It is proven: Tiny bugs can mop up nuclear waste. 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”. 08 Sep 2011 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. "Geobacter bacteria are tiny micro-organisms that can play a major role in cleaning up (nuclear fuel) polluted sites around the world," Gemma Reguera, microbiologist, Michigan State University was quoted by The Economic Times. The bacteria have hair like appendages over its body called Nanowires which manage electrical activity during cleaning. "Our findings clearly identify nanowires as being the primary catalyst for uranium reduction," added Reguera.
Phase-Out Hurdle: Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International. Nuclear energy, as has become abundantly clear this year, has no future in Germany. For once the government, the parliament and the public all agree: Atomic reactors in the country will be history a decade from now. Before that can happen, however, the country has to find alternate power sources. In fact, amid concerns that supply shortages this winter could result in temporary blackouts, Germany's Federal Network Agency on Tuesday indicated that one of the seven reactors shut down in the immediate wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan could be restarted this winter to fill the gap.
"The numbers that we currently have indicate that one of these nuclear energy plants will be needed," said agency head Matthias Kurth on Tuesday in Berlin. He said that ongoing analysis has indicated that fossil fuel-powered plants would not prove to be adequate as a backup. Filling the Gap with Coal But it is expensive. Keep track of the news Stay informed with our free news services: How Merkel Decided to End Nuclear Power. TF1 et France 2 se mouillent pour refroidir les centrales nucléaires - Le fil télévision. UPDATE 2-EDF says no leakage at French nuclear plants. Fessenheim nuclear closure would hurt French power supply: minister. 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. Article continues below... The minister's comments come as the political debate over nuclear intensifies. France's Green party Europe Ecologie Les Verts Saturday ratified a pre-election pact with the Socialist party that would implement the closure of 24 of France's 58 nuclear reactors by 2025 if the left wins the presidential elections in spring next year.
Nuclear Power Beats Coal, Gas When Lending Costs Low, IEA Says - A New Molten-Salt Reactor Could Halve the Cost of Nuclear Power. Transatomic Power, an MIT spinoff, is developing a nuclear reactor that it estimates will cut the overall cost of a nuclear power plant in half. It’s an updated molten-salt reactor, a type that’s highly resistant to meltdowns. Molten-salt reactors were demonstrated in the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Lab, where one test reactor ran for six years, but the technology hasn’t been used commercially. The new reactor design, which so far exists only on paper, produces 20 times as much power for its size as Oak Ridge’s technology. That means relatively small, yet powerful, reactors could be built less expensively in factories and shipped by rail instead of being built on site like conventional ones. Transatomic also modified the original molten-salt design to allow it to run on nuclear waste.
Transatomic says it can split the difference, building a 500-megawatt power plant that achieves some of the cost savings associated with the smaller reactor designs. Nuclear renaissance: It ain’t gonna happen anytime soon | FT Ene. Source: CIGI Canada’s Center for International Governance Innovation has come out with a rather pessimistic report on the likelihood of a nuclear renaissance in the near future. (Pessimistic, that is, if you’re a proponent of nuclear energy.)
The authors say that on balance, an increase in the role for nuclear energy to 2030 is unlikely. Meanwhile new reactor additions will likely be offset by the retirement of older plants. Globally, while the gross amount of nuclear-generated electricity may rise, the percentage of electricity contributed by nuclear power is likely to fall as other cheaper, more quickly deployed alternatives come online.
So what are those cheaper, more quickly deployed alternatives? The economics are profoundly unfavourable and are getting worse. For more elucidation: In addition, they make a point that is less often discussed in industry these days: one crisis is all it takes to change everything: Related links: Are the new nuclear power plants safe? Nuclear Nimbyism: Germans Oppose New Plants Next Door - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International.
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. Environmental groups claim that a week ago Wednesday alone, the last day of the comment period, opponents of the plans submitted 50,000 objections.
Poland is not the only source of German concern. The proposed Borssele II plant would be located 180 kilometers from the North Rhine-Westphalia border. Advanced Reactor Gets Closer to Reality 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. The reactor is designed to be safer than conventional nuclear reactors because it doesn’t require electricity to run cooling systems to prevent a meltdown.
Conventional reactors generate heat and electricity as a result of the fission of a rare form of uranium—uranium 235. In the original Terrapower design, the reactor core was filled with a large collection of uranium 238. Small Nukes Get Boost. 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. The deal with Fluor will allow NuScale to continue its efforts to license its power plant design with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with the goal of having the first one up and running by 2020. Fluor’s engineers will help with the certification work, and the company eventually plans to engineer and build NuScale’s power plants.
The investment by Fluor is a vote of confidence in small modular nuclear reactors. Thorium, the nearly perfect energy source no one has heard of | The mighty thorium - Craving reliable energy that doesn't come with a big side order of carbon, the United States is taking a new look at nuclear power. 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.
Thorium, they say, provides all the carbon-free energy of uranium - about 300 times more, actually - with almost none of the guilt. Thorium plants cooled with molten fluoride salt would leave a fraction of the nuclear waste compared to the uranium-fueled, water-cooled plants in use today. In addition, thorium plants can't melt down and don't produce reliable fuel for bombs. "What's not to love?
" And compared to coal? "The amount of thorium it would take to power my whole life is the size of a marble that would fit in my hand," Sorensen said. India is pursuing thorium. Global Hydro and Nuclear Power in Perspective - 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. Nuclear meanwhile, which has seen a slowing rate of consumption since the 1980′s, leveled off and fell during the same period.
While these two energy sources are worth discussing, they pale in comparison to oil and coal use globally, as the second chart shows (click on charts to enlarge). In a post earlier this year, I showed similar graphics as below for global energy use by source for two distinct years: 1998, and 2008. With updated data, it’s worth juxtaposing the latest information (for 2009) with the close-up of Hydro and Nuclear to give a sense of proportion. Receive future articles by this author via email: Follow and be the first to know when they publish. Follow Gregor Macdonald (1,224 followers) New!