Zombie Power: Abandoned Nuclear Projects Rise From Their 1970’s Graves
Zombie attack survival kit. Image credit:iPower
Dave Levitan writing for SolveClimate has published an excellent survey of what the future may hold for the ‘More than 60 proposed US nuclear projects, scrapped in the 1970s and early 1980s.’ Some are nothing more than unapproved plans on paper (there was no CAD back then – so hand drawn), others are in various states of completion and “mothballed,” some were started up b…Read the full story on TreeHugger
No More Nucs – ‘Say Hello To My Rewewable Friends’
An image of a windmill is made into a crop formation by Greenpeace and Iowa Farmers Union. Image credit:All American Patriots, by B.G. Johnson
Last year I laid out a case that we have nothing to fear from ‘Clean Coal’ a.k.a “CCS” because as a matter of process economics these are going nowhere fast. No matter how much taxpayer money they throw down the coal hole, financial risks are too high to get big lenders behind full scale development. See <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/04/carbon-captur…Read the full story on TreeHugger
February Eco-Tidbits from Turkey
The Aegean town of Akyaka (left) wants to become an eco-friendly “slow city” while the Munzur Valley (right) in eastern Turkey is threatened by plans to build a dam in the area. Photos via Friends of Akyaka (L) and Arser (R) via Wikimedia Commons.
On the global Environmental Performance Index recently released by the U.S. universities Columbia and Yale, Turkey</a…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Friends of the Earth Launches Spooky Anti-Nuclear Ad Campaign
Prominent environmental organization Friends of the Earth has already made clear its opposition to the Obama Administration’s support for the nuclear industry, which it is calling a <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/loan-guarantees-a-nuclear-bailout.ph…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Vermont Shutters Only Nuclear Plant Due to Radioactive Waste Leakage
Photo via NRC
Just a week ago, Obama announced that the first nuclear reactor to be built in the US in over 30 years was receiving an $8 billion loan guarantee. Today, Vermont has voted to shut down its only nuclear plant because of revelations that it was leaking radioactive tritium into the ground, and that the plant’s operators lied to regulators about its safety. …Read the full story on TreeHugger
There’s a New Drive for Nuclear Power, But It’s Still a Financial Dead End
photo: morisius cosmonaut via flickr.
DC has been just showering love on nuclear power these days, and there’s been some on TreeHugger as well, but as recent articles over at Mother Jones and on <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/05/the-loan-arranger-obama-triples-budget-for-nuke-loan-guarantee-program-but-hasnt-seen-a-single-promising-application-in-two-years/?…Read the full story on TreeHugger
A French Company Tries Nuclear in California
Photo via Flickr
California’s global warming law, AB32, calls for utilities to increase their use of renewable energy to at least 30 percent by 2020, and some say they may not make it. Enter Areva SA, a power developer largely owned by the French government, which has signed an agreement with the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group to build nuclear reactors in California’s Central Valley. Whether they will ever be built is another question all together….Read the full story on TreeHugger
Will The New Decade Bring the US New Nuclear Energy?
Photo via Flickr
The Obama Administration is on the verge of announcing new loan guarantees for the nuclear industry. According to news accounts, the Department of Energy will soon give a loan guarantee to Southern Energy to build 2 new nuclear facilities in Georgia, but they will still need licensing and additional financing. No new nuclear reactor have been built in the US in decades; investors and the public were spooked after the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island….Read the full story on TreeHugger
New Uranium Mill May Be Coming to Colorado
Photo via Flickr
It’s been 25 years since a new uranium mill has been built in the United States, but that may be about to change if the state of Colorado says yes to an application for the Pinon Ridge plant, to be located about 200 miles west of Denver. The plant would process up to 1,000 tons of uranium ore a day….Read the full story on TreeHugger
French Nuclear Energy Policy – A Cake The US May Do Well To Not To Consume Too Much Of
Still life with Brioche. Image credit:Wikipedia, Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin,
Remember the whole “Freedom Fries” thing following France’s refusal to support the US 2003 military incursion into Iraq? My how time flies. US politicians now cite the French energy policy example with excitement; claiming that nation’s high reliance on nuclear power is exemplary. (Inference that support for climate and energy legislation is more likely if nuclear power expansio…Read the full story on TreeHugger