The last hope of the nuclear industry for competing with renewables is small modular reactors, but despite political support their future looks bleak, writes Paul Brown. On both sides of the Atlantic billions of dollars are being poured into developing small modular reactors. But it seems increasingly unlikely that they … [Continue Reading]

Science tells us that, to avoid devastating climate change, we must rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero. How fast is possible, asks Mark Diesendorf  of the Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia. He believes the sceptics may be wrong. This article focuses on the … [Continue Reading]

Danger of coastal flooding might make sensible people think twice about building houses in vulnerable places, let alone nuclear power stations Back in 2012 a document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the Environment Agency was warning that 12 out of the UK’s 19 nuclear sites were … [Continue Reading]

If recent trends continue for another two years, the global share of electricity from renewables excluding hydropower will overtake nuclear for the first time. Even 20 years ago, this nuclear decline would have greatly surprised many people – particularly now that reducing carbon emissions is at the top of the … [Continue Reading]

It’s not often that nuclear matters make me laugh out loud. But yesterday provided one such occasion, on reading of the latest announcement from EdF that a new ‘optimised reactor’ would be unveiled in 2020 at roughly half the price (£5.3bn) of the reactors currently under construction at Hinckley Point … [Continue Reading]

The International Energy Agency (IEA) ‘underreports (the) contribution solar and wind by a factor of three’ compared to fossil fuels, according to a recent report. I and others have been pointing this out regularly, but it’s good to see this methodological anomaly (if that’s what it is) exposed and explored … [Continue Reading]

Community power projects in Denmark and Germany have inspired politicians worldwide but have failed to translate to other countries. Sometimes the first step is to let people say no. In June 2008, George Smitherman was sworn in as the energy minister of Ontario in Canada. The province was already low-carbon, … [Continue Reading]

Michael Shellenberger is visiting Australia this week. He has been a prominent environmentalist (of sorts) since he co-authored the 2004 essay, The Death of Environmentalism. These days, as the President of the California-based ‘Environmental Progress’ lobby group, he is stridently pro-nuclear, hostile towards renewable energy and hostile towards the environment … [Continue Reading]

It’s unusual, but things do occasionally change in the UK! We had been quietly awaiting the governments much delayed Carbon Plan, but then came an unexpected shock, a dramatic fall in offshore wind prices emerging from the new round of the Contract for Difference (CfD) auction process. Hornsea Project 1, … [Continue Reading]

The two young co-founders of nuclear engineering start-up Transatomic Power were embarrassedearlier this year when their claims about their molten salt reactor design were debunked, forcing some major retractions. The claims of MIT nuclear engineering graduates Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie were trumpeted in MIT’s Technology Review under the headline, … [Continue Reading]