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Let’s for a second imagine a world without nuclear energy. That’s a tough one but let’s try. No nuclear bombs, of course, no Chernobyl and Fukushima, no worries about Iran and North Korea. A wonderful world, maybe? Probably not, because without nuclear energy we would have burned millions more tons of coal and billions more barrels of oil. This would have brought about climate change of such proportions that what we have today would have seemed negligible. Nuclear energy and uranium, which feeds it, are controversial enough even without any actual accident happening. Radioactivity is dangerous. Nobody is arguing against...

Sweden said on Friday it would phase out some taxes on nuclear power and build new reactors to replace aging plants and secure energy supplies for decades to come. Nuclear power providers in Sweden have said they would be forced to shut the country's loss-making nuclear reactors unless a tax on nuclear capacity is abolished, risking a spike in electricity prices and energy shortages for industry. "The aim is ... to make sure we can always guarantee electricity at competitive prices, in a stable and sustainable way, both in the short and long term," Energy Minister Ibrahim Baylan told reporters....

Cronyism in Energy Production “Diablo Canyon produces twice as much power as all of California’s solar panels, 24 percent more than all of its wind, and 40 times more than its largest solar farm. Also, Diablo Canyon provides power to 3 million Californians on a patch of land the size of three football fields. Achieving the equivalent from a solar farm would require 145 times more land; from wind, 500 times more.”—Michael Shellenberger, Breakthrough Institute co-founder, and Peter Raven, former Missouri Botanical Gardens head The announcement last week from PG&E that it was closing Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, rudely...

California’s last nuclear power plant will close by 2025 under an accord announced Tuesday, ending three decades of safety debates that helped fuel the national anti-nuclear power movement. The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., and environmental groups announced the agreement on the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which sits along a Pacific Ocean bluff on California’s central coast. Environmentalists had pressed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for years to close Diablo, given its proximity to seismic faults in the earthquake-prone state. …

With prices set to double by 2018, we’ve seen the bottom of the uranium market, and the negative sentiment that has followed this resource around despite strong fundamentals, is starting to change. Billionaire investors sense it, and they’re always the first to anticipate change and take advantage of the rally before it becomes a reality. The turning point is where all the money is made, and there are plenty of indications that the uranium recovery is already underway. It’s been a very tough few years for uranium. But it now looks like we’ve reached the bottom, and the future demand...

A Chinese company has agreed to pay a penalty of $3 million after pleading guilty to the charges of illegally exporting high-performance coating to Pakistan's Chashma nuclear power plant, US federal authorities said. Headquartered in Nanjing, the Chinese firm Huaxing agreed to the maximum criminal fine of  $2 million, $1 million of which will be stayed pending its successful completion of five years of corporate probation. Huaxing was building Chashma II Nuclear Power Plant in Pakistan as part of a nuclear cooperation pact between China and Pakistan. Chashma II is owned by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, which is an...

The United States has begun manufacturing nuclear spacecraft fuel for the first time in a generation, but full production of the stuff is still seven years or so away. In December, officials at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee announced that researchers at the site had generated a 1.8-ounce (50 grams) sample of plutonium-238, the fuel that powers deep-space missions such as NASA's New Horizons Pluto probe and Cassini Saturn orbiter.

In Illinois, Exelon again warned that the long-challenged Clinton and Quad Cities plants would shut down unless the Illinois legislature passed a bill that would provide economic support for the two plants ... Meanwhile in Florida, Florida Power & Light’s (FPL’s) bid to build two more units at its Turkey Point Nuclear Plant south of Miami continues to run into opposition. On April 20, a state court reversed approval for a new transmission line that would carry power from the two reactors. Two days later, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) approved a plan to deal with serious saline...

Three energy giants Tuesday went to Germany’s top court to challenge the decision by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster five years ago. Energy giants E.ON, RWE and Sweden’s Vattenfall want the Constitutional Court to rule that the move was an expropriation of their assets. They hope that would bolster damages claims they have already launched in lower regional courts where they are reportedly demanding at least €15 billion in separate cases. …

The robots sent in to find highly radioactive fuel at Fukushima's nuclear reactors have “died”; a subterranean "ice wall" around the crippled plant meant to stop groundwater from becoming contaminated has yet to be finished. And authorities still don’t know how to dispose of highly radioactive water stored in an ever mounting number of tanks around the site. Five years ago, one of the worst earthquakes in history triggered a 10-meter high tsunami that crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station causing multiple meltdowns. Nearly 19,000 people were killed or left missing and 160,000 lost their homes and livelihoods...

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...