in the news …

Articles from ncg members. For news articles before 2014, see the news archive.

UK’s dream is now its nuclear nightmare

Nobody knows what to do with a vast uranium and plutonium stockpile built up in the UK by reprocessing spent fuel. It is now a nuclear nightmare.

By Paul Brown

Climate News Network, 14th December 2018

100% renewables? No problems

Australian academics Mark Diesendorf and Ben Elliston have challenged the views of fellow Australian academics Brook and Bradshaw and Heard et al., who criticized studies that claim it will be possible to supply 100% of global power (renewable electricity or “RElec”) or even all global energy needs from renewables.

By Prof David Elliott

Physics World, 21st November 2018

IPCC bets on the renewables revolution

In the IPCC’s low-carbon scenarios nuclear accounts for only a small fraction of energy/electricity supply whereas renewables do the heavy lifting.

By Dr Jim Green

The Ecologist, 2nd November 2018

Flexible, safe, affordable — renewables are the future

Given the human and environmental risks associated with rampant climate change, it is more important than ever to communicate facts rather than conjecture.

By Dr Paul Dorfman, Prof Tom Burke and Prof Steve Thomas

Financial Times, 31st October 2018

France is going cool on reactors it sold to UK

Dr Paul Dorfman said the delay underlined French loss of confidence in its EPRs.

“It seems clear that EDF’s EPR is a failed reactor, with a lamentable history of construction faults, unable to be built without huge cost and time overruns even on French soil.”

The Times, 27th October 2018

IPCC’s climate report: the future’s not looking good

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) SR15 special report looks at how to keep global temperature rise to 1.5 °C. Even if that was possible, impacts would be severe, but they’d be much worse at 2 °C.

By Prof David Elliott

Physics World, 17th October 2018