gravity satellite, which measures the gravitational field of the earth with such a high precision that you can get

Letter to theBlue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future
from Jan B. van Erp, nuclear engineer, Past Vice-Chairman Illinois Commission on Atomic Energy

Gentlemen:
The nation should be most thankful for your willingness to serve and for your effort in addressing one of the U.S.’ most urgent problems.

An email from Tom Blees...

"I submitted a proposal for widespread IFR deployment to the MIT Climate CoLab competition, and it passed the first hurdle and is being considered in what I suppose could be called the semi-finals, or maybe the finals. There are a number of categories and only one actual prize,

The Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT has developed a competition whose goal is “to harness the collective intelligence of thousands of people from all around the world to address global climate change.”

Tom Blees, the president of the Science Council for Global Initiatives, has submitted a

Want to know more about the Integral Fast Reactor technology from the comfort of your lounge room chair? Then these two fascinating videos, recently transcoded and uploaded by Steve Kirsch to the “ifr.blp.tv” website, are for you. You can watch online, or download in .MP4 format (choose the format and

Posted in The Guardian by George Monbiot, Thursday 2 February 2012 07.58 EST

Opponents of nuclear power who shout down suggestions of how to use spent waste as fuel will not make the problem disappear.

A mixed oxide (Mox) plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, which opened in 2011. Photograph: PA

Duncan Clark's

There are reactors which can convert radioactive waste to energy. Greens should look to science, rather than superstition.

George Monbiot

guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 December 2011

It's a devastating admission to have to make, especially during the climate talks in Durban. But there would be no point in writing this

"Integral Fast Reactors CAN WILL Power the Planet"

We won...

1. Relatively Low Costs

The initial construction costs of nuclear power plants are large. On top of this, when the power plants first have been built, we are left with the costs to enrich and process the nuclear fuel (e.g. uranium), control and get rid of nuclear waste, as well as the maintenance of the plant.

Someone on my website, Brave New Climate, recently said this to me:

“I’m a little uncomfortable with the impression I often get from reading this site- that nuclear power is the only viable FF alternative and that it should be pursued vigorously and as soon as possible, to the exclusion of all other

Someone on my website, Brave New Climate, recently said this to me:

“I’m a little uncomfortable with the impression I often get from reading this site- that nuclear power is the only viable FF alternative and that it should be pursued vigorously and as soon as possible, to the exclusion of all other

November 18, 2009

by Andrew Klein

Download the full report.

 The international scientific consensus is clear: The Earth is warming, and humanity’s reliance on carbon-based

By Seong Won Park | 26 October 2009

The Case for Near-term Commercial Demonstration of the Integral Fast Reactor

I’m currently in Dubai at the 2012 World Energy Forum, as part of a delegation from the Science Council for Global Initiatives. Tomorrow (24 Oct) we will run