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?

The Pentagon believes using nuclear weapons could “create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability”, according to a new nuclear doctrine adopted by the US joint chiefs of staff last week.

The document, entitled Nuclear Operations, was published on 11 June, and was the first such doctrine paper for 14 years. Arms control experts say it marks a shift in US military thinking towards the idea of fighting and winning a nuclear war – which they believe is a highly dangerous mindset.

“Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability,” the joint chiefs’ document says. “Specifically, the use of a nuclear weapon will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and create conditions that affect how commanders will prevail in conflict.”

At the start of a chapter on nuclear planning and targeting, the document quotes a cold war theorist, Herman Kahn, as saying: “My guess is that nuclear weapons will be used sometime in the next hundred years, but that their use is much more likely to be small and limited than widespread and unconstrained.”

Kahn was a controversial figure. He argued that a nuclear war could be “winnable” and is reported to have provided part of the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr Strangelove.

The Nuclear Operations document was taken down from the Pentagon online site after a week, and is now only available through a restricted access electronic library. But before it was withdrawn it was downloaded by Steven Aftergood, who directs the project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.

Read more…

A town in the middle of Texas is leading the country in the use of renewable energy. Steve Inskeep, co-host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “Up First,” joins CBSN to talk about his visit to the town and how the push for renewable energy has affected the local economy.

9/19/2017 — Bloomberg News — The age of batteries is just getting started. In the latest episode of our animated series, Sooner Than You Think, Bloomberg’s Tom Randall does the math on when solar plus batteries might start wiping fossil fuels off the grid.

[Editor’s note:  I imagine that this same development will be the end of nuclear power as well.]