from KCTS9.org
The Hanford nuclear site armed the atomic bomb that helped bring an abrupt end to World War II. But the Cold War turned Hanford into a major source of plutonium and of radioactive waste. A quarter-century after the Cold War’s end, Hanford workers continue to trace their health ills to waste-related exposures at the site.

Credits
Producer/Writer: Ken Christensen
Narrator: Ken Christensen
Editors: Ken Christensen, Amy Mahardy
Photography: Ken Christensen
Graphics: Madeleine Pisaneschi
Additional photography: Prelinger Archives, U.S. Department of Energy
Music: Daniel Pemberton, Chris Zabriskie, Bob Holroyd

An artist’s rendering of the BWRX-300 small modular reactor from GE Hitachi,
which is slated to start operating in Canada in 2028 GE Hitachi

While such reactors were once thought to be a solution to the complexity, security risks, and costs of large-scale reactors, the report asks if continuing to pursue these smaller nuclear power plants is a worthwhile endeavor in terms of meeting the demand for more and more energy around the globe.

The answer to this question is pretty much found in the report’s title: “Small Modular Reactors: Still Too Expensive, Too Slow, and Too Risky.”

If that’s not clear enough though, the report’s executive summary certainly gets to the heart of their findings.

“The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs,” says the report. “But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture – one that looks startlingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb.”

Read more at:  https://newatlas.com/energy/modular-nuclear-reactors/

Video release date: Jan 22, 2021 — Filmmaker: Kyle Hill

At the time, it was the most powerful artificial explosion in human history…but it wasn’t supposed to be. On March 1st, 1954, the United States detonated the country’s first thermonuclear or fusion bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, a small coral reef and 23 islands almost equidistant from Australia, Japan, and Hawaii. In the days and weeks following the blast, the United States would pay out millions of dollars in settlements, thousands of islanders would be evacuated and re-evacuated, and the Japanese public would deem the test “a second Hiroshima,” a comparison no citizen would dare make lightly.

Apr 27, 2024
Sand Batteries: Check out EnergySage! https://www.energysage.com

The future of sustainable energy requires us to be able to store the excess energy we produce. At this time its a daunting process at large scale, that’s where sand batteries come in. While they only store thermal energy, they might just be the solutions for home heating!

Feb 25, 2024
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors are yet another apparently promising ‘silver bullet’ style solution to the Net Zero challenge. All the reliable, safe, baseload power of large centralised nuclear power stations but without the huge cost overspends and crippling project delays. What’s not to like, eh? Great on paper…but do Small Modular Nuclear Reactors pass the ‘sniff test’ in the real world?