Global warming is shutting down nuclear, not the other way around:
"High river temperatures to limit French nuclear power production"
This is the second summer in a row that French nukes are being taken offline because higher water temperatures make it impossible to cool the reactors and the spent fuel.
U.S. scientists have achieved net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the second time since December, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said on Sunday.
ATLANTA (AP) — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.
And for anyone who still thinks that nuclear power is automatically the best way to a low-carbon future, I encourage you to read the brilliant description of what happens to nuclear waste in Wasteland by Oliver Franklin-Wallis and consider whether it really is worth it.
Also read the rest of the book - it's essential stuff for understanding the modern world.
So I just saw the YouTube video someone posted that showed nuclear reactors starting up, and the first thing I noticed was that they all glowed a very bright, pretty blue. I'm probably an idiot, but I was honestly expecting green, because of many years of dramatized depictions in popular media....
😳The #UK’s most hazardous #nuclear site, Sellafield, has been hacked into by cyber groups closely linked to #Russia and #China, the Guardian can reveal.
The photos of this nuclear-powered cruise ship from the 1960’s are wild—it is like a perfectly preserved time capsule, with atom-themed light fixtures and tableware. A small wooden cube illustrates the amount of uranium fuel needed to circumnavigate the globe over a dozen times.
A new Shelter/National Housing Federation report argues that investing around £12bn on building 90,000 #socialhousing units would see a positive return within 11 years.
Getting people into homes would reduce benefits costs, save the #NHS money & more likely see those in proper homes (back) in #work. It would also, of course, boost employment in construction & associated trades.
The paradox for UK #politics is while a long time horizon is acceptable for #nuclear#energy, for homes, not so much!
Nuclear Power, even SMRs, are about making money, not climate mitigation. That's just the sales pitch. If there isn't profit for investors, the techno-saviors pull out.
As the scale of the environmental and economic damage from #Dnipro dam destruction is not yet fully comprehended, I just wanted to make one note on social perception of risk.
For the last year everyone has been concerned about about the hypothetical threat of #nuclear power plant attacks in Zaporizhzhia NPP. It never happened thanks to mobilization of international community to execute pressure on Russian occupational forces that included numerous visits of IAEA, diplomats from the West and China etc and even installing a permanent IAEA monitoring mission in ZNPP.
At the same time, over one night #Russia has materialized actual threat of scale that may go well beyond any worst case scenario in ZNPP after it was shut down. Warnings about impact of a hydro dam failure were already voiced in 2022 after Russia has planted explosives on the dam in Novaya Khakovka and hinted it will be used as a weapon if necessary. But there were no Chinese diplomats coming to Moscow, no IEA monitoring mission on the dam and media forgot about it the next day.
Why? Because water seems to be a “natural” threat that everyone is familiar with. In case of #Fukushima it was the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that killed over 20’000 people but world’s attention is still focused on the nuclear plant disaster today where zero people were killed. Some environmental organisations intentionally distorted the tragedy by attributing all these deaths to the plant failure!
Is water any safer? Well, it’s not - if you’re killed by water, you’re dead in the same way as if you were hypothetically killed by gamma radiation. 1975 Banqiao dam disaster[^1] in #China killed 26,000 to 240,000 people, and rendered 12’000 km2 unusable for decades due to sediments and pollution. Since then, there’s a few dam failures[^2] globally almost each year - e.g. 2021 Rishiganga dam killed over 60 people. Last dam failures in USA were in 2020. Fujinuma dam failure in Japan in 2011 as result of the same Tōhoku earthquake killed 8 people, which is 8 more than Fukushima NPP disaster!
Yet hydro power is widely considered “clean and safe”, which is pretty much the same cognitive bias as legal qualification of gloves or boots used at a nuclear power plant as “nuclear waste”, while coal ash or natural gas mining tailings are not, even though they have much higher actual content of radioactive elements 🤷♂️ In terms of human deaths per amount of electricity, hydro power is 43x more deadly than nuclear,[^3] which is why it’s important to look at the actual data and science rather than yield to the socially accepted biases, where coal is “dirty but safe” and hydro power is “clean and safe”. You can’t talk over physics, which is why in countries that do this[^4] you can actually see more people being harmed,^5 and the fact they’re harmed by “natural” coal or water doesn’t make a slightest difference to them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on Nov. 2 a law revoking Russia's ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), according to the government's website.
Wondering why so small? Poland seriously considers retrofitting its existing thermal power plants running on coal with small nuclear reactors, thus preserving all the existing generation, heating and distribution infrastructure, minus coal. 30 MW sounds like perfect replacement for the existing coal reactors.
Additionally, a number of chemical plants consider obtaining power and heating (hot steam) from nuclear power, and this design seems to respond to this demand perfectly. It's also very safe.
> The conceptual design of a new Polish high-temperature research reactor, developed by the National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), has been unveiled. Developed with input from Japan, the reactor could be built in Poland at the NCBJ.
> The helium-cooled reactor - measuring 12.3 metres in height and with a diameter of 4.1 metres - will provide 30 MW of thermal power. It will feature a prismatic-type core consisting of hexagonal blocks. Moderated with graphite, the reactor will use TRISO-type fuel with 8-12% enrichment. The primary forced circulation helium cooling circuit will operate at a pressure of 6 MPa. The helium temperature at the reactor outlet will be 750°C, at the inlet 325°C. The reactor will feature passive and active safety systems, with a planned lifetime of 60 years.
Today in Labor History November 13, 1974: Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union activist Karen Silkwood was assassinated during her investigation of a Kerr-McGee nuclear plant in Oklahoma. Her car was run off the road while she attempted to deliver documents to a New York Times reporter.
#Amazon just acquired a data center complex, scalable up to 960 MW, which is colocated with a 2.5 GW #nuclear power station in Pennsylvania. The picture alone paints a picture of where the future of computing is going.
I'll bet this is going to be the site of a major #AI investment. Nothing else requires that much power density.
New #Blog post: Spending an Afternoon in the Sizewell Control Room Simulator
I'm a bit late in writing something, but @popey, @8none1, @sil got to spend an afternoon in the operations training centre at #Sizewell B #nuclear power station
US scientists repeat fusion ignition breakthrough (www.reuters.com)
U.S. scientists have achieved net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the second time since December, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said on Sunday.
The first US nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia (apnews.com)
ATLANTA (AP) — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.
Ukraine and Germany intend to build wind farm around Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (www.pravda.com.ua)
Ukraine and Germany have signed a declaration of intent to build a wind farm around the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP).
Why do we associate nuclear radiation with a green glow?
So I just saw the YouTube video someone posted that showed nuclear reactors starting up, and the first thing I noticed was that they all glowed a very bright, pretty blue. I'm probably an idiot, but I was honestly expecting green, because of many years of dramatized depictions in popular media....
Russia plan to blow up Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been “drafted and approved” (www.newstatesman.com)
Kyrylo Budanov, chief of Ukraine’s military intelligence, warns of a dangerous escalation.
Russian state TV threatens nuclear strike on US (www.newsweek.com)
Regarding the U.S., military pundit Igor Korotchenko told the Russia 1 channel: "we will not wage war with you in Europe."
Putin signs law revoking Russia's ratification of Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (kyivindependent.com)
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on Nov. 2 a law revoking Russia's ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), according to the government's website.
A list of Russian nuclear threats in timeline.