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German power giant E.ON on Wednesday said it booked a €7.0 billion ($7.7-billion) net loss in 2015 and warned that “the course ahead will be tougher and longer than anticipated”. […] German power utilities have complained that the country’s transition from conventional carbon fuels to greener, cleaner sources of energy is squeezing their margins. The cost of having to close down their nuclear power plants and the heavy subsidies afforded to renewable energy have pushed them deeply into the red, the companies argue. The glut of government-subsidized solar, wind and other renewable power has led to a collapse in wholesale...

There's a compelling argument that the world ought to be building many more nuclear power plants. We'll need vast amounts of carbon-free energy to stave off global warming. It's not at all clear that renewables can do the job alone. And nuclear is a proven technology, already providing 11 percent of electricity globally. So what's the catch? Cost. More than safety or waste issues, cost is nuclear's Achilles' heel. Modern-day reactors have become jarringly expensive to build, going for $5 billion to $10 billion a pop. Worse, the price tag seems to be rising in many places. Back in the...

In what would be a milestone for advanced nuclear power, China's Nuclear Engineering Construction Corporation plans to start up a high-temperature, gas-cooled pebble-bed nuclear plant next year in Shandong province, south of Beijing. The twin 105-megawatt reactors--so-called Generation IV reactors that would be immune to meltdown--would be the first of their type built at commercial scale in the world. Construction of the plant is nearly complete, and the next 18 months will be spent installing the reactor components, running tests, and loading the fuel before the reactors go critical in November 2017, said Zhang Zuoyi, director of the Institute of...

In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant - a by-product from burning coal for electricity - carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.

This seems to be the law of unintended consequences coming home to roost in Wisconsin for both the EPA and the environmental lobby in the Badger State and it’s hard to suppress a bit of a smile over it. New EPA regulations and the relentless attacks on the coal industry have led to the state needing to make some adjustments in how they produce their power. That probably sounded like a big win for the Green lobby until legislators took a look at their available options and determined that they might have no choice but to put in some more...

      Aktuell   China's participation in atomic smuggling Fissionable material for the coalition by  Matthias Gebauer The new dislosures about China's role in the sale of nuclear know-how has the discussions over the export of the Hanau fuel element plant boiling up again. Some Greens are threatening openly with the end of the coalition if Chancellor Schröder allows the deal to go through. MARCO-URBAN.DE Governing-Team Schröder/Fischer: Looking for a solution without losing face. Berlin - Green party leader Angelika Beer didn't want to say much about the Hanau topic during her press conference on Monday. "There isn't any new position",...

Why the U.S. should invest a lot more in nuclear research   REUTERS June 18, 2015   For the past several years, nuclear power has been a focus of sharp disagreement in the debate over climate change. Traditional environmentalists tend to oppose it, while climate trolls argue it is the savior of mankind, only stopped by green ignorance. For all the hyperbole, both sides make some good points. Nuclear power is not as dangerous as it is often portrayed, at least compared to coal, while the trolls fail to acknowledge the major problem with traditional nuclear power: its stupendous...

Rosetta's lander lasted just 60 hours on a comet after it bounced into the dark shadows of a cliff, where its solar panels couldn't power the vehicle. Why didn't it carry a more reliable power source, say a nuclear battery like one that's unfailingly fueled Voyager for decades? It's a simple question with a fascinating answer, one that begins with the Cold War and ends with the future space exploration. When it comes to space travel, plutonium-238 is the perfect fuel: long-lasting and, as I'll explain later, relatively safe. Without it, we have no hope of going much further than...

US Nuclear Corp. (OTCBB: UCLE) has announced that it has shipped over $493,000 in advanced tritium monitor equipment to a leading edge Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) under development in Shanghai, China through its Overhoff Technology division today. Robert I. Goldstein, President, CEO and Chairman, stated, "This order was one of our most complex tritium monitoring systems designed and built by our Overhoff team. It also represents the largest sized shipment to any of our MSR clients in China during the second quarter and allows us to grow our footprint in the country. We are pleased they chose our Overhoff equipment...

Bill Clinton back at centre of ethics debateBy Alex Spillius Last Updated: 3:02am GMT 01/02/2008 Bill Clinton used his influence with the president of Kazakhstan to help a business friend gain a lucrative uranium mining deal, it has been claimed. Bill Clinton: influence The report in the New York Times will raise concerns about possible conflicts of interest that the former president could face if he returns to the White House as "first gentleman" and raised the spectre of the financial scandals that dogged the Clintons in the White House. Mr Clinton has already began cutting his links to Ron...

President Obama spoke to French President Francois Hollande on Friday to discuss the nuclear talks with Iran, which have reportedly hit a snag over the question of easing sanctions. The two leaders discussed the nuclear negotiations, as well as the conflict in Ukraine, according to the White House. “The presidents reaffirmed their commitment to achieving a long term comprehensive deal that fully and verifiably addresses the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, while noting that Iran must take steps to resolve several remaining issues,” the White House said in a statement. A round of talks in Switzerland concluded Friday...

Legislation requiring congressional review of any Iran nuclear deal will get the 67 Senate votes needed to overcome a presidential veto, Sen. Bob Corker predicted Friday. The Tennessee Republican said despite “drama” around the issue in recent weeks, he believes his legislation will be successful. “I believe ultimately we will have a veto-proof majority to make that happen,” Corker said during a speech at the Republican National Lawyers Association’s 2015 National Policy Conference. The Foreign Relations Committee is expected to mark up Corker's bill next month, after a deadline for negotiators to reach a framework for a final deal. The...

Is solar the next shale?     Just as shale extraction reconfigured oil and gas, no other technology is closer to transforming power markets than distributed and utility scale solar.Since the late 2000s, a widespread collapse in the price of solar modules has altered the economics of solar energy, putting it in a strong position to compete with other forms of power in the United States.With module costs at historic lows, increased efficiency has become the next frontier. Consequently, while higher efficiency solar technology may command a greater module price, capacity gains per square meter can make them more economic...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Vermont just replaced its only only nuclear reactor (which had accounted for 71.8% of the state’s electricity production) with fossil fuels obtained from fracking For the past 42 years, Vermont’s only nuclear power plant was responsible for 71.8% of the state’s electricity production. This huge amount of electricity was generated by a single nuclear reactor.Vermont has just shut down this reactor.The replacement energy source for this shut down reactor is shale gas, a fossil fuel whose combustion causes global warming, and which is obtained from fracking.And all this time, I had thought that liberals in Vermont...

Ray Bradbury lived in his 1937 Cheviot Hills home for more than 50 years. After the author of "Fahrenheit 451" died in 2012, the house was readied for sale ... The home, which was purchased in June for $1.765 million, is being demolished. A permit for demolition was issued Dec. 30, Curbed LA reports, and a fan who visited the house over the weekend found it in the process of being torn down ...

Nuclear Waste: While Keystone XL remains a focus, the long-stalled repository for spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, Nev., deemed safe in a recent report, is also good for the environment and for our energy future. The ghosts of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima continue to haunt and hinder the nuclear energy industry. Yet a report released Oct. 16 may revive both the spent fuel repository and the nuclear energy industry with it. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) report, mostly finished in 2010 but delayed by Yucca Mountain foes such as the Obama administration and soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader...

An investigation has been launched after France's state-owned EDF power company said unidentified drones had flown over seven of its nuclear plants. The first unmanned aircraft was spotted on 5 October and there had been further sightings up to 20 October, EDF said. Who is behind the drones is unclear but pressure group Greenpeace has denied any involvement. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says measures are being taken to "neutralise" the drones. Under French law, no aircraft is allowed to enter a 5km-wide (three-mile) zone around a nuclear plant, nor fly below 1,000m (3,300ft) there. The air force is responsible for...

In case you were too consumed with Ebola news yesterday to notice this, here’s a belated FYI that America’s going to put the Middle East’s oil barons out of business before your grandkids are out of college. Assuming the Ebola doesn’t get us first, I mean. Lockheed has a webpage dedicated to its new breakthrough in compact fusion reactors but this write-up in Aviation Week is the most thorough explanation I’ve seen of how it would actually work. If I understand it correctly, which I probably don’t, the problem with current fusion reactors is that they’re too darned big and...

Lockheed Martin, the aerospace and defense conglomerate based in Bethesda, Md., is claiming to have made a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion, which could lead to development of reactors small enough to fit on the back of a truck within a decade. In the simplest terms, nuclear fission breaks a single atom into two whereas nuclear fusion combines two atoms into one. Fusion, the holy grail of nuclear power, creates three to four times as much energy as fission. More importantly, fusion’s key advantage over fission is that it does not produce cancer-causing radioactive waste. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Tom McGuire, who heads the...

Russia is currently in the process of expanding and modernizing its navy. This might have something to do with Moscow’s apparent appetite for military conquest — although Russia also has a few nuclear submarines that are dangerously past their prime, considering the fissile materials that are still stored onboard. In 2009, one rusted behemoth was transported to a factory in the far eastern port city of Vladivostok, close to the Korean peninsula, for decommissioning. With the vessel fully out of water, the pictures offer an amazing perspective on how massive and complex even an outdated class of nuclear submarine really...