Nuclear
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It is proven: Tiny bugs can mop up nuclear waste | www.commodityonline.com | 3
Last Updated : 10 September 2011 at 19:00 IST NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Nature has always remained strange… recently researchers from Michigan State University has figured out a species of bug, that can clean up the most harmful waste known to mankind ”Nuclear Waste”. This bug is a tiny micro organism which can generate power while consuming the nuclear waste.
Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants. Nuclear energy, as has become abundantly clear this year, has no future in Germany.
Phase-Out Hurdle: Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
TF1 et France 2 se mouillent pour refroidir les centrales nucléaires - Le fil télévision - Télérama.fr
La catastrophe de Fukushima aura au moins servi à ça : désormais, une totale transparence règne dans l’industrie nucléaire française. Ainsi, la semaine dernière, EDF ouvrait grand les portes de la centrale de Civaux aux journalistes de TF1 et de France 2. Ils ont pu y évaluer en toute liberté les risques que fait courir la sécheresse sur la production d’électricité. « En France, le gouvernement décrète officiellement l’état de crise face à la sécheresse », annonce David Pujadas lundi dernier. « Le gouvernement va surveiller de très près la situation des centrales nucléaires, des centrales qui risquent de manquer d’eau pour refroidir les réacteurs », poursuit Laurence Ferrari le même soir. « La vigilance est renforcée dans les centrales nucléaires car leur fonctionnement et surtout leur refroidissement dépend des cours d’eau voisins », confirme David Pujadas. « Tout est prévu, assure EDF, mais la production d’électricité pourrait s’en ressentir dès cet été », assure Laurence Ferrari.PARIS, June 22 (Reuters) - EDF denied on Wednesday there had been radioactive leaks at any of its French nuclear plants, after market talk of a possible incident hit its share price. France relies on nuclear power for much more of its energy than any other European country, giving it some of the area's lowest power rates. But Japan's Fukushima crisis has raised anxieties about whether French authorities are doing enough to avoid a similar accident. A spokeswoman for the state-controlled electricity company said a minor incident in April inside the No.3 reactor of its Paluel plant had caused an internal breach in waterproofing, but that no external leakage had occurred. "There is no leak," the spokeswoman said, referring to the problem in April.
UPDATE 2-EDF says no leakage at French nuclear plants | Reuters
Fessenheim nuclear closure would hurt French power supply: minister - Electric Power | Platts News Article & Story
London (Platts)--22Nov2011/537 am EST/1037 GMT The closure of France's oldest nuclear power plant at Fessenheim would threaten the country's security of supply, energy minister Eric Besson said late Monday. Speaking after the first winter meeting of the energy ministry's committee to monitor the electricity supply-demand balance, Besson said security of supply in France depended "above all" on the preservation of the country's nuclear base. "In the very short term, measures such as the closure of the Fessenheim plant would be extremely prejudicial to the electric security of our country," Besson said in a statement. Since 1960, Platts Nucleonics Week has been the leading source of global news for the commercial nuclear power business.
Nuclear Nimbyism: Germans Oppose New Plants Next Door - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
Germany famously moved to phase out nuclear energy following the atomic disaster in Japan last spring. Now states in the country are skeptically eyeing plans in neighboring countries, including the Netherlands and Poland, to construct nuclear power plants. They say you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but when it comes to nuclear power plants, German anti-nuclear activists are finding they're too close for comfort. Less than a year after securing the rapid phaseout of nuclear plants in Germany, citizens concerned about nuclear safety are facing the unwholesome prospect of new plants popping up just over the border in neighboring countries. But they aren't letting it happen without a fight. After Poland announced several possible locations for new reactors, including one less than 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the German border, German citizens flooded the Polish government with letters objecting to the plans.
Dream plant: A recent design for a nuclear reactor known as a traveling wave reactor looks similar to some conventional nuclear designs, but the way it operates is very different. Terrapower, a startup funded in part by Nathan Myhrvold and Bill Gates, is moving closer to building a new type of nuclear reactor called a traveling wave reactor that runs on an abundant form of uranium. The company sees it as a possible alternative to fusion reactors, which are also valued for their potential to produce power from a nearly inexhaustible source of fuel. Work on Terrapower's reactor design began in 2006. Since then, the company has changed its original design to make the reactor look more like a conventional one. The changes would make the reactor easier to engineer and build.
Advanced Reactor Gets Closer to Reality - Technology Review
Small Nukes Get Boost - Technology Review
Nuclear Testing: This one-third scale test unit at Oregon State University allows researchers to measure the performance of NuScale’s reactor design. Steam is generated using electricity rather than nuclear reactions. The large engineering and construction firm Fluor has taken a majority stake in NuScale Power, a startup that has been developing small, modular nuclear reactors. The investment effectively rescues NuScale, which had been near financial collapse after its biggest investor was indicted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for violating regulations.
Thorium, the nearly perfect energy source no one has heard of |
But even as they hail President Barack Obama's announcement last month that the government would back $8 billion in loans for new nuclear power plants, some engineers also are urging a new look at an alternative to the uranium fuel those plants will inevitably use.
At the recent ASPO conference in Washington, DC I found myself in a lunchtime conversation discussing the contributions Nuclear and Hydro were making to world energy supply. It’s worth noting that Hydropower did experience an uptick in global use in the past five years.