Sentaku Magazine — Russia Unrivaled in Nuclear Power Plant Exports, Crushes Market

Russia looks set to dominate the business of exporting nuclear power plants worldwide, as its share of the market has now reached 60 percent after concluding contracts with countries like India, Turkey, Egypt and Hungary for the construction of new plants and technical cooperation.

Gas station no longer.

Russia Insider
Russia Unrivaled in Nuclear Power Plant Exports, Crushes Market
Sentaku Magazine

Max Fisher — The real reasons Iran is so committed to its nuclear program

Getting beyond the media hype.

Vox
The real reasons Iran is so committed to its nuclear program
Max Fisher

RT — Russia develops hybrid fusion-fission reactor, offers China role

A hybrid nuclear reactor is a sort of stepping stone to building a true nuclear fusion reactor. It uses a fusion reaction as a source of neutrons to initiate a fission reaction in a ‘blanket’ of traditional nuclear fuel.

The approach has a number of potential benefits in terms of safety, non-proliferation and cost of generated energy, and Russia is developing such a hybrid reactor, according to Mikhail Kovalchuk, director of the Kurchatov Research Center.

“Today we have started the realization of a distinctively new project. We are trying to combine a schematically operational nuclear plant reactor with a ‘tokamak’ to create a hybrid reactor,” he told RIA Novosti, referring to a type of fusion reactor design.

“This project is open for our colleagues, the Chinese in the first place. It's being discussed,” he added.

RT

Russia develops hybrid fusion-fission reactor, offers China role

Sebastian Anthony — Thorium nuclear reactor trial begins, could provide cleaner, safer, almost-waste-free energy

Good news on the tech and energy front.

Extreme Tech
Thorium nuclear reactor trial begins, could provide cleaner, safer, almost-waste-free energy
Sebastian Anthony

See also Sebastian Anthony, Corning Willow Glass used to make flexible solar power roofing shingles, could lower the cost of solar power significantly

Gail Tverberg — Our Energy Predicament in Charts

In order for a new alternative fuel to truly fix our current predicament, it would need the following characteristics:

1. Abundant – Available in huge quantities, to meet society’s ever-growing needs.
2. Direct match for current oil or electricity – Needed to avoid the huge cost of building new infrastructure. Electricity needs to be non-intermittent, to avoid the cost of mitigating intermittency. We also need an oil substitute. This oil substitute theoretically might be generated using electricity to combine carbon dioxide and water to create a liquid fuel. Such substitution would require time and investment, however.
3. Non-polluting – No carbon dioxide or air and water pollution.
4. Inexpensive – Ideally no more than $20 or $30 barrel for oil equivalent; 4 cents/kWh electricity. Figure 15 shows wage growth has historically occurred primarily below when oil was below $30 barrel.
5. Big energy gain in the process, since it is additional energy that society really needs – This generally goes with low price.
6. Uses resources very sparingly, since these are depleting.
7. Available now or very soon
8. Self-financing – Ideally through boot-strapping–that is, generating its own cash flow for future investment because of very favorable economics.

Our Finite World
Our Energy Predicament in Charts
Gail Tverberg

Warren Mosler — yen tailspin?

With Fukushima down, Japan needs to import more oil, putting pressure on the yen.

The Center of the Universe
yen tailspin?
Warren Mosler

WashingtonsBlog — Earthquake-Causing Fracking to Be Allowed within 500 FEET of Nuclear Plants

Yikes!

WashingtonsBlog
Earthquake-Causing Fracking to Be Allowed within 500 FEET of Nuclear Plants

First study showing Northern Hemisphere enveloped by Fukushima radiation

AbstractMassive amounts of anthropogenic radionuclides were released from the nuclear reactors located in Fukushima (northeastern Japan) between 12 and 16 March 2011 following the earthquake and tsunami. Ground level air radioactivity was monitored around the globe immediately after the Fukushima accident. This global effort provided a unique opportunity to trace the surface air mass movement at different sites in the Northern Hemisphere. Based on surface air radioactivity measurements around the globe and the air mass backward trajectory analysis of the Fukushima radioactive plume at various places in the Northern Hemisphere by employing the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model, we show for the first time, that the uninterrupted complete revolution of the mid-latitude Surface Westerlies took place in less than 21 days, with an average zonal velocity of >60 km/h. The position and circulation time scale of Surface Westerlies are of wide interest to a large number of global researchers including meteorologists, atmospheric researchers and global climate modellers.
© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Science of the Total Environment 438 (2012) 80–85
Tracking the complete revolution of surface westerlies over Northern Hemisphere using radionuclides emitted from Fukushima
M.A. Hernández-Ceballosa, Department of Applied Physics, University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain, G.H. Hong, Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute, Ansan 426–744, South Korea , R.L. Lozano a , Y.I. Kim Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute, Uljin 767–813, South Korea, H.M. Lee, Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute, Ansan 426–744 , S.H. Kim Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute, Ansan 426–744 , S.-W. Yeh, Department of Environmental Marine Science, Hanyang University, Ansan, 426–791, South Korea , J.P. Bolívar, Department of Applied Physics, University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain, ⁎, M. Baskaran, Department of Geology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA a Department of Applied Physics, University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain
(H/t Peak Oil)

John C.K. Daly — The Drought Could Plunge The US Into Darkness

"It's the water,stupid." Used for cooling power plants, that is.

Business Insider
The Drought Could Plunge The US Into Darkness
John C.K. Daly | OilPrice.com
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)

The Worst Is Yet To Come? Why Nuclear Experts Are Calling Fukushima A Ticking Time Bomb

Experts say acknowledging the threat would call into question the safety of dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants in the U.S.

Read it at AlterNet
The Worst Is Yet To Come? Why Nuclear Experts Are Calling Fukushima A Ticking Time Bomb
by Brad Jacobson

Nuclear scientist — Rossi energy catalyst – a big hoax or new physics?

This is a post dated 4 April 2011.

As a professor in physics I have been asked to comment on what “Ny Teknik” (a weekly newspaper on technology in Sweden) called “Rossi’s energy catalyst” and it will be a pleasure to do so because I will have to revisit my skills from the time when I was doing research on various nuclear reactions. It will be a fairly detailed review.

Read the rest at Alecklett's Energy Mix: Global Energy Systems, Peak Oil, Etc.

Rossi energy catalyst – a big hoax or new physics?

by Alecklett

(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)

Summary: He's open to the possibility, but doesn't see how it is possible under current knowledge of nuclear physics.

Wired — What to make of Andrea Rossi's apparent cold fusion success

Read it at Wired
What to make of Andrea Rossi's apparent cold fusion success
By David Hambling
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)

Wired sees growing credibility.

One step closer to controlling nuclear fusion


Using a heating system, physicists have succeeded for the first time in preventing the development of instabilities in an efficient alternative way relevant to a future nuclear fusion reactor. It’s an important step forward in the effort to build the future ITER reactor.

Scientists have achieved a milestone: they have managed to stop the growth of instabilities inside a nuclear fusion reactor. How? Here’s a look at this energy source, which despite being challenging to control, is nevertheless extremely promising.

Read the rest at Peak Oil — Exploring Hydrocarbon Depletion
One step closer to controlling nuclear fusion

Bad News for Nuclear Power

Radioactive Dust From Japan Hit North America Days After Disaster ... But Governments "Lied" About Meltdowns and Radiation

Well-known physicist Michio Kaku just confirmed all of the above in a CNN interview:

In the last two weeks, everything we knew about that accident has been turned upside down. We were told three partial melt downs, don’t worry about it. Now we know it was 100 percent core melt in all three reactors. Radiation minimal that was released. Now we know it was comparable to radiation at Chernobyl.

***

We knew it was much more severe than they were saying, because radiation was coming out left and right. So in other words, they lied to us.

***

In New York City, you can actually see it in the milk. You can actually see it has iodine, 131, actually spiked a little bit in our milk in New York City, but it is very small.

Rachel Maddow: Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station Flooding

(MSNBC video)

See also Nebraska Nuclear Meltdown? Coverage of Fort Calhoun and Cooper Nuke Power Plant Flooding on the Missouri River for updates from various local sources.

UPDATE: Parts of Nebraska Nuclear Plant Already Under 2 Feet of Water ... But - So Far - Emergency Flood Walls Are Protecting Electrical Equipment

Meanwhile, Germany has announced intentions to phase out nuclear power over 11 years.

Germany Nuclear Power Plants To Be Entirely Shut Down By 2022

Almost three-quarters of Japanese favor nuclear phase-out.

74 pct of Japanese favour nuclear power phase-out -survey

MMT holds that the only actual economic constraint is real resource availability. Nuclear energy has been expected to be a principle contributor to future energy resources with the projected phase-out of carbon-based fuels.